Does my online store fall under the accessibility act?

Online stores in the Netherlands have had to be accessible since 28 June 2025, but microenterprises providing services are exempt. Four questions settle which group you are in.

Exemption: Fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or an annual balance sheet total of no more than € 2 million; article 6:230fc(1) Dutch Civil Code
Where that exemption stops: It covers services only. If you sell devices that are themselves listed in the act, obligations still apply to those; article 4(5), Directive (EU) 2019/882
In force since: 28 June 2025, with no transition period for the service itself; the ACM, the regulator for e-commerce services
Supervision: The ACM for the store, the RDI for the devices you sell; article 8.15 Wet handhaving consumentenbescherming and the Warenwetbesluit toegankelijkheidsvoorschriften 2024

Four questions that give the answer

The act covers two different things: services and products. Services carry a full exemption for microenterprises, products do not. Your online store is a service, but what you sell in it may be a product the act lists in its own right.

Work through the questions below in order. The first two decide whether the act sets requirements for your website. The last two decide whether anything else applies to you as well.

Do you conclude contracts with consumers through your website or app?
Do fewer than ten people work in your business, and does your annual turnover or balance sheet total stay below € 2 million?
Do you sell devices the act lists, such as phones, laptops, tablets, e-readers or modems?
Do you also provide another service from the act, such as telecoms, banking, transport or e-books?

Question 1: do you sell online to consumers?

The act calls your store an e-commerce service: a service provided at a distance, through a website or a mobile app, by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a contract. A reservation, a booking or a subscription taken out online counts just as much as a shopping basket does.

Consumer here means a natural person buying the service for purposes outside their trade, business, craft or profession. If you sell to business customers only, you do not provide an e-commerce service to a consumer and article 6:230fb does not apply. If you sell to both, the consumer side counts and your store falls under the act.

What you sell makes no difference to this question. The directive states explicitly that the requirements for e-commerce services apply to the online sale of any product or service.

A website with no way to order is not an e-commerce service. If you do provide one of the other services listed in the act, separate rules apply to it, online store or not.

Question 2: are you a microenterprise?

The exemption sits in article 6:230fc(1) of the Dutch Civil Code: article 230fb does not apply to enterprises with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or an annual balance sheet total of no more than € 2 million. Stay below those limits and the act sets no requirements for your store, and nothing to document or report either.

Note the difference with the rule of thumb the ACM publishes, which mentions turnover only: according to the regulator the obligations apply once you have ten or more staff and/or an annual turnover above € 2 million. The legislation says turnover or balance sheet total. If you are near the limit, get legal advice on your situation.

How to count is not in the act itself. Recital 53 of the directive points to Recommendation 2003/361/EC, the European definition of small and medium-sized enterprises. Four counting rules follow from it.

You use the last closed financial year.
People are counted in annual work units: two half-time jobs make one. Owner-managers count, apprentices and students on a training contract do not.
If another enterprise holds 25 percent or more of your capital or voting rights, its figures count pro rata. Where there is control, such as a majority of the votes, they count in full.
You only lose microenterprise status once you cross a limit in two consecutive financial years.

Question 3: do you also sell products the act lists?

This distinction decides what is asked of you. Article 4(5) of the directive exempts microenterprises providing services from the accessibility requirements and from any obligation relating to compliance with them. For microenterprises dealing with products that sentence does not exist. They only get lighter administrative rules.

Your online store is a service. What you sell may be a product the act lists: general purpose computer hardware for consumers and its operating systems, including desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets; e-readers; payment terminals, cash machines, ticketing machines, check-in machines and interactive information kiosks; consumer terminal equipment for electronic communications such as modems and routers; and equipment for accessing audiovisual media services, such as smart TVs and set-top boxes.

If you sell such devices, you are a distributor. You check that the product carries the CE marking, that the required documents are included and that the instructions and safety information are in Dutch. If you suspect a product does not conform, you hold it back until it does, and you inform the manufacturer or importer and the authorities. Those duties concern the device, not your website.

They also apply only to products placed on the market after 28 June 2025; older stock falls outside them.

The microenterprise exemption covers services only, not products
Question	Your store (service)	What you sell (product)
Does the microenterprise exemption apply?	Yes, in full	No
What does the requirement cover?	Your website, app and checkout	The device itself, not your website
What must you do if you are not exempt?	Design and provide the service accessibly, and explain how	Check that the CE marking, the documents and the Dutch instructions are there
From when?	Services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025	Products placed on the market after 28 June 2025
Who supervises?	ACM	RDI

Question 4: do you provide another service from the act?

