Selling to the EU from the UK: The EAA vs the Equality Act 2010

Published 6 Nov 2026 · 10 min read

If your UK online store sells to consumers in the EU, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) can apply to it, even after Brexit, unless your business is a microenterprise. For your UK customers, the Equality Act 2010 applies instead, whatever your size. The two laws work differently, but the same website work, testing and fixing against WCAG 2.2 AA, serves both.

This article compares the two in general terms: who each law covers, what it asks of an online store, how it is enforced, and a single plan for a UK seller. If you run a Shopify store, our practical guide is European Accessibility Act for Shopify stores selling from the US or UK.

The short version

	European Accessibility Act (EU)	Equality Act 2010 (Great Britain)
Legal form	EU directive, applied through each EU country's national law	UK statute covering England, Scotland and Wales
Who it covers	Providers of listed services, including e-commerce, offered to consumers in the EU	Anyone providing goods, facilities or services to the public in Great Britain
Small-business rule	Microenterprises exempt from the service requirements	No size exemption; size affects what is "reasonable"
What it asks	Meet set accessibility requirements	Make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage
Technical yardstick	In practice EN 301 549, which uses WCAG 2.1 AA today	None named for private businesses; WCAG is the usual reference
Published information	Required: how the service meets the requirements	Not required for private businesses
Enforcement	National authorities, consumer complaints, associations, courts	Individual claims in the civil courts; the Equality and Human Rights Commission
Typical outcome	Order to fix with a deadline; fines set nationally	Damages, including for injury to feelings, and court orders

Sources: Directive (EU) 2019/882, EUR-Lex; Equality Act 2010, legislation.gov.uk; EHRC services code, chapter 7.

Why Brexit does not take you out of the EAA

The EAA is not part of UK law. It reaches UK businesses because of where they sell, not where they are registered, the same reason it can apply to US companies. The Directive defines a service provider as anyone who provides a service on the EU market "or makes offers to provide such a service to consumers in the Union" (Directive (EU) 2019/882, Article 3). E-commerce services are those provided at a distance, through websites and apps, at the request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a consumer contract (Taylor Wessing, quoting Article 3(30)).

So a UK store that ships to EU addresses, prices in euros, offers EU languages or markets to EU shoppers is likely offering its service to EU consumers. A wholesale-only store that sells only to businesses is generally outside the e-commerce provisions, which are about consumer contracts. Where a gray case falls is a question for a lawyer.

The EAA has applied since 28 June 2025 (European Commission). There is no single EU regulator: each country you sell into enforces its own version of the law.

The microenterprise test

Microenterprises that provide services are exempt from the EAA's service requirements (CCPC Ireland). A microenterprise has fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of €2 million or less. Both conditions must be met. Convert your figures from pounds to euros, count all staff, and write down the figures and the date you checked.

The Equality Act has no equivalent exemption. A two-person UK store still owes its UK customers reasonable adjustments. Size and resources only affect which adjustments are reasonable.

What the Equality Act asks of a UK online store

The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against disabled people, including by failing to make reasonable adjustments (Equality Act 2010, section 29 and section 20). The EHRC's statutory code says services to the public include goods and facilities, whether or not they are paid for (EHRC services code, chapter 7). Law firms read this as including websites and apps (CMS, digital accessibility and disputes).

Three features matter for a store:

The duty is anticipatory. For services, it is owed to disabled people in general, not only to a customer who has asked (Equality Act 2010, Schedule 2, paragraph 2; explanatory notes). You are expected to think ahead about barriers people with different impairments are likely to meet, such as a checkout that cannot be used with a keyboard or a screen reader.
Information in an accessible format. Where the adjustment is about providing information, the reasonable steps include steps to make sure the information is provided in an accessible format (Equality Act 2010, section 20(6)).
No named standard. The Act does not mention WCAG. Courts look at what was reasonable. WCAG 2.2 AA is the clearest evidence of what an accessible site looks like, and it is the standard UK public sector bodies must meet for their websites and apps (GOV.UK, understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies). Those public sector regulations do not apply to private stores.

The Equality Act's disability provisions do not extend to Northern Ireland (Equality Act 2010, section 217), where the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 still applies and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland enforces it (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland). For sales to EU consumers, a Northern Ireland store is in the same position as any other UK store. Whether the Windsor Framework brings any part of the EAA into Northern Ireland law is less clear: we found no official guidance on it, and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland has told a parliamentary committee that Northern Ireland law will not be required to keep pace with the EAA under the Framework's rights provisions (ECNI written evidence). A Northern Ireland seller should ask a lawyer.

