The European Accessibility Act Is in Force. Most Apps Aren't Ready.

From nice-to-have to enforceable

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) changed the legal ground under digital products: since June 2025, a broad range of consumer-facing software and services sold into the EU (e-commerce, banking, ticketing, communications) must meet accessibility requirements, with member-state authorities empowered to enforce. The UK is not covered by the EAA but runs its own obligations under the Equality Act 2010, so "we only sell to the UK" is not an exemption; it is a second regime.

For teams selling into Europe from anywhere, including North America and India, the practical question changed from "should we invest in accessibility?" to "can we demonstrate it when asked?"

The engineering translation

Legal texts don't name selectors, but in practice European authorities and procurement teams treat WCAG, now at version 2.2, as the technical yardstick. That is good news for engineers: WCAG is testable, and a large share of it is testable automatically.

Our accessibility module scans against WCAG 2.2 A, AA, and AAA, maps findings to 66 country standards, checks real user flows with assistive-technology simulation, and exports the conformance documentation buyers and authorities ask for. Wired into CI, accessibility stops being an annual audit panic and becomes a failing check with a file and line attached.

A pragmatic 30-day plan

• Week 1: scan your highest-traffic public flows (landing, signup, checkout) and triage into quick fixes vs. design work.
• Week 2–3: fix the automated findings. Contrast, labels, focus order and target sizes cover most of the volume.
• Week 4: generate conformance documentation, wire the scan into CI as a non-blocking check, and schedule the expert review for what automation cannot judge.
• Ongoing: treat new-market expansion (EU member states, UK) as a scan profile, not a project.