Accessible websites: does my business need to act?
One customer cannot use your booking form with a keyboard. Another enlarges the text – and the order button disappears behind a text block. These obstacles are easy to overlook in everyday work. For the people affected, they can end the entire visit.
Since 2025, certain offers have also been subject to a legal obligation. Nevertheless, saying ‘Every business website must be accessible because of the new law’ would be too broad. For your business, what matters is which service you offer, whom it is aimed at and whether an exemption applies.
Key points at a glance
Check the offer and audience. Consider the microenterprise exemption in full. Test the entire booking or ordering journey.
What does the BFSG actually regulate?
The German Accessibility Strengthening Act, or BFSG, covers certain products and services. These include consumer e-commerce services, such as an online shop for private customers. The relevant date is 28 June 2025; this is not an obligation starting only in 2027. Section 1 BFSG
Here, e-commerce refers to digital services provided at a consumer’s individual request with a view to concluding a consumer contract. Assessment should therefore not depend solely on whether a shopping basket exists. Booking or other digital contracting processes may also be relevant. Section 2, point 26 BFSG
Three questions for an initial assessment
1. Is the offer aimed at private customers? A service aimed exclusively at businesses does not fall under the BFSG rules for consumer services simply because it appears on a website. For mixed audiences, assess the consumer-facing part separately. Section 1(3) BFSG
2. What can visitors actually do on the website? A simple company presentation needs a different assessment from a shop or digital booking process. List the existing functions: getting information, enquiring, choosing an appointment, accepting an offer, ordering and paying. In unclear borderline cases, this list helps a specialist assessment.
3. Is your business a microenterprise? The BFSG contains an exemption for businesses offering or providing services. Microenterprises employ fewer than ten people and have either annual turnover no greater than €2 million or an annual balance sheet total no greater than €2 million. The exemption does not automatically apply to covered products as well. Section 2, point 17 and Section 3(3) BFSG
These three questions offer guidance on whether you are affected. Other regulations and contractual requirements may also be relevant.
What you can try on your website yourself
Choose a specific task, such as ‘I want to book an appointment’. Then check the whole journey, not just the homepage.
- Without a mouse: Can you reach and operate the important elements with a keyboard? Is it clear which element is currently selected?
- With larger text: Do text, buttons and forms remain usable?
- When errors occur: Does the form clearly explain which field needs correcting?
- For images: Is important information also available as text?
- For videos: Is content conveyed through speech also accessibly understandable without sound?
These initial checks are based on the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative’s Easy Checks. They identify initial problems but do not replace a full assessment.
Our documentation suggestion: for each obstacle, record the page, intended action and observed problem. ‘Submitting the form only shows a red border, with no understandable error message’ is more useful for implementation than ‘form not accessible’.
An example from everyday business
A fictional course provider sells workshops to private customers. The offer page is easy to read, but available dates in the calendar can only be selected with a mouse. A customer without a mouse still cannot complete the purchase.
The appropriate task is therefore to check the complete booking journey – including calendar, customer data, payment and confirmation. Changing colours on the homepage alone does not solve the problem. This example shows why accessibility should be planned as a connected user journey.
How to organise implementation sensibly
Start with the legal assessment and documented technical findings. Prioritise problems according to which people are unable to complete which tasks. Commission specific corrections and have the affected journeys tested again afterwards, ideally including assistive technologies and users affected by the barriers.
Covered services also require the accessibility information specified by law. An attractive symbol or blanket claim on a website replaces neither functioning usability nor the required information. Section 14 BFSG
Even if an exemption applies to your business, you can remove obstacles. People who can understand and use your offer more easily have a better chance of actually using it. This does not require a blanket promise that accessibility automatically increases revenue or improves Google rankings.
IDEA Studios helps you identify specific usability problems on your website and implement improvements. In uncertain cases, assessment of your individual legal obligations belongs in qualified hands.
General guidance for Germany, not individual legal advice. Specialist sources checked on 4 October 2026; the business example is fictional.