Can I report that my site is not yet accessible?

Self-reporting to ACM pays off

Yes, in the Netherlands a web shop or service provider can self-report to ACM that the site does not yet fully meet accessibility requirements, provided an action plan is included. According to ACM, this results in lenient treatment: the authority typically writes to companies first, grants a remediation period of approximately three months, and only then retests before any penalty comes into view. Anyone who already indicates which parts do not yet comply and how that will be resolved aligns with that sequence instead of waiting for ACM to discover it itself.

This applies specifically to the Netherlands and ACM. In Germany, a similar report can be made to the Marktüberwachungsstelle der Länder (MLBF), but whether that results in leniency there has not been established; in Germany, the competition law route also plays a role, in which competitors can act faster via an Abmahnung than the authority itself. In France, a report goes through DGCCRF and in Belgium through the Economic Inspection, and there too it has not been established whether self-reporting results in leniency. A report, with or without an action plan, does not replace an accessibility statement and is not fulfilled by an overlay on the site — those are separate matters. Micro-enterprises providing services that fall below both thresholds, fewer than ten employees and at most two million euros annual turnover, are in any case exempt from these obligations.

What this is based on: ACM's enforcement policy

The fact that self-reporting with an action plan in the Netherlands is treated leniently follows from the established enforcement policy of ACM: first issue a notice, grant a remediation period of approximately three months, then retest and enforce, as described in ACM's publication on supervision of website and app accessibility. For Germany, France and Belgium it has been established that reporting to the respective authority is possible, but not whether that results in the same lenient treatment as in the Netherlands.