Quarterly BAS Due (July–September)
Form 1099-NEC & Contractor Payment Reporting Check
Why this matters.
The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) became applicable across the EU on 28 June 2025 and, like GDPR, reaches well beyond EU borders. It applies to any business — including UK companies with no EU establishment — that places in scope products or services on the EU market for consumers. Covered categories include e-commerce, e-books and e-readers, consumer banking services, telecoms and certain electronic communications, transport ticketing and passenger information services, and consumer electronics such as computers, smartphones, self-service terminals and payment terminals. A UK online retailer selling to EU consumers, a SaaS product with EU-based customers, or a UK fintech offering banking services into the EU can all fall in scope even though the business itself is based entirely in Great Britain.
Businesses caught by the EAA generally need to meet accessibility requirements broadly aligned with EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and non-EU businesses placing products on the market typically need an EU-based authorised representative. There is a limited exemption for micro-enterprises (fewer than 10 staff and under €2 million turnover or balance sheet total) providing services, but this exemption does not extend to products, and does not apply at all to larger UK businesses trading into the EU. Enforcement sits with each member state’s market surveillance authority, which can require products or services to be withdrawn from sale or non-compliant claims corrected — a real commercial risk for UK businesses that assumed EU accessibility law was “someone else’s problem” after Brexit.
