Austria's Accessibility Act: Does My Website Have to Comply?

Austria’s Accessibility Act: does my website have to comply?

Austria’s Accessibility Act, the Barrierefreiheitsgesetz or BaFG, has applied since 28 June 2025. Two opposite messages have been doing the rounds ever since. One says every business website now has to be accessible or face fines of up to 80,000 euros. The other says small businesses are exempt anyway and can ignore the whole thing. Neither is right as stated.

The short answer: if you have fewer than ten employees and no more than 2 million euros in turnover or balance sheet total, the law asks nothing of your website. Everyone else should read on. This article takes the questions in the order you need to answer them for your own business, with references to the statute. It’s a general guide and doesn’t replace legal advice on your situation.

What the BaFG covers

The BaFG (BGBl. I Nr. 76/2023) is Austria’s implementation of the European Accessibility Act. It covers only the products and services listed in § 2, including banking services, e-books, booking services for passenger transport and, most relevant for typical businesses, e-commerce services. The Sozialministeriumservice, the authority in charge, names web shops explicitly, whether in a browser or as an app.

Websites run by the federal government, the states and municipalities fall under a separate law, the Web Accessibility Act (Web-Zugänglichkeits-Gesetz). This article doesn’t cover them.

Question 1: do consumers conclude a contract through your website?

§ 3 Z 27 BaFG defines e-commerce services as services provided at a distance, electronically and at the individual request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a consumer contract, through websites or mobile apps. That leaves three typical cases.

A web shop where private customers order and pay is clearly covered. A website that presents your business, describes what you do and lists a phone number doesn’t conclude a contract and, going by the wording, isn’t covered. In between sits a grey zone: online appointment booking, binding enquiry forms, gift voucher sales. Here it depends on whether a contract with a consumer is actually formed through the website. If you’re unsure, ask the Sozialministeriumservice, which runs a contact point for businesses.

Purely B2B offers aren’t covered, because the definition hinges on a consumer contract. The government’s business service portal also says the law mainly concerns offers to consumers.

Question 2: are you a microenterprise?

Under § 3 Z 19 BaFG, a microenterprise employs fewer than ten people and has an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than 2 million euros. § 6 Abs. 1 exempts microenterprises that provide services from the service requirements entirely. The social affairs ministry’s FAQ puts it bluntly: a microenterprise that provides services is exempt from the Accessibility Act.

That includes a microenterprise’s web shop. The shop itself is the service, even though goods are sold through it. The relief for products that you may have read about elsewhere concerns the products listed in § 2, such as computers, self-service terminals or e-readers, not the jumper in your online store.

The exemption depends on your size. Once you employ ten or more people, or both your turnover and your balance sheet total exceed 2 million euros, it no longer applies. The ministry has published guidelines for microenterprises (in German).

Question 3: does a transition period apply?

§ 37 BaFG contains transitional rules. Service contracts concluded before 28 June 2025 may run until they expire, but for no more than five years unchanged. Products you already used to provide a service before that date may stay in use for it until 28 June 2030.

That’s no free pass for an existing web shop. New contracts and new offers have to comply now, and when you next relaunch, accessibility should be in the brief.

If you’re covered: what is required

The requirements themselves are in Annex 1 (Anlage 1) of the act. Content has to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, which means it has to work without a mouse, with a screen reader and at high zoom. § 5 links compliance to harmonised standards: if you meet them, conformity is presumed. According to the ministry, the central standard here is EN 301 549, which is currently being revised. For web content it refers to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA, which is why WCAG 2.1 AA is the usual benchmark in practice.

There’s also an information duty that is easy to miss. Under § 14 Abs. 2 and Annex 3, you have to describe in your terms and conditions, or a similar document, how your service meets the requirements, in an accessible format. The common approach is a separate accessibility statement that the terms refer to.

If compliance would be a disproportionate burden, § 18 allows exceptions. They aren’t an easy way out. You have to document the assessment against the criteria in Annex 4, keep it for five years, notify the Sozialministeriumservice and repeat it at least every five years. If you received funding for accessibility, you can’t rely on it at all.

Who enforces it, and what it costs

The Sozialministeriumservice is the market surveillance authority. It can order measures and, as a last resort, prohibit a service. Under § 35, consumers can report possible breaches, as can the Austrian consumer association VKI, the Austrian Disability Council, the Chamber of Labour and the Economic Chamber. The authority has to reply in writing within eight weeks.

The fines are in § 36. Offering a service that doesn’t meet the requirements can cost up to 80,000 euros, capped at 50,000 euros for small and medium-sized businesses. Lower ranges apply to formal breaches such as missing documentation. When setting the amount, the authority considers how many people and offers are affected and whether it is a repeat offence. The money goes to a support fund for people with disabilities.

A half-hour self-check

Whether you’re covered or not, a quick test shows where your website stands. You can find many of the barriers that lock people out without any specialist knowledge.

1. Put the mouse away and tab through your home page, a contact form and, if you have one, the checkout. Can you always see where you’re? Can you get all the way to submit?
2. Zoom your browser to 200 percent. Does everything stay readable without sideways scrolling?
3. Leave a required form field empty and submit. Does the error message say in words what is missing, or does it just turn a field red?
4. Check your images. Does a photo that carries information, such as a menu or a directions map, have a descriptive alt text?
5. Run an automated checker, for example the accessibility audit in Chrome’s Lighthouse or the WAVE browser extension.

Automated tools only catch some of the problems. No software can judge whether an alt text makes sense or an error message is understandable. If you’re covered, it’s worth having a review by someone who does WCAG audits.

It pays off regardless of the law. A form that works with the keyboard and explains its errors also helps a regular who needs reading glasses and books her appointments on her phone.

If you’re planning a new web shop or a relaunch, put WCAG 2.1 AA into the quote as a requirement, even if you’re exempt as a microenterprise today. A checkout that can’t be used with a keyboard can often only be fixed later by rebuilding the order flow. What else we plan for when building shops is on the web shops page.