European websites under-performing on accessibility for disabled people on the eve of the European Accessibility Act

One week before the European Accessibility Act (EAA) deadline, European websites are still insufficiently accessible for people with disabilities. Of 266,000 home pages tested in 18 European countries, 93% (92.97%) showed obvious accessibility problems. This is only a minimal improvement (-0.84%) compared to last year. This is according to the second edition of the Digital Trust Index, an annual large-scale study conducted by digital consultancy firm Craftzing. The European Accessibility Act comes into force on 28 June 2025 and sets out requirements for the digital accessibility of essential products and services. From now on, Belgian companies with over 10 employees and in excess of € 2 million in turnover will risk being fined up to € 150,000 per breach.

"Digital services are the backbone of our society, from how we shop and bank to how we communicate and learn. Inaccessible websites exclude 1 in 4 Europeans. People with visual disabilities struggle to read the text. Colour-blind people encounter difficulties with correctly interpreting graphics or icons. People with hand impairments may struggle to navigate a website and those with cognitive disabilities may be unable to understand complex structures. It is important that companies and governments are aware of this. Digital society should work for everybody.” - Roeland Tegenbos, CEO of Craftzing

The Belgian result reflects the European average but shows slight improvement

All of the tested countries, including Belgium, are under-performing. Just like last year, Belgium has been rated in the middle of the European rankings. Of the 7,612 Belgian websites scanned, 92.49% had accessibility problems. This is a fraction better than the European average. But there is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel, compared to 2024: Belgium achieved the third best progress rate of all countries tested, with a 1.75% drop in the number of websites with problems. As a result, Belgium has moved two places up the rankings, from seventh to fifth position. Belgium is ranked just above the Netherlands. The Scandinavian countries, Norway, Finland and Sweden, realise the best scores in Europe.

Public sector is doing the best

This year’s research encompasses an analysis for each economic sector. In general, there is little variation between most sectors, however the public sector scores significantly higher across almost all countries, with a score around 10% better than the average.In Belgium, the public sector achieves the highest score, with ‘just’ 79.51% of the websites struggling with accessibility issues. This is around 13% better than the Belgian average. The public sector working for our northerly neighbours did even better: 63.8% of Dutch websites from the public sector category are failing to fulfil contemporary accessibility requirements. The retail sector is consistently the lowest scoring sector across Europe. In Belgium, the three worst-performing sectors were mobility & logistics, retail and technology.

“The variation between sectors is notable and shows that clear regulations, as in the public sector, make a real difference. I am curious to see how businesses tackle this. Accessibility is not just a nice to have; an inaccessible website means lost customers, lost sales and a dent in your reputation. By being inclusive from the outset, companies not only demonstrate their corporate social responsibility, they also unlock a wider market and build sustainable trust." – Femke De Roo, Inclusion Lead at Craftzing

AI chatbots are increasingly common but these also fail to make the grade

In addition to the automated test, the chatbots of 15 popular Belgian websites were also examined. Despite their growing popularity and seemingly simple form, most AI-assisted chatbots are inaccessible to people with visual or motor disabilities. Only 2 of the 15 chatbots tested met the four checkpoints (use with keyboard, screen reader, zoom in, colour contrast). Problems were identified most frequently when using a screen reader (twelve chatbots) and keyboard navigation (six chatbots).

Most common accessibility issues

The most common problems also pose significant obstacles for many users: low colour contrast, difficult to distinguish links, missing text descriptions for images (alt text), poor or missing labels for links and buttons, and incorrect language settings. Although these problems throw up considerable barriers, they are relatively easy to resolve with the right expertise. Compared to last year, the obstacles have not changed.

Time for action

The results of the Digital Trust Index 2025 underline that Europe – including Belgium – still needs to take significant steps to make digital services accessible to all. With the deadline of the European Accessibility Act looming, it is crucial that companies take urgent action to comply and avoid potential fines.

"The B2C organisations in Belgium are far from ready for the European Accessibility Act, which comes into force next week. The fines in the e-commerce and consumer banking sectors could be as high as € 150,000 per breach. That is no small sum, and the fines for other sectors are still unclear. Craftzing is supporting stringent follow-up. Given the fact that various authorities and administrative bodies have responsibility in our country, this fragmentation should not be an obstacle to strict compliance with the directive. We therefore hope to see a clear signal from the political world, such as from the federal minister for Equal Opportunities. Only then will businesses feel obliged to do the right thing and create a digitalised society in which everyone can participate. ” - Roeland Tegenbos, CEO of Craftzing

Accessibility is not the final piece of the puzzle, but an essential part of a digital platform, right from the start of the development process. Embracing the European Accessibility Act (EAA) is an opportunity not only to improve the user experience and reach a wider audience (including the 100 million Europeans with disabilities) but also to increase digital confidence in general.

^{About the Digital Trust Index}

^{The Digital Trust Index is an annual research initiative conducted by the digital consultancy Craftzing to measure the accessibility of digital platforms. For the 2025 edition, Craftzing used an automated test that was carried out on a representative sample of 266,000 European domain names, from the Tranco list of top websites. With various test tools, Craftzing created a research application which tested 266,000 of the home pages of EU websites on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1, levels A and AA.}

^{A total of 18 European countries were analysed. Craftzing analysed no countries that had fewer than 4,000 websites in their testing sample. This would have generated a significant difference with other countries and would have hindered comparisons between the other EU countries. This is why some European countries were excluded from the sample. In Belgium, 7,612 websites were analysed in this way.}