The act covers six kinds of service. If you provide more than one, it applies per service and the supervisory authority may differ.

The microenterprise exemption covers all of them.

If you do fall under the act, part of your site stays outside the requirements: pre-recorded audio and video published before 28 June 2025, office file formats from before that date, third-party content you neither fund, develop nor control, and archived pages that are no longer updated after that date.

E-commerce services: selling online to consumers
Consumer banking services
Electronic communications services, such as internet, telephony, email and chat
Services providing access to audiovisual media services
E-books and the software dedicated to them
Air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport: websites, apps, electronic tickets, travel information and interactive self-service terminals

What the act then asks of your store

If your store falls under the act, you design and provide the service in line with Annex I, sections III and IV(g), and Annex V of the directive. For e-commerce that adds two concrete things: passing on information about the accessibility of what you sell where the responsible manufacturer or supplier provides it, and making identification, security, electronic signature and payment perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

On top of that you explain, in your terms and conditions or an equivalent document, how the service meets those requirements. That is Annex V, and it is a separate obligation even when your site is technically in order. If your service is not fully accessible yet, the ACM asks you to report that to it, with a plan attached.

The act names no WCAG version. In practice the yardstick is EN 301 549, the European standard for accessible ICT. Its current version, V3.2.1 from 2021, adopts WCAG 2.1 level AA for websites and apps, and the ACM points to that level itself. A revision adopting WCAG 2.2 was at ETSI as a final draft in June 2026.

There is no transition period for the service itself: the requirement has applied since 28 June 2025. Service contracts concluded through an e-commerce service before 28 June 2025 may run on unchanged until they expire, and at the latest until five years after that date. The longer periods for products already in use and for self-service terminals apply to the other services in the act, not to e-commerce.

When compliance is not possible, and who supervises

The requirements do not apply where meeting them would alter the basic nature of the service or impose a disproportionate burden. That is an exception per element, argued against the criteria in Annex VI of the directive. You still meet the rest of the requirements.

If you rely on it, you report that to the ACM. If you rely on a disproportionate burden, you also record the assessment, keep it for five years and repeat it whenever the service changes, whenever the ACM asks, and in any case every five years. If you receive funding from outside your own resources to improve accessibility, the disproportionate burden exception is off the table. Microenterprises go through none of this: they are already exempt.

Supervision is split by sector. The ACM supervises e-commerce and electronic communications services, the AFM consumer banking and financial e-commerce services, the RDI the products, the Commissariaat voor de Media e-books and services giving access to audiovisual media, and the ILT passenger transport. Consumers can report an accessibility problem with an online store to the ACM.

In March 2026 the ACM published the results of tests on around one hundred of the largest Dutch online stores and the websites of the largest telecom and energy providers. At 61 percent it proved impossible to place an order using assistive technology. At another 33 percent it was possible, but took considerably more effort. Companies the ACM approaches that do not improve enough risk enforcement.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

We have eight staff and an online store. Do we have to do anything?

Not under this act, as long as your annual turnover or balance sheet total stays below € 2 million and you are an autonomous enterprise. If you sell devices the act lists, the rules for distributors do apply to those.

Does the owner count towards the ten people?

The Dutch statutory text says employees; the European definition the directive refers to also counts owner-managers. At nine or ten people that is the difference, so it's worth having it checked.

We are part of a group. Does that count?

Yes. A holding of 25 percent or more counts pro rata, and control counts in full. A small company under a large parent is therefore usually not a microenterprise.

We sell laptops and e-readers. Does that change anything for our website?

No. As a microenterprise your store stays exempt. For the devices themselves you are a distributor: you check the CE marking, the required documents and the Dutch instructions.

We only sell to business customers. Does the act apply?

The obligation covers e-commerce services provided to consumers. If you sell to businesses only, your store falls outside it. That changes the moment a private individual can order from you.

We are exempt, but a customer cannot get through our site. Is that allowed?

Under this act, yes. The Dutch Equal Treatment (Disability or Chronic Illness) Act separately requires anyone offering goods or services to make an effective adjustment where needed, unless that is disproportionately burdensome. That duty has no exemption for small businesses.

Should we follow WCAG 2.1 or 2.2?

The act names no version. EN 301 549, the standard used in practice, currently adopts WCAG 2.1 level AA, and a version with WCAG 2.2 is in preparation. We build to 2.2 level AA: content that conforms to 2.2 also conforms to 2.1, according to the W3C.