What happens to the accessibility law on 28 June 2030?

28 June 2030: the transition period for existing services expires

On 28 June 2030, the transition period expires that the European Accessibility Act grants to services already offered before 28 June 2025 with products that were lawfully in use at that time. Until that date, service providers that had existed for longer were permitted to continue with certain products and services without these already fully complying with EN 301 549. After 28 June 2030, that exception lapses: from then on, the requirements apply without transition provisions, even for services that already existed before 2025.

This particularly affects entrepreneurs who had their web shop or service running before 28 June 2025 with existing systems — a checkout process, a self-service terminal, a login flow — that were already in use at that time. New services or new versions launched after 28 June 2025 fall under the full requirement anyway; the transition period was not intended for those. The standard itself, EN 301 549 (in practice WCAG 2.1 level AA), is the same in all twenty-seven member states and therefore does not change per country. What does differ per country is who will oversee services after 2030 that were covered by the transition period until then: in the Netherlands that is ACM, in Germany the MLBF (with also the faster route via an Abmahnung for unfair competition), in France the DGCCRF with ARCOM, and in Belgium the Economic Inspection.

Where this appears in the directive: Article 32

This transition period and the end date of 28 June 2030 follow from Article 32 of Directive (EU) 2019/882, which allows member states to grant a transition period for services provided with products lawfully used before 28 June 2025. An automated scan cannot, incidentally, determine whether an existing service fell under this transition period or not — that is a legal qualification, not a technical finding, and is noted as such in every report.