Prepare your website for the German BFSG
Germany's Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) is the national transposition of the European Accessibility Act. Enforcement began June 28, 2025. Evidence-backed accessibility audits aligned to WCAG 2.1 AA and EN 301 549 — the technical standards German authorities use.
Free scan available · WCAG 2.1 AA · EN 301 549 aligned · Built for EU agencies
Germany transposed the EAA through the BFSG
The Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) is Germany's national law implementing Directive 2019/882. It covers a wide range of consumer-facing products and digital services offered in Germany, with requirements that have applied to new and substantially updated services since June 28, 2025. Services already in operation before that date have until June 28, 2030 — but complaints can trigger regulatory scrutiny at any time.
Who is covered
E-commerce, consumer banking, electronic communications, passenger transport ticketing and information, audio-visual media on demand, e-books, and other consumer-facing digital services offered on the German market. The BFSG covers both products and services.
What changed in 2025
From June 28, 2025, new services and substantially updated existing services must comply. Services in operation before that date have until June 28, 2030, but the German enforcement authority (Marktüberwachungsbehörde) can open investigations based on complaints at any time from 2025 onward.
Enforcement authority
Enforcement of the BFSG is split by sector across German federal authorities. The Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) handles some areas; sector-specific regulators cover others. Market surveillance investigations are typically complaint-driven.
The micro-enterprise exemption
Micro-enterprises — fewer than 10 employees AND less than 2 € million annual turnover or balance sheet — are exempt from the service requirements. The exemption is narrow. An agency with 11 employees or a shop with 2.5 € million in sales does not qualify.
Three steps to real preparation, not a checkbox
The same workflow agencies across Germany use to prepare client sites for BFSG compliance — from initial gap assessment to ongoing monitoring.
Free Scan
Up to 5 pages scanned automatically. Get a prioritized snapshot of accessibility issues, evidence blocks, and a personalized free-to-paid recommendation. Emailed within 24 hours.
Start a Free ScanAccessibility Audit
Up to 15 key pages reviewed. Prioritized findings with selectors, HTML snippets, screenshots, journey impact, owner suggestions, and a remediation roadmap with effort ranges. White-label ready.
Request an AuditMonthly Monitoring
Rescan up to 3 client sites monthly, with regression detection, verified-fix tracking, and branded reports your agency can forward without rewriting. Builds the evidence trail over time.
Set Up MonitoringWhat standards does the BFSG reference?
The BFSG, like the underlying EAA directive, points to the harmonized European standard EN 301 549 as the primary path to demonstrating conformance. For websites and web applications, that primarily means WCAG 2.1 Level AA, plus the additional requirements in clause 9 of EN 301 549 for web content.
Perceivable content
- Text alternatives for non-text content (images, icons, media)
- Captions and alternatives for audio and video
- Color contrast and visual presentation
- Resizable text, reflow, and orientation
Operable interface
- Full keyboard accessibility for navigation, forms, and interactive components
- Sufficient time, no traps, and no seizure-inducing content
- Focus visible, predictable, and logical
- Bypass blocks and accessible page structure
Understandable content
- Language declared and consistent
- Predictable navigation and consistent identification
- Form labels, error identification, and helpful suggestions
- Input assistance for legal, financial, and transactional steps
Robust implementation
- Valid name, role, and value for assistive technology
- ARIA used correctly, not as a band-aid
- Status messages exposed without focus changes
- Compatibility with current assistive technologies
Manual review is still required. Industry estimates from Deque and WebAIM put automated scanner detection at around 30–40% of WCAG issues. The rest — keyboard journey breakage, screen reader naming, focus management, semantic structure, and content clarity — needs a human pass. Our paid audits include operator review of every finding before publication and flag which criteria were automated versus human-verified, but a full manual conformance audit of every flow and authenticated state is out of scope unless specifically contracted.
Why isn't an accessibility widget enough for BFSG compliance?
Overlay widgets — JavaScript add-ons that claim to make any site "compliant" without code changes — are widely marketed in Germany. The BFSG and EN 301 549 require that the underlying service meets the standard, not that an overlay is present.
A runtime layer that does not change the underlying site
- Adds a JavaScript layer on top of the existing HTML. The HTML, ARIA, and content remain unchanged.
- Often interferes with users' existing assistive technology, forcing screen reader users to disable it.
- Cannot fix issues that depend on real content decisions: image descriptions, form labels, semantic structure, journey design.
- The accessibility community publishes the Overlay Fact Sheet documenting widely reported limitations, signed by hundreds of independent experts.
- Legal actions continue against businesses in Germany and the EU that relied on overlays as their only approach.
Real evidence the underlying service can defend
- Identifies the actual barriers in the underlying HTML, ARIA, and content — what EN 301 549 actually points at.
- Produces a report with selectors, HTML snippets, screenshots, and prioritized remediation steps your developers can act on.
- Combines automated scanning with operator-led review of every finding before publication, so DOM-reachable issues get prioritised with honest scope.
- Builds an evidence trail over time — which findings were resolved, which regressed, and which remain open.
- Aligned with what German market surveillance authorities look for: the underlying service, not a button on top of it.
Widgets can have a supplemental role for user personalization preferences (font size, contrast). They cannot stand in for the underlying conformance work that EN 301 549 and the BFSG are about.
See what an audit report actually looks like
A real, populated demo report — with severity-prioritized findings, evidence blocks, screenshots, journey impact, remediation guidance, and a roadmap your client's dev team can actually work from.
Honest scope
AccessiProof provides evidence-backed website accessibility audits, prioritized findings, and remediation guidance for the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) — the digital-service side of the law. The BFSG also covers physical products (e.g. ATMs, ticketing terminals, consumer electronics); those are outside our scope and need specialist product accessibility assessment.
Our reports are not legal advice, not certification, and not a formal conformance determination unless explicitly stated otherwise in writing. Compliance decisions remain the responsibility of the covered business, its legal counsel, and the relevant German enforcement authority. Where authoritative determinations are required, we recommend involving qualified German accessibility and legal professionals.
Where this page references EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 AA, we do so because they are the technical standards typically used to demonstrate conformance with the BFSG for digital services. They are not the only possible mechanism, and the broader legal picture is wider than any single technical pass/fail test.
Related EU accessibility frameworks
Every EU law in this space sits on the same technical spine. Use these pages to map your clients' obligations across Europe.
European Accessibility Act
The EU directive that underpins every national accessibility law below.
Read pageEU frameworkEN 301 549
The harmonised technical standard regulators cite as the conformance test.
Read pageEU frameworkWCAG 2.2
W3C success criteria at the heart of every EU accessibility rulebook.
Read pageNational lawFrance — RGAA & Article 47
Dual track: RGAA 4.1 for public bodies and Ordonnance 2023-859 for private e-commerce.
Read pageNational lawSpain — Ley 11/2023
RD 1112/2018 for public sector plus Ley 11/2023 and RD 193/2023 for private e-commerce.
Read pageNational lawRomania — Legea 232/2022
Romania's EAA transposition, enforced by ANPC since 28 June 2025.
Read pageNational lawItaly — D.Lgs. 82/2022
Italian EAA transposition layered on the Stanca Law (Legge 4/2004), supervised by AgID and AGCOM.
Read pageNational lawNetherlands — Toegankelijkheid
Besluit digitale toegankelijkheid for public bodies plus EAA-derived obligations for private services.
Read pageNational lawIreland — S.I. 636/2023
Irish EAA transposition, enforced by CCPC and sectoral regulators since June 2025.
Read page