EN 301 549
EN 301 549 is the European standard for ICT accessibility, used across EU public procurement and referenced by the European Accessibility Act.
EN 301 549, titled Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services, is the European standard that defines what accessible information and communication technology must do. It is developed jointly by the three European standards organizations, ETSI, CEN, and CENELEC, and it functions as Europe's counterpart to the U.S. Section 508 standards.
The standard is broad in scope. It covers websites and web applications, but also non-web software, electronic documents, hardware, and support services such as help desks and documentation. For web content specifically, EN 301 549 incorporates the WCAG success criteria by reference, so conforming web content is effectively WCAG-conforming web content plus the additional ICT requirements that WCAG does not address.
EN 301 549 first gained legal weight through the EU Web Accessibility Directive (Directive 2016/2102), which requires public-sector websites and mobile applications across member states to be accessible. The standard serves as the harmonized technical specification: an organization that meets it is presumed to meet the directive's legal obligations. It is also the reference standard used to demonstrate conformance under the European Accessibility Act.
Like all standards, EN 301 549 is versioned, and successive versions have tracked newer WCAG releases. Organizations subject to European requirements should confirm which version and which WCAG level applies to their situation, because the referenced WCAG baseline determines exactly which success criteria are in force. Because the underlying web criteria are WCAG, a site tested against current WCAG covers the large majority of EN 301 549's web-content requirements.
Sources
Primary references for the facts on this page. Links open in a new tab.
Test the web-content layer of EN 301 549
Because EN 301 549 adopts WCAG for web content, a WCAG scan is the fastest way to see how your site measures against its web requirements.
Scan against WCAGRelated terms
European Accessibility Act (EAA)
The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) requires a wide range of private-sector products and services to be accessible across the EU, with obligations applying from June 28, 2025.
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
WCAG is the W3C's technical standard for making web content accessible, and the benchmark most accessibility laws point to.
Section 508
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires U.S. federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible, using WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the technical standard.
VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template)
A VPAT is a standardized template, published by ITI, that vendors use to document how their product conforms to accessibility standards.
Check your own site
Run a free scan against WCAG 2.2 Level AA. You get a score, a severity breakdown, and fix suggestions in seconds. Automated scanning covers the machine-testable criteria; pair it with manual testing for full coverage.