How Brands Can Navigate the European Accessibility Act

Starting June 2025, brands offering services in the EU will be required to meet new digital accessibility standards under the European Accessibility Act (EAA). If your brand serves customers in the EU — especially through websites, mobile apps, or self-service platforms — this regulation likely applies to you.

The good news? There's still time to prepare. But it's essential to prioritize addressing accessibility.

Let's break down what the EAA is, why it matters to marketers, and how your brand can build more inclusive experiences.

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is a new EU regulation designed to make sure that people with disabilities can access digital services — just like anyone else.

It goes into effect on June 28, 2025, and it applies to a wide range of customer-facing services in the EU, including:

• E-commerce platforms

• Transportation websites and apps

• Banking and financial services

• Ticketing machines and check-in kiosks

• Audiovisual media and e-books / e-readers

To comply, brands must align their digital experiences with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA — a widely recognized set of web accessibility standards.

This could be as simple as making that text on your website meets minimum color contrast requirements, so that it's readable by people with low vision — or adding alt text to key images so screen readers can describe them out loud.

This isn't just about legal risk (though non-compliance can lead to fines or services being pulled from the market). It's about serving the 87 million people in the EU living with a disability — nearly one in five residents.

If your brand operates in the EU and falls into one of the categories above, then yes — the EAA likely applies to you.

That includes digital touchpoints like:

• Online checkout experiences

• Customer portals or booking engines

• Store locators and landing pages

• On-site search or chatbot tools

Essentially, it's important to make sure every touchpoint meets accessibility best practices. At Yext, we're investing in our products and services to support accessibility — and we're here to guide brands on how to put best practices into action.

We believe accessibility should be built into digital experiences — not tacked on at the end. That's why we've invested in three key areas to help our clients meet their goals:

1. Building internal accessibility expertise: We've rolled out specialized accessibility training across our Product and Services teams – including access to IAAP certification. This is helping us embed accessibility thinking into everything we design, build, and maintain.

2. Third-party accessibility assessments: We're partnering with an external vendor to perform VPAT assessments (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates) on our core software. These reviews — focused on areas like Knowledge Graph, Listings, and Pages. These assessments help benchmark progress toward WCAG 2.2 compliance.

3. Ongoing monitoring and remediation: Accessibility isn't a one-time effort. We're introducing internal processes to monitor accessibility issues and prioritize fixes during the development cycle — not just after launch.

If you're a multi-location brand serving customers in the EU, now is the time to get ahead of this regulation. Here's where to start:

1. Audit your digital experiences: Start with your customer-facing websites and apps. Use automated tools (i.e. Wave and accessibilityinsights.io) to flag common technical issues – but follow up with a deeper, manual review to catch things automated tests will not catch. We'll also perform a number of targeted manual tests covering key areas, and we'll share those outputs as part of our ongoing support.

2. Align your team around accessibility: Accessibility isn't just a dev issue. Loop in brand, design, marketing, and legal to facilitate alignment across the board.

3. Build accessibility into your roadmap: Know that fixing gaps takes time. Prioritize updates, assign ownership, and make accessibility part of your roadmap. "Accessibility" isn't a box to check; it should be a part of the future of all of your offerings.

4. Rethink quick fixes: Accessibility overlay widgets often promise easy fixes — but many fail to meet EAA standards. They can also increase page load times, which may negatively impact SEO. Instead, choose long-term solutions that integrate accessibility into your site design and content.

5. Bring your providers into the process: If Yext powers part of your digital presence, talk to us early. We'll help you assess what's in scope and how to move forward — together.

The EAA marks a turning point — not just in compliance, but in what customers expect from digital experiences.

By building accessible experiences now, you're not only protecting your brand — you're reaching more people, with more impact. Companies that offer accessible services not only open up larger sales markets and competitive advantages. They are also well-positioned for the future.