Directive (EU) 2019/882 specifies what must happen, but leaves it to each member state to decide who oversees it. The Netherlands has assigned this role to the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). The ACM is therefore the authority responsible for monitoring compliance with accessibility requirements for products and services that fall under the law, including webshops, apps and business websites with account functionality.
This does not mean there is one central contact point in the Netherlands where consumers file complaints daily and sanctions are imposed immediately. The ACM receives reports, can investigate on that basis, and can ask an organisation to demonstrate that it meets the requirements. What that obligation to demonstrate actually means in practice and how you respond to it is for a lawyer or the ACM itself to assess for your specific situation.
Why not one European supervisory authority
The European Accessibility Act is a directive, not a directly applicable regulation. Directives are transposed into national legislation in each country, and implementation and enforcement remain a national matter. For a business that only sells in the Netherlands, this is straightforward: one law, one supervisory authority. If you also sell to customers in Germany, Belgium or France, different designated authorities apply there, with their own notification routes and sometimes a different declaration format. the overview by topic in the knowledge base goes into this further.
What the supervisory authority does in practice
Supervisory authorities such as the ACM are primarily set up to conduct market surveillance, not to manually check website after website. In practice, attention usually arises following a report, a complaint from a user, or a sample check within a sector. The ACM can then ask questions about the accessibility statement, about the underlying justification for it, and about the improvement plan if shortcomings have been identified. What specific powers the ACM has in this regard and what steps follow is set out in the national implementation legislation and its accompanying explanatory notes; that is not something we can explain for you here.
It is important to understand: supervision and enforcement are two different things. Supervision is monitoring and assessing; enforcement is actually imposing measures. There is room for remediation between those two, and that room is often provided in practice before a formal process begins.
What this means for your own responsibility
Regardless of whether and when the ACM ever makes contact, your own responsibility remains the same: publish an accessibility statement, be able to demonstrate your own assessment, and re-test after changes to the website. These are not isolated actions in response to supervision, but an ongoing obligation that is separate from whether you ever receive a letter. Those who document this have at least a file to fall back on in the event of a question from the supervisory authority, rather than improvisation afterwards.
A number of businesses incorrectly assume that supervision is only relevant if a customer complains. In practice, a sector-wide sample check, a signal from a trade association or a request as part of international cooperation between supervisory authorities can also give rise to enquiries. For those who want to know what such a request looks like in practice and which documents are relevant, there is more to read in the knowledge base; this article specifically addresses the question of who makes that request.
Supervision is not a reason to wait
The fact that enforcement in practice is often reactive is sometimes interpreted as a reason to wait until something happens. That is a risk assessment that every entrepreneur makes for themselves, but the statutory obligation itself does not change due to the likelihood that an inspection takes place. The declaration, the assessment and the improvement plan must be in place regardless of whether the ACM ever comes by.
Would you like to know how your own website or app currently stands, without needing an account for that? do the free quick scan of a few core pages and see directly what the points of attention are. For the question of how axessia.eu arrives at that result and which sources are used for it, there is an explanation of the methodology. And for the most frequently asked questions about supervision, notifications and declarations, there is a compiled list on the frequently asked questions page.
The scope check and the quick scan are free and without obligation. They provide no guarantee and no legal ruling, but rather a first, concrete picture of where you stand and what needs to be done before a supervisory authority ever asks about it.