With the German implementation of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) — the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) and its accompanying Executive Order (BFSGV) — set to take effect, increased accessibility in the private sector and new compliance challenges for businesses are expected. Given the fast-approaching deadline, affected services should initiate the necessary steps in order to ensure compliance by June 28, 2025.

Scope & Requirements: What is covered by the BFSG and what are the specific accessibility requirements?

In line with the EAA, the BFSG creates general requirements for certain consumer products and services as well as specific requirements for particular types of products and services introduced to the market from 28 June 2025 onward. The scope includes consumer products such as payment terminals, smart phones, tablets and e-book readers. Key consumer services involve e-commerce, consumer banking, e-books, and services providing access to audiovisual media—sectors particularly relevant in the digital economy.

The specific accessibility requirements are laid out under the BFSGV. Since the requirements are rather broad, the technical requirements will depend on EU harmonized standards and state-of-the-art technology.

Given its relevance, this article will mainly focus on the following consumer services:

E-Commerce Services?

Scope

The law defines e-commerce services as services provided remotely via websites or mobile applications at a consumer’s request with the aim of concluding a contract. This includes online shops offering direct purchases as well as websites facilitating service bookings for offline services, such as taxi rides or hairdresser appointments.

There remains a legal grey area regarding the scope of the service. For instance, it is not clear whether customer contact forms fall under the relevant definition. The German authority (Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS)) for ones urges to apply a broad(er) interpretation, hence, including any initiation of a contract online. The German Federal Accessibility Office (Bundesfachstelle Barrierefreiheit) on the other side suggests conducting the scoping assessment based on the intended purpose of the specific function. Thus, if e.g. the customer contact form serves only as an initial point of contact, it may be excluded. 

Accessibility Requirements

The key requirements are: 

• Sharing accessibility information about products and services when provided by the responsible business.
• Ensuring that identification, security, and payment features are accessible when offered as a service, making them easy to perceive, use, understand, and reliable.
• Providing accessible identification methods, electronic signatures, and payment services that are clear, usable, and reliable.

Consumer banking services? 

Scope

The law covers consumer banking services, including payment services, credit agreements, certain investments, ancillary services, and e-money, aligning with EU financial directives. It applies to individuals using these services for private purposes, regardless of the size of their assets.

Accessibility Requirements

The requirements consist of: 

• identification methods, electronic signatures, security, and payment services must be offered ensuring they are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust;
• the information must be understandable, without exceeding a level of complexity superior to level B2 (upper intermediate) of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

pre contractual information requirements based on other EU Directives (e.g. the Consumer Rights Directive) are likely to be out of scope.

E-Books? 

Scope

As part of the in-scope service, the law defines “e-book” as a digital form of a printed book designed to be read on devices like computers, tablets, or smartphones. 

Accessibility Requirements

Some of the key requirements in relation to e-books specifically are:

• when an e-book contains audio in addition to text, it must include synchronized text-to-speech technology
• e-book digital files must not prevent assistive technology from operating seamlessly
• the content must be displayed clearly and access to and navigation of the file content must be flexible
• the e-books must be discoverable and information must be provided through metadata about their accessibility features
• digital rights management measures.

Services providing access to audiovisual media services? 

Scope

Specifically for Germany, access to audiovisual media services is regulated under the State Media Treaty (MStV). The law covers any service that helps users find, select, and view TV programs or similar media. Since the primary goal is to ensure that the access to audiovisual media content is accessible, this shall include any application that enables users to choose or select an audiovisual program. This includes streaming platforms, websites, mobile apps, media players, internet-based TV services, and electronic program guides.

Accessibility Requirements

The respective service must meet the following requirements:

• Electronic program guides must be easy to see, understand, navigate, and use. It should be clearly indicated which programs have accessibility features.
• Subtitles, audio descriptions, spoken subtitles, and sign language interpretation must be provided in a way that they are fully transmitted in high quality, accurately displayed, and synchronized with sound and video. Users should be able to control how these features are displayed and used.

Electronic Communications Services?

Scope

In the BFSG context, telecommunications services are defined as consumer services provided over telecommunications networks and involving at least one human participant. Typical examples are chat functions. However, certain chats are exempt. This concerns chat functions that constitute a minor secondary function inextricably linked to another service. According to the German legislator materials, this involves chats in games.  

Machine-to-machine transmission services that do not involve human interaction are excluded.

Accessibility Requirements

Key requirements are:

• providing real time text in addition to voice communication; 
• providing total conversation where video is provided in addition to voice communication; 
• ensuring that emergency communications using voice, text (including real time text) is synchronised and where video is provided is also synchronised as total conversation and is transmitted by the electronic communications service providers to the most appropriate PSAP.

