The BFSG for online shops: who it covers and what it requires

The BFSG is the German law that transposes the European Accessibility Act, Directive (EU) 2019/882. Its short title is Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz, in English roughly “Accessibility Strengthening Act”, and it has been in force since 28 June 2025.

Its full title names the directive it implements: Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie (EU) 2019/882 des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates über die Barrierefreiheitsanforderungen für Produkte und Dienstleistungen. The BFSG is dated 16 July 2021 and was published in the Federal Law Gazette, BGBl. I p. 2970 (full text of the BFSG). It was passed as Article 1 of a wider act of that date. Apart from a few provisions that took effect on 23 July 2021, it entered into force on 28 June 2025. As of 6 October 2026, it was last amended by Article 32 of the Act of 6 May 2024 (BGBl. 2024 I No. 149).

The detailed requirements are in a regulation under the BFSG: the Verordnung über die Barrierefreiheitsanforderungen für Produkte und Dienstleistungen nach dem Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSGV of 15 June 2022). The BFSGV implements Annex I of the directive. For the directive itself, see the European Accessibility Act for online shops.

The BFSG applies to e-commerce services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025. § 1(3) BFSG lists the services the law covers, and number 5 on that list is Dienstleistungen im elektronischen Geschäftsverkehr: services in electronic commerce.

§ 2 BFSG defines e-commerce services as digital services within the meaning of § 1(4) no. 1 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz that are offered through websites and through applications on mobile devices, and that are provided electronically, at the individual request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a consumer contract.

The definition names websites and mobile apps side by side. It refers to consumers twice: the service is provided at a consumer’s request, and with a view to a contract with a consumer. Whether a particular shop falls under it, for example a shop that sells only to businesses, is a legal assessment that this guide does not make.

The BFSG has been in force since 28 June 2025. § 38 BFSG sets transitional rules for products a service provider already used to provide its services, for contracts concluded before that date, and for self-service terminals.

§ 38 does not say that a shop’s website may stay inaccessible until 2030. It is about the products a provider uses, about existing contracts and about self-service terminals.

Micro-enterprises that provide services are exempt from the BFSG’s general accessibility requirement. § 3(3) BFSG states that § 3(1), the requirement that products and services be accessible, does not apply to micro-enterprises that offer or provide services.

§ 2 BFSG defines a micro-enterprise (Kleinstunternehmen) by two conditions, and both must be met:

• it employs fewer than ten people, and
• its annual turnover is at most EUR 2 million, or its annual balance sheet total is at most EUR 2 million.

So a company that employs ten or more people is not a micro-enterprise under this definition, whatever its turnover. A company that employs fewer than ten people is one only if at least one of the two amounts is EUR 2 million or less.

The BFSG requires an e-commerce service to be accessible, and the BFSGV sets out what that means for websites, apps and functions such as payment. § 3(1) BFSG states that services an economic operator offers or provides must be accessible (barrierefrei): people with disabilities can find, access and use them in the generally usual way, without particular difficulty and in principle without help from others.

The BFSGV makes this concrete. § 12 BFSGV sets general requirements for services, including websites and apps. § 19 BFSGV adds requirements for e-commerce services. Where the two provisions set design requirements, they use the same four words. WCAG 2.2 uses the same four words as the names of the four principles that organise its success criteria, and the table refers to them that way. The table shows the requirements this guide covers; it is not a complete list of the BFSGV.

The passages of §§ 12 and 19 BFSGV summarised in the table do not name WCAG or EN 301 549. How the four principles become testable success criteria, and which standard is referenced where, is covered in WCAG 2.2 AA and EN 301 549: which one applies to an online shop.

§ 4 BFSG presumes that a product or service meets the BFSGV’s requirements when it conforms to harmonised standards whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, as far as those standards cover the requirements. As of 6 October 2026, Validiscan found no reference to a harmonised standard under the European Accessibility Act published in the Official Journal.

EN 301 549 V3.2.1 is cited in the Official Journal under a different directive, the Web Accessibility Directive (EU) 2016/2102, by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/1339. What that citation means for § 4 BFSG is a legal question that this guide does not answer, and this guide does not say that meeting WCAG or EN 301 549 gives a shop the presumption of § 4.

A service provider may offer or provide its service only if it has prepared the information listed in Annex 3 (Anlage 3) of the BFSG and made it available to the public in an accessible form. That is the rule of § 14(1) BFSG, next to the requirement that the service meets the BFSGV.

