--- title: "Does My Small Business Website Need to Be Accessible?" description: "Does your small business website need to be accessible under the European Accessibility Act: who is exempt and what to do next." date: 2026-07-04 author: "David Wippel" tags: ["design", "seo"] locale: en translation: https://www.essentialweb.eu/de/blog/barrierefreie-website-pflicht-oesterreich/ url: https://www.essentialweb.eu/blog/does-my-business-website-need-to-be-accessible/ --- # Does My Small Business Website Need to Be Accessible? > Does your small business website need to be accessible under the European Accessibility Act: who is exempt and what to do next. There are two common reactions to the Accessibility Act, and both usually miss. One: this cannot possibly apply to my small business site. The other: my website is now illegal. For most small Austrian businesses, neither is true. The honest answer is not a threat, it is a decision you can make for your own case in a few minutes. That is what this walks through. One note up front: this is not legal advice. Where it gets close to the line, your specific situation needs checking, and if there is real doubt, by someone qualified to judge it. What this piece does is the groundwork, so you understand what is at stake and can tell whether you even need to look harder. ## Does the accessibility law apply to your website? It comes down to two questions: is your website a covered service, and are you a microenterprise? An online shop is a covered service. A plain information or brochure site usually is not. And even if your site is covered, the microenterprise exemption takes many small businesses back out of scope. The Barrierefreiheitsgesetz, BaFG for short, has been in force since 28 June 2025. It implements EU Directive 2019/882, the European Accessibility Act, for Austria. One thing worth flagging, because most search results and AI answers get it wrong: the Austrian law is the BaFG. Germany has its own separate law, the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG). A lot of German-language coverage points at the German rules and misses the Austrian detail. If you run a business in Austria, the BaFG is the one that applies to you. Enforcement sits with the Sozialministeriumservice. Since the start date it has been the market surveillance authority, and it is where consumers can report products and services that are not accessible. ### Who is exempt: the microenterprise exemption You are exempt as a microenterprise if you employ fewer than 10 people and also stay under the money line: at most € 2 million in annual turnover, or at most € 2 million in balance-sheet total. Either of those two figures is enough. If you provide a service, which is what a website normally is, you then do not have to meet the BaFG requirements. Both conditions have to hold. The headcount test and the money test: | Test | Exemption applies | Exemption does not apply | | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | | Employees | fewer than 10 | 10 or more | | Annual turnover or balance-sheet total | at most € 2 million (either figure qualifies) | both above € 2 million | If the left column is true on both rows, you are exempt as a microenterprise for your service. The moment one row flips to the right, meaning 10 or more employees, or turnover and balance-sheet total both above € 2 million, the exemption no longer holds. One distinction that rarely gets drawn cleanly: this full exemption is for services. The few businesses that place a covered product on the market (self-service terminals or e-book readers, for example) get lighter obligations rather than a clean pass. For a typical company website that is beside the point. Your website is a service, not a hardware product. ### Who is almost certainly in scope Two groups should assume the law applies: businesses with 10 or more employees, where the exemption drops away, and anyone selling online. E-commerce, the "electronic commerce service" in the law's language, is the clearest trigger for an ordinary small business. Beyond e-commerce, the law names other consumer-facing services: consumer banking, electronic communications (calls, messaging, internet access), digital books, and services that provide access to audiovisual media. Booking is where people overreach. What the law names specifically is information and booking services for long-distance passenger transport, meaning long-distance travel tickets and the sites and apps behind them. A widget for booking a table or an appointment is not automatically one of those named services. Whether it ends up mattering in your case is worth checking. The working rule for a small business: a plain information site under the microenterprise line, and you are very likely out of scope. An online shop, or 10 or more employees, and you should assume you are in scope and look closer. ## What does "accessible" actually mean for a website? Accessible means people with vision, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments can use your site. Technically that runs through WCAG 2.1 at Level AA, delivered via the European standard EN 301 549. In practice it comes down to a short set of fundamentals, none of which asks you to read a line of code. Concretely, it is things like these: - Images carry a text alternative a screen reader can announce. - Text and background have enough contrast to stay readable with weaker sight. - The whole site works from the keyboard, without a mouse. - Form fields are clearly labelled, so it is obvious what goes where. - The layout follows a logical structure with real headings, not just large text. Meet that standard and you have a (rebuttable) presumption of conformity on your side. The version that binds today is EN 301 549 v3.2.1, which points to WCAG 2.1 AA. A newer version (v4.1.1, folding in WCAG 2.2) is expected in 2026 and will likely raise the bar once it is cited in the EU Official Journal. It is not binding yet. For planning, that means build to 2.1 AA and keep 2.2 in view. ## What happens if you ignore it? If you are in scope and do nothing, administrative fines of up to € 80.000 are possible, with lower maximums for smaller companies. The Sozialministeriumservice enforces it. In practice, though, the first step is rarely a fine. For a first or minor breach, the stated principle is "advise before penalise" (beraten vor strafen). The authority's first interest is getting the barrier removed, not extracting money from a small business. That takes the panic out of it without changing the underlying point: if you are clearly in scope, do not leave it sitting until a complaint arrives. ## Why accessibility pays off even when you are exempt Even where the law does not force you, an accessible site is one of the cheapest reach-and-conversion upgrades you are leaving on the table. The same flaws that stall a screen reader also cost you paying visitors: missing labels, weak contrast, forms you can only complete with a mouse. The state of the web is sobering. In the 2026 WebAIM Million analysis, 95.9% of the top one million home pages had detectable WCAG failures, averaging 56 per page, most commonly low-contrast text. This is not a niche problem, it is the default, which makes getting it right a way to stand out. The overlap with ordinary business numbers is direct. 44% of B2B visitors leave if they cannot find contact information (HubSpot, 2024), and findability plus clear labelling is accessibility and conversion at once. A one-second delay in load time drops conversions by roughly 7% (Portent, 2022). A 0.1-second improvement in mobile load time lifted retail conversion by 8.4% (Google/Deloitte, 2020). Cleanly built, well-structured pages are faster, easier to read, and easier for search engines to parse. It is the same build quality that keeps a site from being [too slow](/blog/website-too-slow/). ## What to do next Before you hire anyone, sort out your own situation in five steps: 1. Count your employees and look at turnover and balance-sheet total. Are you under 10 people and under € 2 million? 2. Look at what your website actually does. Does it sell online, or only inform? 3. If you are in scope or unsure, have your specific case checked, with qualified advice if there is real doubt. It cannot be settled with a blanket rule. 4. Regardless of that, walk through the five fundamentals above once: alt text, contrast, keyboard use, labelled forms, clean structure. 5. Work out who keeps it that way. Accessibility is not a box you tick once, it is a state that has to survive every change you make. That last point is the one most people underestimate. A site that is clean today can regrow gaps after the next image added without alt text, or the next poorly contrasted button. That is exactly the invisible work that [starts after launch](/blog/what-happens-to-your-website-after-launch/) and belongs to no one under a one-off project. Under an ongoing plan it is part of the deal: the site stays accessible as content and requirements shift, without you having to think about it. If you want to see what that looks like in practice, [take a look at the ongoing plan](/#plan). Accessibility does not stand on its own here. It sits alongside the other [legal duties of a business website](/blog/legal-requirements-business-website-austria/) and general build quality, and both stay current only if someone maintains them. If you are unsure whether this affects you, the common questions are answered in our [FAQ](/#faq). The short version holds: check your own case, and if you are in scope, treat accessibility as ongoing work rather than a one-time repair.