Website accessibility for small businesses: an EAA and ADA guide

The European Accessibility Act is Directive (EU) 2019/882 (opens in a new tab). Its accessibility requirements apply to certain products and services, including e-commerce services, from 28 June 2025.

Microenterprises that provide services are exempt. The Directive defines a microenterprise as fewer than 10 people and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than EUR 2 million. Check the text of the Directive and your country's law, because the exemption covers service providers and rules differ by member state.

If you sell online to customers in the EU and you are above that size, accessibility is likely to matter to you.

UsableNet's 2025 year-end report (opens in a new tab) counted 5,114 digital accessibility lawsuits, and 64% were against companies with under $25 million in revenue. In other words, smaller businesses are regularly the target.

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not name a single technical standard for websites. In practice, WCAG is the benchmark most people use.

No. A widget added on top of a site does not fix the underlying code. In January 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission ordered accessiBe to pay $1 million over deceptive claims that its AI product could make websites compliant. Read the FTC announcement (opens in a new tab).

Accessibility is best built in: semantic structure, keyboard support, readable colours and clear forms, then tested.

Aim for WCAG 2.2 level AA. The W3C announced that WCAG 2.2 has been approved as ISO/IEC 40500:2025 (opens in a new tab), so it is now an international standard as well as a W3C recommendation.

ZTech builds to WCAG 2.2 AA and our Business 10 website includes a WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility check.

In general terms, the UK Equality Act 2010 requires businesses that provide goods or services to the public to avoid discriminating against disabled people and to make reasonable adjustments. That can include your website. The EAA is EU law, but a UK business that sells to EU customers may still need to consider it.

Ask a solicitor how this applies to your business.

• Use real headings in a logical order, and real buttons and links.
• Make everything usable with a keyboard, with a visible focus outline.
• Give every meaningful image a short text description, and mark decorative images as decorative.
• Check text contrast against the background.
• Label every form field and show clear error messages.
• Do not rely on colour alone to convey meaning.
• Make sure the site works when zoomed to 200% and on a phone.
• Add captions or transcripts for video and audio.
• Avoid motion you cannot pause, and respect reduced-motion settings.
• Test with automated tools, then by hand with a keyboard and a screen reader.
• Publish an accessibility statement and a way to report problems.

Our security and compliance page sets out what we check on every site. You can also add a WCAG 2.2 AA audit and fix report to an existing site, listed on our pricing page, or start with a free website audit.