On June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act starts applying to a range of products and services sold in the EU, and ecommerce is one of them. If you sell to consumers in the EU, you have about eleven weeks to make sure people with disabilities can browse your store, choose products and complete a purchase.
This guide explains what the law covers in plain terms and gives you a practical checklist for a WooCommerce store. It isn’t legal advice. If you’re unsure whether or how the Act applies to your business, check with a lawyer or your national authority.
What the European Accessibility Act is
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is an EU directive, Directive (EU) 2019/882, that sets common accessibility requirements for certain products and services. EU countries have written it into their own national laws, and those laws apply from June 28, 2025.
For online stores, the relevant part is “e-commerce services”: selling products or services to consumers through a website or app. The idea is simple: a person using a screen reader, keyboard-only navigation, screen magnification or other assistive technology should be able to shop with you.
Who is covered
In general, the rules apply to businesses that sell to consumers in the EU. That can include businesses based outside the EU that sell to EU customers. B2B-only stores are generally outside the ecommerce provisions, but mixed stores that also sell to consumers should assume they’re covered.
The microenterprise exemption
The EAA exempts microenterprises that provide services from the service requirements. A microenterprise is defined as a business with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or annual balance sheet total of no more than EUR 2 million.
Two cautions:
- Check how your country’s law implements the definition, and whether it’s measured across related businesses.
- Being exempt doesn’t make an inaccessible store a good idea. Accessibility improvements tend to help all shoppers: clearer forms, better contrast and simpler checkouts benefit everyone.
What standard to aim for
The Act describes requirements in general terms. In practice, the harmonized European standard EN 301 549 is widely used as the technical reference, and for web content it aligns with WCAG 2.1 at Level AA. If your store meets WCAG 2.1 AA, you’re in a strong position.
The accessibility statement
Covered service providers also need to provide information about how their service meets the accessibility requirements. For most stores, that means publishing an accessibility statement: a page explaining your accessibility efforts, any known limitations and how customers can contact you if they run into problems.
What accessibility means on a WooCommerce store
WCAG is long, but most problems on online stores fall into a small number of areas.
Keyboard access
Every action must work without a mouse: opening menus, choosing variations, adding to cart, applying coupons, completing checkout. Common failures:
- Mega menus that only open on hover
- Custom variation swatches that can’t be selected with the keyboard
- Popups that can’t be closed with the Escape key, or that trap focus behind them
- No visible focus outline, so keyboard users can’t see where they are
Images and alt text
Product images need meaningful alt text that describes what matters, like “Blue linen shirt, front view, rolled sleeves.” Decorative images should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them. Our guide to WooCommerce product images covers where to set alt text.
Color and contrast
Text needs enough contrast against its background. Watch for light grey text, prices in pale colors, text over hero images and “sale” badges. And never rely on color alone: an out-of-stock swatch shown only in a lighter shade isn’t enough; it needs a label or icon too.
Forms and checkout
The checkout is where accessibility and revenue meet directly.
- Every field needs a visible label, not just placeholder text
- Error messages must explain what’s wrong and be announced to screen readers
- Required fields should be marked in text, not only with a red asterisk
- Time limits, if any, should be adjustable
The block-based WooCommerce Checkout was built with accessibility in mind, but custom fields and third-party add-ons can introduce issues. Our guide to editing the WooCommerce checkout page is a useful starting point if you’ve customized yours.
Structure and headings
Screen reader users often jump through a page by headings. Each page should have one clear H1 (usually the product name), with logical H2 and H3 headings below it. Themes and page builders sometimes use headings just for styling, which breaks this.
Dynamic content
Sliders that auto-rotate, cart updates that happen without announcement and popups that appear suddenly can all cause problems. Sliders need pause controls. Cart updates should be announced. Popups need proper focus handling and a clear close button.
An 11-week plan
Here’s a realistic schedule for a small store working toward June 28.
| Weeks | Focus | Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Audit | Automated scan of key pages, manual keyboard test, list of issues |
| 3–4 | Theme and structure | Contrast, focus styles, headings, menus, skip link |
| 5–6 | Products | Alt text for images, accessible variation selectors, clear stock labels |
| 7–8 | Cart and checkout | Labels, error messages, custom fields, payment step |
| 9 | Popups and extras | Popups, sliders, chat widgets, cookie banners |
| 10 | Statement and testing | Publish accessibility statement, retest with keyboard and a screen reader |
| 11 | Buffer | Fix what’s left, document known limitations |
A worked example: auditing one product page
Say you sell leather bags and want to test your bestselling product page. Here’s a quick manual audit anyone can do in 30 minutes:
- Unplug the mouse (or just don’t touch it). Press Tab from the top of the page. Can you see where focus is at every step? Can you reach the menu, the color selector, the quantity field and Add to cart?
- Choose a color with the keyboard. If your swatches don’t respond to Enter or Space, that’s a problem to fix.
- Add to cart. Does anything tell you it worked, other than a small icon change in the header?
- Check the images. Use a browser extension or your media library to confirm each product image has descriptive alt text.
- Zoom to 200%. Does the page still work, or do elements overlap?
- Try a screen reader. Windows has Narrator built in, and macOS has VoiceOver. Listen to the product title, price and Add to cart button. Do they make sense out of context?
- Run an automated checker such as a browser accessibility extension, and note the errors.
Write everything down. The same issues usually repeat across all product pages, so fixing the template fixes them everywhere.
Tools that help
- Automated checkers: Browser extensions like WAVE or axe DevTools, and the accessibility audit in Chrome’s Lighthouse, catch many common issues. They can’t catch everything, so always combine them with manual testing.
- Screen readers: NVDA (free, Windows), Narrator (Windows) and VoiceOver (macOS and iOS).
- Contrast checkers: Many free online tools let you test text and background color pairs.
- Accessibility-ready themes: The WordPress.org theme directory has an “Accessibility Ready” tag for themes that passed specific checks.
A word on accessibility overlays: some services promise instant compliance by adding a script to your site. An overlay can’t fix problems in your theme’s code, like missing labels or broken keyboard navigation, and many accessibility experts advise against relying on them. Fix the underlying issues instead.
Your theme matters most
Most accessibility problems on a store come from the theme and a few plugins, not from your content. If your theme has poor contrast, no focus styles and an inaccessible menu, you’ll be fighting it on every page. If you’re planning a redesign anyway, choosing a theme built with accessibility in mind is the single biggest step you can take. iConvert Themes are designed for ecommerce with clean, standards-based markup, and whichever theme you use, test it with the keyboard checks above before committing.
Also check your marketing tools. Popups, notice bars and chat widgets need keyboard access, a visible close button and correct focus handling. If a tool you use can’t do that, replace it.
Start with your checkout
The European Accessibility Act turns accessibility from a nice-to-have into a legal requirement for many online stores selling in the EU. The deadline is close, but the work is manageable if you start with the pages that matter most: product pages, cart and checkout. Audit this week, fix the theme-level issues first, publish an accessibility statement and keep testing after June. The result is a store that’s easier for every customer to use.
If a new theme is part of your plan, the iConvert Themes templates are a good place to start your shortlist.
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