In February 2026, WebAIM detected WCAG 2 failures on 95.9% of the top million home pages, up from 94.8% a year earlier. Most will never be audited. But if you sell to consumers in the EU, one short document shapes your first conversation with a regulator: the accessibility information the European Accessibility Act obliges service providers to publish. Most of what is published under the name "EAA accessibility statement" is a public-sector template wearing the wrong label. It answers questions the EAA never asks and skips three it does. This guide is for e-commerce, travel, banking and health teams, in or outside the EU. By the end you can score your statement out of 18 and know which block to write first.
What Annex V actually asks for
The obligation sits in Article 13(2) of Directive (EU) 2019/882: prepare the information set out in Annex V, publish it, keep it available for as long as the service is in operation, and do so in written and oral format, including in a way accessible to persons with disabilities.
Annex V is three points:
- 1(a) a general description of the service in accessible formats;
- 1(b) the descriptions and explanations needed to understand how the service operates;
- 1(c) a description of how the relevant accessibility requirements in Annex I are met;
- 2 harmonised standards cited in the Official Journal may be applied to satisfy point 1;
- 3 the service delivery process and its monitoring must be documented so compliance is maintained.
Read point 2 twice. EN 301 549 V4.1.1 was published on 2 September 2026 and adds six WCAG 2.2 Level A/AA criteria, but it has not been cited in the Official Journal under the EAA, and nor had any earlier version; Deque expects citation around 30 November 2026. Until then there is no presumption of conformity to lean on, so point 1(c) is not a box you tick by naming a standard. You have to describe, in your own words, how the service meets Annex I.
Why the public-sector template is the wrong starting point
The familiar statement — compliance status, list of non-accessible content, feedback mechanism, link to the enforcement procedure — comes from the Web Accessibility Directive (EU) 2016/2102 and its model form in Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523. That regime binds public sector bodies. The EAA binds private service providers and differs in two concrete ways.
Placement. Annex V puts the information in the general terms and conditions "or equivalent document". A standalone accessibility page is a fine second home, but if that is its only home you are relying on the wrong document.
Format. Article 13(2) says written and oral. A narrated audio version is the cheapest way to satisfy this, and almost nobody publishes one.
Score your statement: nine blocks, 0 to 2 each
Score each block 0 (absent), 1 (present but generic or unverifiable) or 2 (specific and checkable by someone outside your company).
| # | Block | Pass test for a 2 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | General description of the service (Annex V 1(a)) | Names the service, the contracting entity and the markets served, in a format that passes your own audit |
| 2 | How the service operates (Annex V 1(b)) | Walks the real journeys — search, product page, cart, checkout, account, returns — not marketing copy |
| 3 | How Annex I requirements are met (Annex V 1(c)) | One line per requirement, referencing the WCAG 2.2 A/AA criteria and EN 301 549 clauses you used |
| 4 | Scope boundary | Lists surfaces in scope (web, iOS, Android, PDFs, embedded third parties) and those excluded, with reasons |
| 5 | Conformance basis and its status | States standard, version, audit date and method, and that no harmonised standard is yet cited under the EAA |
| 6 | Known non-conformities | Each item has a location, the failing criterion, the date found and a target fix date |
| 7 | Disproportionate burden claims | Each claim points to a documented Article 14 assessment with a review date |
| 8 | Accessible support and feedback route | At least one channel that is itself accessible, a named response time, an escalation path |
| 9 | Placement, formats and maintenance | In the terms or equivalent, in written and oral format, dated, with a stated review cycle |
Reading the total. 14 or more out of 18 is defensible under questioning. Between 8 and 13, write blocks 3, 6 and 7 first: those are the three an authority can check against reality. Below 8, rewriting beats patching.
The two files behind the statement
The published text is the visible layer. Two records sit behind it, and both are requestable.
The monitoring record (Annex V point 3): who re-tests, on what cadence, what triggers a re-test — a release, a template change, a new payment provider — and where results are stored. Without it, block 9 cannot score 2.
The disproportionate burden assessment. If you claim it, Article 14 is specific:
- 14(2) assess against the Annex VI criteria: net cost against overall expenditure, cost against the benefit to persons with disabilities, and net cost against net turnover.
- 14(3) document it and keep the results for five years from the last time the service was provided, with a copy to the authority on request.
- 14(5) renew it when the service changes, when asked, and at least every five years.
- 14(6) if you took funding from any source other than your own resources, public or private, to improve accessibility, you cannot rely on disproportionate burden at all. Grant-funded replatforming closes this door.