Annex 3 of the BFSG says where and what. The service provider (Dienstleistungserbringer) gives the information in its general terms and conditions (Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen) or in another clearly perceptible way. The information contains:

• a) a general description of the service, in an accessible format;
• b) the descriptions and explanations needed to understand how the service is carried out;
• c) a description of how the service meets the relevant accessibility requirements of the BFSGV;
• d) the competent market surveillance authority.

§ 14 BFSG also sets ongoing duties: to keep meeting the requirements, to correct a service that does not meet them, to inform the market surveillance authority when the service does not meet them, and to cooperate with the authority at its request. How this information is written up for a shop is the subject of what an accessibility statement for an online shop must contain.

Besides the micro-enterprise rule and the transitional rules of § 38, the BFSG has a provision on fundamental changes (§ 16) and one on disproportionate burdens (§ 17). This guide names them and does not summarise their conditions.

§ 16 BFSG (Grundlegende Veränderungen) concerns requirements that could be met only by fundamentally changing the essential characteristics of a product or service. § 17 BFSG (Unverhältnismäßige Belastungen) deals with disproportionate burdens. Whether either applies to a particular shop is a legal assessment. Separately, the table of contents of the BFSG lists § 15, on advice offered by the Bundesfachstelle für Barrierefreiheit.

The BFSG links a service provider’s duties to a market surveillance authority: the information a shop publishes names the competent authority, and § 14 requires the provider to inform it when the service does not meet the requirements and to cooperate with it at its request. § 2 BFSG defines the market surveillance authority (Marktüberwachungsbehörde) as every authority that is competent under the law of a Land for carrying out market surveillance.

The 16 German federal states (Länder) set up a joint authority to carry out the tasks under the BFSG: the Marktüberwachungsstelle der Länder für die Barrierefreiheit von Produkten und Dienstleistungen (MLBF), in English roughly the market surveillance office of the federal states for the accessibility of products and services. It is a public-law institution with its seat in Magdeburg, and it monitors, nationwide, whether the products and services the BFSG covers meet its accessibility requirements (the MLBF’s own description). Its website is mlbf-barrierefrei.de.

The part of the BFSG on administrative procedure, legal remedies and conciliation gives consumers, and certain associations, routes of their own (table of contents of the BFSG):

• An application to the authority. Under § 32 BFSG, a consumer can apply to the market surveillance authority to start proceedings against an economic operator that, the consumer says, breaches the BFSG or the BFSGV. The consumer can have an association recognised under § 15(3) of the Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz (BGG), Germany’s federal disability equality act, or a qualified entity under the Unterlassungsklagengesetz, the German act on injunctions, make the application for them or in their place. Such an association or entity can also apply in its own right when the alleged breach touches the area of activity set out in its statutes. The authority decides on the application by a formal decision.
• Legal remedies. § 33 BFSG, headed Rechtsbehelfe (legal remedies), lets a consumer, under the conditions of § 32, have such an association or entity pursue legal remedies under the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (Verwaltungsgerichtsordnung) for them or in their place. Recognised associations can also bring proceedings before the administrative courts themselves.
• Conciliation. Under § 34 BFSG (PDF), headed Schlichtung (conciliation), a consumer who says that an economic operator breaches the BFSG or the BFSGV, and that they therefore cannot use a product or service or can use it only in a limited way, can apply to the conciliation body under § 16(1) BGG.

§ 37 BFSG lists administrative offences (Ordnungswidrigkeiten), which can be committed intentionally or negligently. One of them, no. 8 of § 37(1), is aimed at service providers: offering or providing a service contrary to § 14(1) BFSG, the provision described above. The fine for it is up to EUR 100,000. Some breaches of a service provider’s duties to inform the market surveillance authority are also offences under § 37, with fines of up to EUR 10,000.

Validiscan is a web accessibility remediation service for EU online shops on Shopify, Shopware, WooCommerce and Magento. It scans a shop against WCAG 2.2 AA and EN 301 549, delivers the fixes as changes to the shop’s own source code, and documents the result in a dated Remediation Evidence Package. It does not assess whether a shop meets the BFSG: that is a legal assessment, for the shop and its lawyer.

The fixes are delivered as a pull request, an unpublished copy of a Shopify theme, or a patch bundle. After the verification scan, the Remediation Evidence Package records what was tested, what was changed and what the verification scan confirmed. Its scope statement begins: “Conformance with WCAG 2.1 AA and WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria as evaluated on the listed pages and dates.” It also says: “This package is evidence of an evaluation and of remediation work. It is not a certificate and does not state legal compliance.” The package includes a draft accessibility statement for the shop, marked as a draft for legal review.

Automated checks find a share of accessibility failures, not all of them. What automated accessibility testing can and cannot prove explains where a person has to check, and how a project runs describes each step from the baseline scan to the package.