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Good practice Imported

ACM's Phased Crackdown on Inaccessible E-Commerce Under the European Accessibility Act

Netherlands · The Hague · See the Netherlands profile · See the The Hague profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 24% 92/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since the EU Accessibility Act took effect in June 2025, Dutch regulator ACM has run a phased e-commerce rollout — voluntary then mandatory disclosure, audits from spring 2026 — while publicly admitting a 'very big gap' between industry and compliance.

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM), the Netherlands
Period
2025–2026
Region (NUTS)
NL33
Keywords
e-commerce, consumer protection, digital accessibility, regulation

Context

Since the European Accessibility Act (EAA) became enforceable EU-wide on 28 June 2025, Dutch e-commerce and communications businesses with 10+ employees or over EUR 2 million turnover must meet digital accessibility rules. The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is one of five sector regulators sharing EAA enforcement in the Netherlands (alongside AFM, RDI, CvdM and ILT), and covers the largest, most visible slice: online shops and communications services.

Objectives

To bring e-commerce and communications businesses into compliance through graduated engagement rather than opening with fines, while building the evidence base needed for later formal enforcement.

Activities

ACM first allowed voluntary self-reporting of non-compliance through 15 October 2025, after which reporting became mandatory. It has since sent information requests to e-commerce operators worldwide selling to Dutch consumers, including non-EU-headquartered companies. Businesses that did not respond, or responded incompletely, are being prioritised for audits starting spring 2026, with enforcement expected to escalate through the second half of the year.

Results

ACM project leader Hanneke van Rooijen stated publicly that there is "a very big gap between the status of the industry and the compliance with EAA," while stressing that fines are "absolutely not the goal" — the stated approach is to test non-responders, analyse results, then open deeper investigations and formal enforcement only where needed.

Conclusions

The Dutch sequencing — disclosure, engagement and evidence-gathering before enforcement, spread across five sector regulators — is a transferable regulatory pattern other EU market surveillance authorities are reportedly watching as they build their own EAA audit capacity.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
ACM project leader and senior supervisory officers (e.g. Hanneke van Rooijen) coordinating e-commerce EAA enforcement, four sister regulators (AFM, RDI, CvdM, ILT) covering financial services, products, media and transport respectively

Conditions for success

  • EU-wide statutory backing (the EAA, enforceable from 28 June 2025) giving national regulators a common legal basis
  • A phased sequence — voluntary self-report, then mandatory disclosure, then targeted audits — to build evidence before sanctioning
  • Clear turnover/headcount thresholds (10+ employees or over EUR 2 million turnover) to focus scarce regulatory capacity
  • Cross-border information requests, since many e-commerce operators selling to Dutch consumers are headquartered outside the EU

Common failure modes

  • A large gap between industry status and compliance, by the regulator's own admission, at the point mandatory disclosure took effect
  • Audits and formal enforcement do not begin until spring 2026, so compliance impact is not yet demonstrated

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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