Does my SMB really need to comply with the European Accessibility Act?

The European Accessibility Act has been in force since 28 June 2025. It applies to a broad set of products (e-readers, computers, payment terminals, self-service kiosks) and a narrower set of services (banking, e-commerce, electronic communications, audiovisual media, e-books, transport). Most SMB website operators have heard there is a microenterprise exemption. Most have a wrong idea of how it works.

The exemption text

Article 4(5) of Directive (EU) 2019/882: “Microenterprises providing services shall be exempt from compliance with the accessibility requirements referred to in paragraph 3 of this Article and any obligations relating to the compliance with those requirements.”

Two important words: microenterprises and providing services. Both qualify the scope. And the Directive defines microenterprise for itself, in Article 3(23) — it does not incorporate Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, which matters, because that Recommendation would drag in linked- and partner-enterprise aggregation and a two-year grace period that the EAA does not have. The Article 3(23) test is an enterprise which:

• employs fewer than 10 persons, and
• has an annual turnover not exceeding €2 million or an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €2 million

Read those conjunctions carefully, because this is where most write-ups go wrong. The headcount limb is mandatory. The financial limb is a disjunction: either measure under the ceiling is enough, and the ceiling is “not exceeding,” so exactly €2M is inside the definition rather than outside it. So:

• A 9-person consultancy with €3M turnover and a €1M balance-sheet total is a microenterprise.
• A 9-person consultancy with €3M turnover and a €4M balance-sheet total is not.
• A 12-person consultancy with €500k revenue is not, whatever its balance sheet says.

What “providing services” excludes

The exemption is for service providers. Manufacturers, importers, and distributors of EAA-covered products are not exempt regardless of size. A 4-person company importing payment terminals into the EU does not get a microenterprise free pass on the accessibility requirements for those terminals.

For most SMB website operators this is academic, they do not import payment hardware. But it does mean that if your site is the storefront through which an EAA-covered product reaches end users, the product’s accessibility obligations travel with it. The service exemption does not cover that.

The e-commerce case, which is where most articles go wrong

E-commerce is a covered service under Article 2(2)(f), defined in Article 3(30) as selling goods or services to consumers online. So Article 4(5) applies to it: a microenterprise running an online shop is exempt from the EAA’s service-side accessibility requirements for that shop. Most write-ups say the opposite, usually by reaching for the products rule and applying it to the storefront. But three things survive the exemption:

• National accessibility law is not displaced — though it reaches far fewer microenterprises than is usually claimed. Germany’s BFSG is the EAA transposition rather than something that pre-dates it, and §3 Abs. 3 BFSG carries the same microenterprise exemption across. France’s private-sector duty is Article 47 of Loi n° 2005-102, which bites only above €250M average turnover; RGAA is the technical reference it points to, not a law. Italy’s Legge Stanca was extended to private firms only above €500M average turnover. Spain’s duty is RD 1112/2018, covering the public sector and services of general economic interest; UNE 139803 is an AENOR standard, not legislation. For an actual microenterprise, none of those four is likely to bite.
• Antidiscrimination law still applies. The UK Equality Act 2010 (post-Brexit but still in force) imposes a reasonable-adjustments duty regardless of microenterprise status. Germany’s AGG, France’s 2005 disability law, similar.
• The product side still applies. Reselling an EAA-covered product means the product obligations follow the chain.

The practical decision tree

1. Is the service you provide even in Article 2(2)? The list is closed: electronic communications, access to audiovisual media services, certain transport elements, consumer banking, e-books, e-commerce. If your service is not on it — a clinic, a law firm, a builder — the EAA does not reach you and the exemption is beside the point.
2. Are you a microenterprise under Article 3(23)? Fewer than 10 persons AND turnover or balance-sheet total not exceeding €2M — either financial measure will do. If no, assume the EAA applies.
3. Do you sell or distribute EAA-covered products? If yes, microenterprise exemption does not cover the product obligations.
4. Does your member state impose a private-sector accessibility duty that actually reaches you? At microenterprise size, usually not. Germany carries the exemption straight across in §3 Abs. 3 BFSG. France’s Article 47 duty starts at €250M average turnover and Italy’s Legge Stanca at €500M. Spain’s RD 1112/2018 covers the public sector and services of general economic interest. Ireland transposed the EAA in 2023 and carried the service exemption with it; its Disability Act 2005 duty runs to public bodies. Check your own transposition rather than assuming in either direction.
5. Do you operate cross-border? Even microenterprise services may be caught by the destination country’s law if you target users there.
6. Are you near the threshold? If you expect to reach 10 persons in the next 12 months, or to pass €2M on turnover and balance-sheet total together, plan as if the EAA applies. The exemption ends the day you cross.

What the exemption does not change

Even when the EAA exemption applies cleanly, three things remain:

• GDPR cookie and tracking obligations are unaffected. GDPR has no microenterprise exemption. A 3-person SMB site that fires a Meta Pixel pre-consent has the same exposure as a 300-person one.
• Accessibility statement obligations under national law may still apply. Germany’s BFSG, for example, requires an accessibility statement from non-microenterprises but encourages it from microenterprises.
• The enforcement surface is national, and it is worth being precise about it rather than alarming. In Germany, §32 BFSG lets a consumer or a recognised association apply to the Land market-surveillance authority to take action; §33 is the separate step that opens once such an application is refused, giving the consumer an administrative remedy and recognised associations a right of action — but §3 Abs. 3 BFSG carries the microenterprise exemption into that route too, so it is not a way around the carve-out. Italy routes complaints through AgID under Legge Stanca, within that law’s own scope. In France the instrument is Article 47 of Loi n° 2005-102 and the administrative sanction attached to it — not any “DDA”; the Disability Discrimination Act is a repealed British statute and has never had anything to do with French law. General antidiscrimination law is a separate track everywhere, and that one has no size threshold at all.

Veracly’s position

We do not ask you for a size band and we do not compute your exemption. Nothing in a scan knows your headcount or your balance-sheet total, and a report that guessed at them would be worth less than this article. The scope question above is a legal one and it stays yours.

What we do is run axe-core against the WCAG 2.2 AA superset — the 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 A and AA rule sets together, so the 2.1 AA bar is cleared along the way — and cite the EAA rule pack whenever an EU or EEA country is in scope, whether or not you believe the exemption covers you. Two reasons that is the right default. National accessibility law and general antidiscrimination law sit outside the carve-out and are not size-gated. And if you expect to cross the threshold, the useful thing to hold on the day you do is a dated run of scans showing the work started before you had to — not a blank page and a deadline. Read the EAA findings with the Article 2(2) and Article 3(23) analysis above in mind; that is your call to make, not ours.

See also: EAA compliance for SMBs: what changed June 2025 · When does a small business lose its compliance carve-outs?