EN 301 549 and the European Accessibility Act: What to Actually Scan For
The European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025. If you sell to consumers in the EU, it very likely applies to you, and the standard it points at is EN 301 549 — which most people have never read and do not need to.
The short version
EN 301 549 is the European standard for accessible ICT. For websites, its requirements are WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Not a variant, not a superset — clause 9 of the standard adopts WCAG 2.1 AA directly.
So if you already target WCAG 2.1 AA, the web part of EN 301 549 is largely handled. That is genuinely good news and it is the part vendors are least keen to tell you, because it is much easier to sell a distinct European product than to say the work overlaps.
Where it goes beyond the web
EN 301 549 covers far more than websites: hardware, software, documentation, and support services. If you ship a physical product, run a kiosk, or provide support by phone, there are clauses for each, and no scanner touches any of them.
The EAA also brings obligations that are not technical at all. In-scope businesses need an accessibility statement, a complaints route, and documentation of how conformance was assessed. Those are process, not code.
Microenterprises — under 10 staff and under €2 million turnover — are exempt for services, though not for products. Worth checking before you spend anything.
What we changed
EN 301 549 is now a standard you can select on the scanner. Behind it, that runs the 68 axe rules tagged for the standard, which is the WCAG 2.1 AA set as clause 9 adopts it.
We are labelling it honestly: choosing it checks the web requirements, and the scanner says so. It will not tell you whether your support line has a text alternative, and any tool claiming an EAA verdict from a URL is selling you a feeling.
Scan against EN 301 549
Free, and it tells you what it could not check as well as what it could.
Scan against EN 301 549 →