Cirv Index

Report · 2026

The State of EU E-commerce Accessibility

We scanned 44 European online stores against WCAG 2.1 A/AA — the standard behind the European Accessibility Act. Here's what we found.

Download the PDF  Updated 2026-09-28

44stores analysed
47/100average score
57%graded D or F
68%fail heading hierarchy

The headline

Europe's online stores are not ready. The average homepage scores just 47/100 on an automated WCAG 2.1 A/AA check, and 57% are graded D or F. The single most common failure is heading hierarchy, affecting 68% of the stores we could scan. With the European Accessibility Act now enforceable, these are not cosmetic issues — they are legal exposure.

Grade distribution

Grade A5
Grade B6
Grade C8
Grade D5
Grade F20

The most common failures

Share of scanned stores failing each WCAG check (homepage):

Heading Hierarchy30
Link Text24
Form Labels13
Alt Text10
Color Contrast3

Best and worst

Best in class

Needs the most work

What this means for the EAA

The European Accessibility Act requires e-commerce services sold into the EU to meet accessibility standards aligned with WCAG 2.1 AA. Non-compliance carries enforcement and penalty risk that varies by member state. An automated homepage scan catches only ~30–40% of issues — so a low score is a near-certain sign of deeper problems, and even a high score warrants a manual audit.

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Method: automated WCAG 2.1 A/AA scan of each store's public homepage. See methodology. Citable data: data.json. Not legal advice.