What changes in EN 301 549 V4?

EN 301 549 V4 does not yet exist; the requirement remains WCAG 2.1 AA

Nothing is changing at this moment: the applicable standard is and remains EN 301 549 V3.2.1, which in practice means WCAG 2.1 level AA, and this applies in all twenty-seven EU Member States. A version 4 of the standard has been announced and is expected in 2026, but as long as it has not been published and designated by the European Commission as the harmonised standard, it has no legal status. What is being tested today — including in the quick-scan and full scan of axessia.eu — is therefore WCAG 2.1 AA, not its successor.

The expectation is that EN 301 549 V4.1.x will align with WCAG 2.2, the successor to WCAG 2.1 which the World Wide Web Consortium has already published. WCAG 2.2 adds a number of success criteria beyond 2.1, aimed at navigation and forms amongst others, but because the standard itself has not yet been finalised, it cannot be said with certainty which parts of it will be adopted one-to-one. Those who wish to look ahead now can use WCAG 2.2 as a direction, without this being a legal obligation. Once V4 does become the harmonised standard, the testing framework will shift for everyone at the same time, in all Member States at the same moment — because the standard operates not per country, but through that single European reference.

Where this is evident: the current standard and the draft successor

The current obligation follows from EN 301 549 V3.2.1, the standard referenced by the European Accessibility Directive and which in practice amounts to WCAG 2.1 AA. WCAG 2.2 from the W3C is the text regarded as the basis for the next standard version, but this publication in itself is not legislation and not a replacement of the current requirement — it acquires legal significance only at the moment when the European Commission formally designates EN 301 549 V4 as the harmonised standard under the Directive.