Since 28 June 2025 the European Accessibility Act (transposed in Spain by Law 11/2023) has been in force, and with it web accessibility stops being good practice and becomes a legal obligation for many private businesses. Until now only the public sector was obliged. Here's who it affects, what it requires and — most useful of all — where an ordinary website tends to fail.
Who it affects
Digital products and services aimed at consumers: e-commerce (any website that sells online), banking services, transport, telecommunications, e-books and communication services. In practice, if your website has a shop, a booking engine or online contracting, you're in. Service microenterprises (fewer than 10 employees and under 2 million in turnover) are exempt, although the exemption doesn't cover products, and purely informational websites aren't obliged. Bear in mind: the exemption doesn't protect you from reputational damage or from losing customers; it just means you won't be fined.
What it requires, in practice
The technical reference is WCAG 2.1 level AA (via the EN 301 549 standard). Translated into what a user sees:
- Perceivable — alternative text on images, sufficient contrast between text and background (4.5:1 for normal text), captions on video, content that can be enlarged to 200% without breaking.
- Operable — the whole website usable with a keyboard, visible focus, no traps (menus or modals you can't get out of), enough time to complete actions, no flashing.
- Understandable — language declared, forms with clear labels and explained errors, consistent navigation.
- Robust — correct, semantic HTML so that screen readers and assistive technologies can interpret it.
On top of that, you have to publish an accessibility statement and offer a channel for reporting problems.
Where an ordinary website fails
We audit websites often and the failures are almost always the same: images with no alt text (or alt text like "IMG_2034"), insufficient contrast because light grey "looks elegant", buttons that are a div with a click handler and therefore invisible to the keyboard, forms with a placeholder instead of a label, auto-playing carousels with no pause, cookie banners that trap the focus, background videos with no controls, and scanned PDFs nobody can read. Visual page builders tend to make it worse: they generate HTML with no semantics and add effects that break keyboard navigation.
How to adapt your website without rebuilding it
- Audit — automated (Lighthouse, axe, WAVE) for the 30% a machine can detect, and manual (keyboard, screen reader, zoom) for the rest.
- Prioritise by impact — the purchase or booking process and the forms come first; the footer, later.
- Fix it in the system, not page by page — contrast gets fixed in the palette, buttons in the component, alt text in the image upload flow.
- Train whoever publishes — accessibility gets lost in the day-to-day: an image uploaded without alt text, an untagged PDF. Without a process, it lasts three months.
- Document — the accessibility statement and an improvement plan with dates.
Why it's in your interest even if you're not obliged
An accessible website is a better website for everyone: faster, better structured, more usable on a phone in direct sunlight and, not by chance, better ranked — semantic HTML and alternative text are SEO signals too. And there's a figure that rarely gets weighed up: around 15% of the population has some form of disability, and many more do temporarily or through age. They're customers. At staycreative we build custom websites with accessibility as standard and we audit existing ones. If you want to know where yours stands, ask us for a review.