- 14(8) notify the relevant authority in each Member State where the service is provided. Microenterprises are exempt from this notification.
Microenterprises providing services — fewer than 10 people, and turnover or balance sheet total at or below EUR 2 million — sit outside the EAA's service obligations entirely. Check this before building anything.
If you are outside the EU
The EAA applies to services provided to consumers in the Union, so a Turkish, UK or US e-commerce, travel or banking service selling into the EU is in scope on the same terms as a German one. Two widely circulated claims need correcting.
First, "appoint an EU authorised representative". That machinery sits in the EAA's products chapters and attaches to manufacturers; for services the Directive addresses the provider directly, and Bird & Bird notes that no such differentiation of operator roles is made for service providers. You may still need one under GDPR Article 27, probably where the confusion started, but it is not an EAA services requirement.
Second, the "EAA fines by country" tables. Penalties are left to national law, and the circulating figures are national maxima, not amounts anyone has been fined. The real signal so far is judicial: on 4 June 2026 the Tribunal judiciaire de Caen ordered Carrefour France to make its online commerce services fully accessible within six months, with daily fines, rejecting the argument that meeting 71% of criteria was enough.
Turkish teams have a second, earlier clock. Presidential Circular 2025/10, published in the Official Gazette on 21 June 2025 (No. 32933), requires web sites and mobile applications to meet a Level A checklist referencing WCAG 2.2. Public bodies, universities, municipalities, banks, private hospitals, private schools, transport operators and travel agencies were given one year; e-commerce service providers were given two, landing in June 2027. The conformance work behind that deadline is the same work Annex V asks you to describe.
Where this breaks down
A perfect score does not make your service accessible. It makes your account of your service honest and checkable, which is a different asset. The rubric also stops short in four places. It does not cover products — self-service and payment terminals, e-readers — which carry their own conformity assessment, EU declaration of conformity and CE marking route. It does not cover national transposition detail: Member States differ on language and on which authority supervises which sector, so an 18 still needs a local legal read in your main markets. It does not apply to public sector bodies, which stay under the Web Accessibility Directive. And it cannot rescue stale data: a statement written off a 2024 audit of a since-replatformed site scores well and is still wrong.
FAQ
Does the EAA actually use the term "accessibility statement"?
No. The Directive says "information on services" and places it in Annex V. "Accessibility statement" comes from the Web Accessibility Directive. The naming matters: searching for a template returns the public sector model, which asks for the wrong fields.
Where exactly does the information have to be published?
Annex V point 1 says the general terms and conditions, or an equivalent document. A dedicated accessibility page helps discovery, but the terms are the document the Directive names.
What does "written and oral format" mean in practice?
Article 13(2) requires both. The lightweight implementation is a narrated audio version published alongside the text and kept in sync when the text changes.
Can we just say we conform to EN 301 549 and stop there?
Not for presumption of conformity. No version has been cited in the Official Journal under the EAA, including V4.1.1 published on 2 September 2026. Test against it by all means, but you still have to describe how Annex I requirements are met.
How specific does the list of known non-conformities have to be?
Specific enough to verify: location, failing criterion, date found, target fix date. A vague "some older PDFs may not be fully accessible" scores 1, not 2, because nobody outside your team can act on it.
We are a microenterprise. Do we need any of this?
If you provide services, employ fewer than 10 people, and have annual turnover or a balance sheet total at or below EUR 2 million, the EAA's service obligations do not apply. Confirm both tests against your latest accounts.
How often should the statement be reviewed?
Tie the cycle to your release process, not the calendar: re-test and re-date after any change to checkout, account or payment flows. Disproportionate burden assessments have their own five-year floor under Article 14(5).
Run the audit that fills block 3
Blocks 3, 5 and 6 all depend on one thing you may not have: a current, criterion-level conformance record for your live journeys. Start it with the free scanner at wcag.switas.com, or have us run the audit and build the Annex V file — description, non-conformity register, monitoring record, and the Article 14 assessment where you need one.
Sources
- Directive (EU) 2019/882, European Accessibility Act
- Article 14 full text, Snellman EU Digital Compliance Tracker
- Legalithm, EAA Annex V: written and oral format
- Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523, model accessibility statement
- ETSI EN 301 549 V4.1.1 (2026-09)
- Deque, EN 301 549 v4.1.1 and OJ citation status
- WebAIM Million, February 2026
- Deque, Tribunal judiciaire de Caen ruling, 4 June 2026
- Bird & Bird, European Accessibility Act briefing
- Presidential Circular 2025/10, Official Gazette 21 June 2025 No. 32933
