BFIT-Bund's Second EU Monitoring Report — Tracking Digital Accessibility Across German Public Bodies

Under the EU Web Accessibility Directive (EU) 2016/2102, Germany's Überwachungsstelle des Bundes für Barrierefreiheit von Informationstechnik (BFIT-Bund) — an independent unit based in Berlin — monitors the accessibility of federal and Länder public-sector websites and apps against BITV 2.0 and EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1.

For its second reporting cycle (1 January 2022 – 22 December 2024), BFIT-Bund and the Länder monitoring bodies tested 7,239 websites (322 in depth) and 269 apps — more than triple the 1,892 websites (130 in depth) and 57 apps tested in the first cycle (2020/21).

Not a single tested website or app fully met all accessibility requirements in either cycle. Compliance with the four WCAG principles for websites ranged from 51% (robustness) to 82% (understandability and operability); in-depth app monitoring found robustness as low as 37.5%. State-level bodies had the highest average compliance (74%, up marginally from 73%), and BFIT-Bund itself describes overall progress since 2020/21 as small. Publication of the legally required accessibility statement rose from 36% to 48% of sites, but only 13.5% of statements fully met the formal requirements, as independent accessibility consultancy Barrierekompass and the trade outlet Haufe both noted in their coverage of the same report.

BFIT-Bund's own mandatory repeat inspections — at least 10% of the previous cycle's sample, per EU rules — found 'in most cases no significantly improved results,' which the office attributes largely to the long development and update cycles of public websites and apps.

Read the full analysis: https://www.bfit-bund.de/DE/Publikation/zweiter-eu-kurzbericht-2024.html