The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) is EU legislation requiring many digital products and services to meet common accessibility requirements. It came into force on 28 June 2025, after a six-year window for member states to write it into national law. It's a directive, not a regulation, so the exact wording, enforcement bodies, and penalties vary by country. There isn't one EAA law to read: there are national laws that share a common minimum.
The Act covers a wide range: consumer hardware, smartphones, TVs, ATMs, e-readers, e-commerce, banking, audiovisual media, e-books, and passenger transport. There's an exemption for microenterprises providing services (though not for those placing products on the market), and transition arrangements for some services already in use before the deadline. Check each member state's implementing legislation for the specifics.
The technical baseline most teams will work to is EN 301 549, the European ICT (information and communications technology) accessibility standard, which references WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) for web content and adds requirements for other technologies. WCAG conformance alone isn't automatically enough for the EAA, but for most websites and apps it's the main thing to get right.
With the European Accessibility Act 2025 deadline making things very real, very fast, Suman Bala shares how she brought a feature-focused team on an accessibility journey — without becoming the resented compliance enforcer.