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What the European Accessibility Act means for UK software companies

Legal and compliance, by the Neurodiversity Design Council

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) has applied since 28 June 2025. If you sell products or services it covers to consumers in the European Union, it applies to you. If you're a UK company that doesn't sell into the EU it won't apply directly, though it will almost certainly shape what your customers and competitors expect.

What the EAA requires

Products and services in its scope must meet accessibility requirements, and the harmonised European standard EN 301 549 is the usual way to show that they do. The scope is a defined list rather than everything digital. It includes e-commerce, consumer banking, e-books and e-readers, electronic communications, parts of passenger transport such as booking and ticketing, self-service terminals such as cash machines and ticket machines, and the computers, phones and operating systems people use for these services.

Four points stand out for UK businesses used to UK rules.

• It applies now. New products and services had to comply from 28 June 2025. The transition periods are limited, mainly letting services carry on using products already in use before that date until June 2030 and letting older self-service terminals stay in service for longer.
• Penalties are set country by country. Each member state decides its own penalties, so there's no single EU-wide ceiling.
• Compliance is actively checked. Market surveillance authorities in each member state monitor compliance, so enforcement doesn't wait for someone to complain.
• Where you're based doesn't matter. If you sell an in-scope product or service to consumers in the EU, it has to be accessible whether or not you have a presence in any EU country.

Who is affected in the UK

The Act affects any UK business selling in-scope products or services to consumers in the EU, such as an online shop delivering to EU addresses, a consumer banking or payments app, an e-book platform or a passenger transport booking service. Microenterprises providing services, meaning those with fewer than ten staff and an annual turnover or balance sheet of no more than €2 million, are exempt from the service requirements.

Business-to-business software sits largely outside the Act. EU public sector buyers often ask for EN 301 549 conformance in their procurement anyway, so suppliers selling into the EU public sector usually need to show it.

What this means for neurodiversity

EN 301 549 references WCAG 2.1 AA, with alignment to WCAG 2.2 expected over time, and like WCAG it concentrates on visual, auditory and motor accessibility. Cognitive and neurodivergent accessibility is acknowledged without being covered in testable detail.

That leaves the same gap as UK law, where a product can comply with the EAA and still fail neurodivergent users.

The EAA also requires information to be understandable and instructions to be easy to follow. Those broad requirements leave enforcement bodies plenty of room for interpretation, and a market surveillance authority could reasonably argue that a product with extreme cognitive load or hostile error handling fails the understandable requirement even if it passes WCAG.

How an NDC assessment helps

NDC certification is documented, evidenced proof that an independent body has assessed your product for neurodiversity-inclusive design. You can:

• reference it in your conformity documentation alongside your WCAG evidence
• include it in procurement responses for EU public sector contracts that ask for EN 301 549 conformance
• use it as evidence of proactive reasonable adjustments if a complaint or enforcement action arrives
• publish it in your accessibility statement to show you've gone past the minimum

Organisations that can show they dealt with neurodivergent accessibility before anyone complained are in a much stronger position when enforcement reaches them.

The commercial reality

Accessibility is becoming a condition of entry to markets. The EAA makes non-compliance a barrier to selling to EU consumers, UK companies that don't meet its requirements risk losing that market, and those that go further gain an edge.

For most organisations the choice is about timing, between doing the work now, on their own terms and with time to get it right, or later, under pressure, after a complaint has arrived.