EU Accessibility Act: why digital accessibility is now essential

The EU Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882) is no longer optional. Starting June 28, 2025, all digital services in the EU must be accessible to people with disabilities. This is not just a legal obligation - it's also an enormous opportunity to expand your audience and improve your services for everyone.

What is the EU Accessibility Act?

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is European legislation that ensures products and services are accessible to people with disabilities. For websites and applications, this means full compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 level AA.

Who must comply with the law?

The EU Accessibility Act applies to a wide range of digital services and products:

Why is digital accessibility important?

Accessibility goes beyond compliance. It improves the user experience for everyone:

• Elderly people can use your services better
• People with temporary disabilities (broken arm, eye surgery) benefit
• Better SEO rankings - search engines value accessible websites
• Higher conversion rate - accessible sites are easier to use
• Fewer legal risks and better brand perception
• Larger market reach - 15% extra potential customers

WCAG 2.1 Level AA: the technical standard

The EU requires compliance with WCAG 2.1 level AA via the European standard EN 301 549 v3.2.1. This standard includes four core principles:

How SEMSIT achieved full compliance

At SEMSIT, we have fully adapted our own website to the EU Accessibility Act. This process included more than 83 pages and components. Here's how we approached it:

1. Complete accessibility infrastructure

We laid a solid foundation with reusable components and utilities:

2. ESLint automation

We configured 14 strict ESLint jsx-a11y rules that automatically detect accessibility violations during development. The build fails if there are issues - enforcing compliance.

3. Made all components accessible

• Headers with full keyboard navigation and aria-expanded attributes
• Forms with aria-required, aria-invalid and aria-describedby
• Modals with focus trapping, Escape key handlers and aria-modal
• Accordions with correct ARIA roles and aria-controls
• Buttons with aria-labels and keyboard event handlers
• Clickable cards with role="button" and tabIndex support

4. Optimized every page

All 83+ pages have been systematically adapted with:

Practical accessibility checklist

Want to make your website accessible? Use this checklist to get started:

Tools for accessibility testing

The business case for accessibility

Accessibility is not just compliance - it's an investment that pays off:

• Better SEO: Google rewards accessible websites with higher rankings
• Larger audience: Reach 15% extra potential customers
• Lower bounce rate: Accessible sites are more user-friendly for everyone
• Brand reputation: Shows social responsibility
• Legal protection: Avoid fines and lawsuits
• Future-proof: Ready for new legislation and technologies

Legal consequences of non-compliance

The EU Accessibility Act is binding legislation. Non-compliance can lead to:

Implementation timeline

This is how long it typically takes to make a website fully accessible:

For SEMSIT's own website (83+ pages), the complete implementation took approximately 6 weeks from planning to production.

Steps to compliance

Follow this roadmap to make your website accessible:

• 1. Audit: conduct an accessibility audit with automated tools
• 2. Prioritize: identify critical issues that need immediate fixing
• 3. Infrastructure: implement basic accessibility components and hooks
• 4. Components: create reusable accessible components (buttons, forms, modals)
• 5. Pages: fix heading hierarchy, alt text and ARIA labels on all pages
• 6. Testing: test with real screen readers and keyboard navigation
• 7. Training: train your team in accessibility best practices
• 8. Monitoring: set up continuous testing with ESLint and CI/CD checks
• 9. Documentation: publish an accessibility statement at /accessibility
• 10. Maintain: keep testing accessibility with new features

SEMSIT's accessibility statement

As part of our compliance, we published a comprehensive accessibility statement. This includes:

You can view our full accessibility statement at: https://semsit.nl/accessibility

Quick win: basic accessibility fixes

Want to start quickly? Begin with these high-impact, low-effort improvements:

Conclusion: accessibility is essential

The EU Accessibility Act is more than legislation - it's an opportunity to improve your digital services for everyone. At SEMSIT, we've proven that full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance is achievable, even for complex websites with dozens of pages.

By starting early, working systematically, and using the right tools, you can not only make your website compliant but also better, faster, and more user-friendly for all visitors.

“Accessibility is no longer optional - it's a fundamental part of modern web development. Companies that ignore this not only run legal risks but also miss an enormous opportunity to expand their audience.”