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Good practice Imported

Portugal's Decree-Law 83/2018 — Mandatory Web & App Accessibility with EU-Reported Audits

Portugal · Lisbon · See the Portugal profile · See the Lisbon profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 30% 88/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Portugal's Decree-Law 83/2018 made public-sector websites and apps legally accessible, with AMA auditing compliance and reporting to the EU every three years; its 2022-2024 report found contrast-ratio failures on over 88% of audited sites.

88%+
Websites with contrast-ratio failures (2022-2024)
80%
Individual pages with contrast-ratio failures (2022-2024)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Agência para a Modernização Administrativa (AMA)
Period
2018–ongoing
Region (NUTS)
PT
Keywords
digital government, web accessibility, regulatory compliance

Context

Portugal's Decree-Law 83/2018 transposed EU Directive 2016/2102, requiring public-sector websites and mobile apps to meet WCAG-based accessibility requirements, with the Agência para a Modernização Administrativa (AMA) responsible for monitoring compliance and reporting to the European Commission every three years.

Objectives

To make Portuguese public-sector digital services legally accessible and to track compliance transparently over time, comparably with other EU/EEA states.

Activities

AMA runs recurring monitoring campaigns against public-sector sites and apps; organisations that fail an evaluation receive formal requirements to adapt, and results are published in reports submitted to Brussels alongside other member states running the same Directive-mandated exercise.

Results

AMA's 2022/2024 monitoring report found contrast-ratio failures — insufficient colour contrast for low-vision users — on over 88% of the websites and 80% of the individual pages audited, the single most common defect identified.

Conclusions

Even six years after the Decree-Law took effect, implementation still lags its requirements; the figure is a rare, government-published, longitudinal measure of that shortfall rather than a self-certified success claim.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — A regulatory monitoring and enforcement function run by an existing government agency (AMA) rather than new capital infrastructure — low direct cost, borne through recurring audit cycles.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — In force since 2018 with recurring three-year monitoring and reporting cycles; the cited report covers 2022-2024.
Staffing & skills
Agência para a Modernização Administrativa (AMA) — designated monitoring authority

Conditions for success

  • Statutory reporting obligation to the European Commission every three years, creating a recurring accountability cycle
  • Formal 'requirement to adapt' issued to non-compliant organisations rather than a report-only process

Common failure modes

  • Contrast-ratio failures remain the most common defect on over 88% of audited sites six years after the law took effect

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes CERV — Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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