Docs / Accessibility and other legal requirements

Accessibility and other legal requirements

What the law in Austria and the EU asks of the websites, shops, apps, ads and e-mails people design in Bogen, and what Bogen's Accessibility and legal check (compliance_check) can and cannot see of it.

Sources read on 13 November 2026, from the primary texts only: EUR-Lex for EU law, RIS for Austrian federal law, ETSI for EN 301 549, W3C for WCAG, and the official sites of the authorities named. Laws change; check the source before you rely on a date.

Bogen's check is a technical aid. It is not legal advice, not an audit and not a certification. It checks a design, not the built product, and most criteria need a person to test them. Whether a law applies to you depends on who offers what to whom. For anything uncertain, ask a lawyer or an accessibility auditor.

Law and standard are different things. Directives, regulations and Austrian acts are law. EN 301 549 and WCAG are technical standards: the law refers to them, and meeting the standard the Official Journal cites gives a presumption of conformity with the law's accessibility requirements. A standard alone creates no duty.

Accessibility

European Accessibility Act, Directive (EU) 2019/882

ELI, CELEX 32019L0882.

• Applies since 28 June 2025 (art. 31(2)). Answering emergency communications through 112 from 28 June 2027 at the latest (art. 31(3)).
• Products placed on the market after that date (art. 2(1)): consumer computers and their operating systems, self-service terminals (payment terminals, ATMs, ticketing and check-in machines, information terminals), consumer terminals for electronic communications and for audiovisual media, and e-readers.
• Services to consumers (art. 2(2)): electronic communications; access to audiovisual media services; elements of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport (websites, apps, e-tickets, real-time information, self-service terminals); consumer banking; e-books and their software; and e-commerce.
• Micro-enterprises providing services are exempt (art. 4(5)): fewer than 10 persons, and annual turnover or balance sheet total of at most EUR 2 million (art. 3(23)). Micro-enterprises making products are not exempt.
• Disproportionate burden (art. 14 and Annex VI): an assessment, documented and kept for five years, renewed at least every five years; not available to whoever received public funding for accessibility.
• Websites and apps of covered services must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust (Annex I, Section III, point (c)).
• Information duty (art. 13(2), Annex V): the general terms or an equivalent document describe the service in accessible formats and say how it meets the requirements.
• Presumption of conformity through harmonised standards cited in the Official Journal (art. 15).
• Transition (art. 32): service contracts from before 28 June 2025 until they end, at most five years; self-service terminals for their useful life, at most 20 years.

Austria: Barrierefreiheitsgesetz (BaFG)

BGBl. I Nr. 76/2023, RIS, Gesetzesnummer 20012316. It transposes the EAA for private products and services.

• Scope § 2, requirements § 4 and Anlage 1, presumption of conformity § 5, in force since 28 June 2025 (§ 37(1)); transition § 37(2) and (3).
• Micro-enterprise: § 3 Z 19, exemption for services § 6(1).
• Service providers: services meet § 4(3) (§ 14(1)); the information of Anlage 3 is published in writing and orally and in an accessible way (§ 14(2)); Anlage 3 Z 1 asks the general terms or a similar document to say how the service meets the requirements.
• Disproportionate burden: § 18 and Anlage 4.
• Market surveillance: the Sozialministeriumservice (§ 21 to § 23; services § 28: a deadline to fix first, then an order). Official information.
• Reports (§ 35): consumers and bodies such as the VKI, the Behindertenrat, the Arbeiterkammer and the WKÖ can report possible breaches; the Sozialministeriumservice answers in writing within 8 weeks.
• Penalties (§ 36): up to EUR 80,000 for a non-compliant service (§ 36(1) Z 3), up to EUR 40,000 and EUR 16,000 for missing or wrong information (§ 36(2) and (3)), with lower caps for small and medium enterprises.

Web Accessibility Directive (EU) 2016/2102

ELI. Websites and apps of public sector bodies.

• Applies to all websites since 23 September 2020 and to apps since 23 June 2021 (art. 12(3)).
• Accessibility statement (art. 7(1)): detailed, clear, kept up to date, in the model of Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523, with the non-accessible content and why, a feedback mechanism, and a link to the enforcement procedure. The model's sections: compliance status (fully, partially or not compliant), non-accessible content (non-compliance, disproportionate burden, out of scope) with alternatives, preparation (date, and self-assessment or third-party assessment), feedback and contact, enforcement.
• Monitoring: Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1524.

Austria: Web-Zugänglichkeits-Gesetz (WZG)

BGBl. I Nr. 59/2019, RIS, Gesetzesnummer 20010727. It covers websites and apps of federal bodies; each Land has its own law for its own bodies.

• Requirements: perceivable, operable, understandable, robust, with presumption through the cited standard (§ 3).
• Erklärung zur Barrierefreiheit (§ 4(1) and (2)): published in an accessible format, kept up to date, reachable from the start page; for an app on the developer's site or at download.
• Feedback mechanism (§ 4(3)): reports are examined and answered with the result and the measures within two months, as are requests for exempt content.
• Monitoring and complaints: the FFG (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft mbH, § 5(2)). Complaints only through its electronic channel: complaint form, for problems with the form beschwerdestelle-wzg@ffg.at. The nine Länder have their own complaint bodies (list).