Where the two laws differ

Fixed requirements vs reasonable adjustments

The EAA lists functional requirements in its Annex I. For e-commerce, they include making identification, security and payment functions perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, and providing the accessibility information about the products you sell when the responsible economic operator supplies it (Directive (EU) 2019/882, Annex I). The technical yardstick used in practice is EN 301 549, which today points to WCAG 2.1 A and AA. An edition built on WCAG 2.2 has been published and is awaiting citation (EN 301 549 V4.1.1 and WCAG 2.2).

The Equality Act asks a different question: did you take the steps it was reasonable to take? That is more flexible, but also less predictable. There is no list to tick off.

Published information

Under Article 13 and Annex V of the EAA, service providers must publish information on how the service meets the accessibility requirements, in their general terms and conditions or an equivalent document, available in written and oral format and in an accessible way (Directive (EU) 2019/882, Annex V). Most stores do this with an accessibility statement page.

The Equality Act does not require a statement from a private business. Publishing one anyway helps on the UK side: it tells disabled customers how to reach you about a barrier and what alternatives you offer, which is a practical way to show you have thought about adjustments.

Marketplaces add their own rules. eBay asks business sellers who sell to EU consumers to add an accessibility statement to their account (eBay, European Accessibility Act for sellers).

Enforcement

In the EU, enforcement so far has been national, complaint-driven and focused on orders to fix, as our country-by-country EAA enforcement tracker shows. Germany opened a national complaint portal in June 2026, the Dutch regulator tested large webshops in March 2026, and a French court ordered Carrefour to make its site accessible within six months (gegen-hartz.de; ACM; informations.handicap.fr). Fines are set nationally; in Germany, for example, they can reach €100,000 in serious cases (BFSG § 37). As of October 2026, we have not found a public report of an EU authority acting against a UK store, but complaint routes are open to any consumer who meets a barrier.

In Great Britain, there is no regulator that inspects shop websites. A disabled customer can bring a claim in the county court (the sheriff court in Scotland) (section 114). The claim must normally be brought within six months of the act complained of, though the court can allow a longer period if it thinks that just and equitable (section 118). The court can grant the remedies available in a civil claim, including damages, which can include compensation for injury to feelings, and orders (section 119). The EHRC has its own enforcement powers under the Equality Act 2006, including investigations, unlawful act notices and binding agreements (Equality Act 2006, sections 20 to 24). Public figures on UK website claims are scarce, and we found few reported court decisions. When the RNIB started legal action against the airline bmibaby over its website in 2012, it made the news, but we found no published ruling in that case (Civil Society).

One plan that covers both

You do not need two accessibility projects. The technical work is the same; the paperwork differs.

Decide whether you sell to EU consumers. Review shipping zones, currencies, languages, domains and marketing.
Check the microenterprise test for the EAA, and record your figures. The Equality Act applies either way.
Test against WCAG 2.2 AA. It includes all the WCAG 2.1 AA criteria in EN 301 549 today and matches the new edition. Use automated checks, then a keyboard and screen reader walk from the home page to the start of checkout (WCAG 2.2 checklist for online stores).
Fix the code, not the view. Theme fixes, form labels, focus order and contrast are what a customer and an authority will meet. An overlay widget does not change that code (why an overlay doesn't fix your theme).
Publish one accessibility statement that covers the standard you test against, known issues and workarounds, and how to contact you by email and phone. Link it from your footer and your terms, and translate it for the EU languages you sell in.
Offer alternatives. Phone or email ordering for a customer who meets a barrier is a reasonable adjustment in the UK and a useful fallback everywhere.
Keep records and retest after theme updates, new apps and redesigns.

Sentinela scans and audits any public online store against WCAG 2.2 A and AA, and an audit records a verdict for every A and AA criterion and includes a draft accessibility statement. Fixes are made on Shopify (on a copy of your theme) and WooCommerce (on a staging copy); fixes on other platforms are coming. See our EAA page, pricing and method. For the EU legal scope in more detail, read Does the EAA apply to your online store?

This article is general information, not legal advice. For your obligations, talk to a lawyer.