Since 28 June 2025, a range of products and services must meet accessibility requirements for people with disabilities. E-commerce is part of the list, alongside telephony, banking services, transport and audiovisual media.

The topic has gone largely unnoticed by merchants, because it didn't arrive through the usual channel: it's neither a tax rule nor a data protection rule, but a product compliance rule, enforced by the DGCCRF (the French consumer protection and fraud control authority).

Who is affected

The requirement applies to companies with at least 10 employees and annual turnover above €2 million. Below these two thresholds, a micro-enterprise stays outside the scope.

Be careful how you read the threshold: crossing the line during the year brings you into scope. A fast-growing store can become subject to the rules without anyone asking the question.

What this means for a store

Accessibility isn't a layer you add at the end. It covers the entire journey: finding a product, understanding a product page, filling in a form, correcting an input error, paying.

The most common failures are mundane. Light grey text on a white background that nobody rereads. A button that can only be clicked with a mouse. A product image with no description. An error message flagged by a single color, invisible to anyone who can't tell it apart. A checkout that can't be completed with a keyboard.

These are exactly the points that also make able-bodied customers abandon their carts. An accessible store happens to be a store that converts better, and that's no coincidence.

What happens if you fall short

DGCCRF agents can order a business to bring its service into compliance, and that order can come with a daily penalty payment and publicity measures. Failures to meet the accessibility obligations set out in the French Consumer Code (code de la consommation) are fifth-class contraventions, meaning fines of €7,500, which can be cumulated depending on the number of failures found.

Inspections began as soon as the rules came into force, particularly following complaints. And a consumer can now report an accessibility failure directly through SignalConso: the starting point of an inspection is therefore no longer necessarily an inspection campaign.

Four checks you can run yourself, today

Navigate with the keyboard only. Put the mouse away and work through a product page all the way to payment using the Tab key. If you get stuck somewhere, so will a customer.

Look at your contrast. The trendy light grey on legal notices and field labels is the most widespread failure, and the easiest to fix.

Trigger a form error. Submit an empty field. If the only signal is a red outline, with no text saying what's missing, the information doesn't exist for part of your visitors.

Turn off the images. A product page whose images have no description goes silent. That's also what search engines see.

Where to start

With the checkout, not the home page. That's where the requirement carries the heaviest consequences, and where every fix shows up directly in your conversion rate.

Sources: DGCCRF practical guides on the "Accessibility" directive, in force since 28 June 2025, consulted on 10 September 2026.