The standard: EN 301 549, and WCAG

• Cited version: EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03), by Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/1339, for the Web Accessibility Directive. Its chapter 9 takes over the 50 success criteria of WCAG 2.1 level A and AA as clauses 9.1.1.1 to 9.4.1.3 (including 9.4.1.1 Parsing), plus 9.6, the WCAG conformance requirements (ETSI PDF).
• EN 301 549 V4.1.1 (2026-09) is published and aligned to WCAG 2.2: 55 criteria, with the six new ones as 9.2.4.11, 9.2.5.7, 9.2.5.8, 9.3.2.6, 9.3.3.7 and 9.3.3.8, 9.4.1.1 void, and an annex that maps it to the EAA (ETSI PDF). It is not cited in the Official Journal yet, so it is not the legal reference (AccessibleEU, 7 September 2026). As far as we could find, no harmonised standard is cited under the EAA as of this date.
• WCAG 2.2, W3C Recommendation, current edition of 12 December 2024 (w3.org/TR/WCAG22): 31 criteria at level A and 24 at AA; 4.1.1 Parsing is obsolete and removed. WCAG 2.1, current edition of 6 May 2025 (w3.org/TR/WCAG21): 30 at A and 20 at AA.

What the accessibility check does

compliance_check (for agents) and Accessibility and legal check (in the editor: the command palette, or Design checks) check a page or an artboard against a profile:

Every criterion comes back failed (with its layers and a fix), passed, not applicable, or needs a person (with a short test). How each is reached:

1. A failure a check found fails the criterion. A person's mark does not lift it: fix the design.
2. Otherwise a person's mark decides: pass, fail or not applicable, with their name, the date and a note.
3. Otherwise a criterion Bogen checks itself passes when its checks ran and found nothing.
4. Otherwise a criterion about content the design does not have (video, sound, form fields, time limits) does not apply.
5. Everything else needs a person, including every criterion Bogen checks only in part.

The overall status is Does not meet the profile while anything failed, Not decided yet while anything is open, and All criteria met as checked only when every criterion passed or does not apply, by the checks and by the people who marked them. Even then it is a record of checks, not a claim of conformance. The automated pass rate (criteria the checks passed, over those they decided) is reported separately and never stands for the status.

How much a design check can decide

Of the 55 WCAG 2.2 A and AA criteria, Bogen decides 5 itself (1.4.3 contrast, 1.4.10 reflow, 1.4.12 text spacing, 2.5.8 target size, 3.1.1 language of page), finds failures of 22 more that a person then decides, and leaves 28 to a person. For WCAG 2.1 and EN 301 549 V3.2.1 it is 5, 20 and 25, plus clause 9.6 for a person. Automated tools find a part of the problems; keyboard use, screen readers, media and anything that happens over time are tested by people, on the built page.

The checks, rendered in the same headless browser as screenshots and exports:

• axe-core 4.14 (MPL-2.0) with its WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 A and AA rules, run on the artboard and mapped back to layers by the WCAG tags of each rule. Violations fail, "incomplete" results become things for a person to look at. Rules about the whole HTML document (language, title, viewport) are left to Bogen, because a render of one artboard is not the exported document.
• a11y_audit: heading order, landmarks, names, alt text, link text, target size, focus, motion.
• Non-text contrast (1.4.11): field borders or fills, and icons that are a control's only content, under 3:1 against what is around them.
• Reflow (1.4.10) at 320 CSS px, with responsive_check's measurement; content in tables and scrolling areas is left to a person, and a page with its own phone artboard is judged on that one. Text cut off at 640 px stands in for 200 % zoom (1.4.4).
• Text spacing (1.4.12): line height 1.5, paragraph spacing 2, letter spacing 0.12 and word spacing 0.16 times the font size; text that is cut off then fails.
• Language of the page (3.1.1, from the page's lang or the file's design language) and of parts (3.1.2, German or English text in a part marked as the other).
• Forms: autocomplete on personal data (1.3.5), required fields said in the label (3.3.2), a field marked invalid with no message in words (3.3.1), password fields that block password managers (3.3.8).
• Positive tabindex (2.4.3), an aria-label that leaves out the visible words (2.5.3), sticky layers that can cover focus (2.4.11), endless motion (2.2.2), a page name that says nothing (2.4.2), duplicate ids (4.1.1 in EN 301 549 V3.2.1).

The checklist a person marks

What only a person can decide has a short test and Pass, Fail and Not applicable, with a note. Marks are stored in the file, per page, with the name of the person and the date, so they sync, undo and travel with the file. Agents read them; only a person makes them in the editor.

Accessibility statement and report

compliance_statement, and Accessibility statement in the editor, draft an Erklärung zur Barrierefreiheit in German and English in the sections of the EU model, from the check: status never better than the check allows, failed criteria as non-accessible content, the date and the method (self-assessment supported by Bogen), feedback and contact, and the enforcement procedure (the FFG under the WZG, the Sozialministeriumservice under the BaFG). What Bogen cannot know is marked [Ausfüllen: ...] or [Fill in: ...]. Export HTML and Export PDF (or export on compliance_check) write the whole report through Bogen's own export.

The full map of every criterion, its EN 301 549 clause, how Bogen checks it and the test for a person is at the end of this page.

Other legal requirements for what you design

Reminders, with their source, that compliance_check adds with legal: true (always in the editor). Bogen flags what a design can show, words it as something to look at, and lists the rest for a person. It never says whether something is lawful.

Also worth knowing:

• The ODR platform link is no longer needed: Regulation (EU) 524/2013 was repealed with effect from 20 July 2025 (Regulation (EU) 2024/3228).
• The Digital Fairness Act is a Commission proposal of 11 November 2026, not law (Commission page).

Criterion map

How each WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 criterion of level A and AA is checked. auto: Bogen decides it from the design. partial: Bogen finds some failures, and a person decides. manual: a person decides.