Does the BFSG apply if we only sell to business customers?

Generally not. The act targets services for consumers. As soon as you also sell to private individuals you are covered, and many shops do so in practice without keeping track of it.

We are very small. Are we automatically out?

For services there is a micro-enterprise exemption: fewer than ten employees and at most two million euro annual turnover or balance-sheet total. It does not apply to products. And it only relieves you legally: your customers still hit the barriers.

Is an overlay widget enough?

No. The European Commission has made clear that overlays do not establish legal conformance, and they have themselves been the target of lawsuits. They change nothing about the cause in the source code.

How quickly can this be fixed?

The assessment itself takes days rather than weeks. How long remediation takes depends on what is found: many findings are systematic defects fixed once in a template, after which they disappear everywhere.

The law

Why accessibility is now a duty

Five minutes for the management: does it apply to us, from when, what has to be done, and what happens if it is not.

5 min read

In short

Since 28 June 2025 many digital services for consumers in Germany have to be accessible. The technical yardstick is EN 301 549, which points at WCAG level AA. Micro-enterprises are exempt for services. Enforcement is by market surveillance, actively and on complaint, and the fine framework reaches 100,000 euro.

The German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) transposes the European Accessibility Act. It is not a funding programme and not a recommendation, it is a market-access condition: whoever offers a covered service has to offer it accessibly. Other EU states transpose the same directive through their own laws.

Does it apply to us?

Three questions settle it in most cases:

Is the offering aimed at consumers? Pure B2B is generally not covered.
Is it one of the services the act names? Among them: electronic commerce (online shops), consumer banking, telecommunications, passenger transport, e-books and audiovisual media services.
Are we a micro-enterprise? For services there is an exemption for companies with fewer than ten employees and at most two million euro annual turnover or balance-sheet total.

Since when

The deadlines
Date	What applies
28 June 2025	The BFSG applies. There is no general grace period for websites and apps.
until 27 June 2030	A narrow transitional rule for service contracts concluded before the cut-off date, and for certain self-service terminals.

The guide on deadlines and transitional rules goes into detail.

What is actually required

The act states goals; the harmonised European standard EN 301 549 supplies the technical detail. For web content it points at WCAG, conformance level AA. In practice that means three things:

The service itself has to be operable: with a keyboard, with a screen reader, at high magnification, with sufficient contrast.
There has to be information about its accessibility, usually a statement with a route for feedback.
Both have to be evidenced. An assertion without an assessment does not help in a procedure.

What that looks like concretely

An online shop

Checkout can only be completed with a mouse, because one step never takes keyboard focus (WCAG 2.1.1).
The error in the address form has a red border but is named nowhere in text (WCAG 3.3.1).
The basket reports „added“ visually only, with no announcement for assistive technology (WCAG 4.1.3).

A booking flow

The date picker can be opened with the keyboard but not left again (WCAG 2.1.2).
At 200 percent text size price and date overlap and the price becomes unreadable (WCAG 1.4.4).
Seat selection arrives in the accessibility tree as an unnamed element (WCAG 4.1.2).

A banking portal

The one-time-code entry times out with no way to extend it (WCAG 2.2.1).
Balances are distinguished as debit or credit by colour alone (WCAG 1.4.1).
The identification video has no captions (WCAG 1.2.2).

Who enforces it, and what happens then

Market surveillance is responsible. It acts on its own initiative, often automatically and at scale, and additionally on complaint. The typical sequence does not start with a fine but with a demand to remediate within a deadline. Only when that passes does it get expensive, and then orders are possible that weigh more than money: prohibiting the offering.

Legal bases, each with its citation
What	Source	Country / year
Fine framework up to 100,000 euro for the serious offences, up to 10,000 euro for information and marking duties	§ 37 BFSG	DE
Application from 28 June 2025	BFSG, commencement provision	DE, 2025
Micro-enterprise exemption for services (fewer than 10 employees, at most 2 million euro turnover or balance-sheet total)	§ 3 BFSG	DE
The European basis the BFSG follows from	Directive (EU) 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act)	EU, 2019
Technical yardstick, pointing at WCAG level AA for the web	EN 301 549	EU, harmonised standard
Croatian transposition of the same directive	Zakon o pristupačnosti proizvoda i usluga	HR

What documented cases exist, and what does not

Honesty matters more than urgency here, because unsourced numbers rebound immediately on whoever states them.

As of July 2026 we are not aware of publicly documented individual fines under the BFSG. Anyone quoting you a probability of being fined is computing without a base rate.
The realistic near-term risk is therefore a different one: a complaint, an official demand with a deadline, remediation under time pressure, and the open question whether missing accessibility is additionally actionable under competition law. That question is not settled.
In the United States accessibility has been enforced through civil litigation for years. One well-known case is Robles v. Domino's Pizza: in 2019 the US Supreme Court declined to take the appeal, leaving the appellate ruling that the ADA can apply to a restaurant's website and app. That is a different legal system and not a forecast for Germany, but it shows the question is litigable.

What to do now

Find out where you stand: a measurement is cheaper than any assumption.
Fix blockers in the core journeys first, meaning where buying, signing in and getting in touch happen.
Publish an accessibility statement with a route for feedback. It is verifiable in seconds and therefore the first thing a check looks for.
Hold the state: every release can bring a barrier back.

A first finding comes from the free scan. How your situation looks in two disclosed percentages is what the risk calculator shows.

Frequently asked questions

Does the BFSG apply if we only sell to business customers?: Generally not. The act targets services for consumers. As soon as you also sell to private individuals you are covered, and many shops do so in practice without keeping track of it.
We are very small. Are we automatically out?: For services there is a micro-enterprise exemption: fewer than ten employees and at most two million euro annual turnover or balance-sheet total. It does not apply to products. And it only relieves you legally: your customers still hit the barriers.
Is an overlay widget enough?: No. The European Commission has made clear that overlays do not establish legal conformance, and they have themselves been the target of lawsuits. They change nothing about the cause in the source code.
How quickly can this be fixed?: The assessment itself takes days rather than weeks. How long remediation takes depends on what is found: many findings are systematic defects fixed once in a template, after which they disappear everywhere.

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