Does the accessibility law also apply to a B2B website?

A purely business-to-business web shop often falls outside the scope

A website or account environment that sells exclusively to other businesses typically falls outside the scope of the European Accessibility Act. The Directive (EU) 2019/882 does not tie the coverage of e-commerce to the type of business that sells, but to whether the purchaser is a consumer: a natural person ordering as a private individual, not another business making a purchase. A platform where only business customers with a login place orders — procurement between businesses, no private purchases — therefore generally does not fall under the e-commerce services category of the directive, even if the ordering process and login flow look technically identical to a consumer web shop.

Two nuances are worth noting here. First, this distinction applies per service, not per business: if a site sells to both businesses and consumers, then the consumer-facing part — the ordering process and login flow that a private customer goes through — is simply covered by the directive, even if the largest part of revenue comes from B2B. Second, the exemption for micro-enterprises (fewer than ten employees and at most two million euros annual turnover) is separate from this: that exemption applies based on the size of the provider, not based on the type of customer. A large business that sells exclusively B2B may therefore fall outside the scope on different grounds than a micro-enterprise that sells to consumers. Which situation applies precisely to a particular site is what the scope check is designed for.

Where this derives from: the definition of e-commerce services

This distinction follows from Directive (EU) 2019/882 itself: the provisions on scope and the definition of e-commerce services tie the obligation to services offered with a view to concluding a contract with a consumer, not to the type of business providing or receiving the service. For the precise wording, and for the other service categories that the directive covers apart from e-commerce, the full directive text is the primary source to refer to.