Exceptions from the accessibility requirements

In line with the EAA, the BFSG includes two exceptions from the requirement to comply with the law: Businesses do not have to be compliant to the extent that

• compliance leads to a fundamental alteration of the basic nature of the product or service, or
• if compliance imposes a disproportionate burden on the business.

In absence of any guidance, a “fundamental alteration” could be assumed if compliance with the accessibility requirements would affect the performance of the product so strongly that the intended purpose of the product can no longer be achieved.

Whether a requirement imposes a disproportionate burden must be assessed on a case-by-case basis using a set list of criteria (Annex 4 BFSG). Simply put, this involves balancing the costs for the business against the benefits for people with disabilities. However, businesses receiving public or private funding to improve accessibility cannot claim a disproportionate burden.

Due to the lack of detailed guidance, the specific requirements and thresholds for this exception are still unclear. Until further guidance from the German regulator, business should conduct a thorough and reasonable assessment, ensuring documentation in case of regulatory scrutiny.

Applicable harmonised standards  

Similar as for the EAA, the BFSG and BFSGV only contain broad accessibility requirements. The technical details will be based upon European technical norms and standards regulatory guidance. According to the law, compliance with a European harmonised standard will likely result in the presumption of conformity with the accessibility requirements. 

While the EU already commissioned the publication of new/updated EU accessibility standards,  the current harmonised standard for digital accessibility, EN 301 549 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v.2.1 (WCAG) is currently of particular relevance and a good basis to start the compliance process. It is currently revised in order to satisfy the new requirements of the BFSG. A first draft is expected to be published this summer. The publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, constituting the harmonised standard, is scheduled for May 2026. Notably, the German Expert Body on Accessibility stated that the updated EN 301 549 will refer to the WCAG v.2.2.

Some PDF -documents are in the scope of the accessibility requirements, e.g. if they are integrated into websites or mobile applications after 28 June 2025. However, there is still no guidance by the regulators which requirements or standards must be satisfied to make PDFs accessible under the BFSG. The standard on accessible PDFs, PDF-UA/ISO 14289 does not qualify as harmonised standard and EN 301 549 does not directly reference PDFs. Hence, there remains some uncertainty here. 

Web-tools, like the BITV – test for websites (https://studio.bitvtest.de/) or the PAC-test for PDFs (https://pac.pdf-accessibility.org/) offer a service to test the accessibility of a website or PDF.

In terms of e-books, while the BFSG does not mandate a specific e-book file format, EPUB3 is currently the leading candidate for compliance until further guidance from the German regulator. That being said, creating accessible e-books in EPUB3 is complex, requiring advanced skills in desktop publishing and the use of various applications that many e-readers still do not fully support.

Enforcement bodies 

The compliance of the BFSG will be monitored by one market surveillance authority competent for all federal states in Germany. Regarding the enforcement of the accessibility of services providing access to audiovisual media services in the MStV, the media authorities of each federal state in Germany are competent. A consumer can complain to the market surveillance authority or media authority which may initiative proceedings. 

Further, consumer protection associations (CPAs), including associations for persons with disabilities and competitors may enforce compliance based on the German Unfair Competition Act. This is because the accessibility obligations under the BFSG may be considered market conduct rules. Such enforcement actions are generally triggered by consumer complaints. 

Risks in the event of non-compliance 

The market surveillance authority can monitor the compliance of the service, including random checks without prior cause. If  a service is deemed non-compliant, a business will be asked to become compliant within a set deadline. If the business does not comply after a second deadline, the market surveillance authority can order measures to stop the non-compliance, including an order to cease providing the service. Finally, they can impose administrative fines up to EUR 100,000 to enforce compliance with the BFSG, if the non-compliance was caused intentionally or negligently. They can inform the public about their monitoring activities. 

The German implementation does not provide for a criminal prosecution. 

In addition, CPAs and associations for persons with disabilities may submit warning letters which can contain cease and-desist claims, and damages claims under the German Unfair Competition Act. These are typically initiated by a request to submit a cease-and-desist declaration  (and penalty in cases of non-compliance). German legal experts also discuss civil law claims for damages by individuals if a product or service is not accessible. Therefore, such product or service may be deemed defective. This appears to be a theoretical discussion, as the product and service may still provide the promised service or function, and consumers may moreover complain to the market surveillance authority or CPAs. 

Why you should act now

Since the bar for compliance is high and the fast-approaching effective date (June 28, 2025), businesses should familiarize with the BFSG and start the compliance assessment. In particular, we recommend to proactively review and, if necessary, adapt consumer-facing services to meet the BFSG’s high standards. Ongoing compliance requires monitoring the latest EU harmonized standards and guidelines, which the German Federal Accessibility Office (Bundesfachstelle für Barrierefreiheit) regularly publishes on its website.