CHAPTER I

General provisions

Subject matter
Article 1
The purpose of this Directive is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by approximating the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States as regards accessibility requirements for certain products and services by, in particular, eliminating and preventing barriers to the free movement of products and services covered by this Directive arising from divergent accessibility requirements in the Member States.

Scope
Article 2
1
This Directive applies to the following products placed on the market after 28 June 2025:
a
consumer general purpose computer hardware systems and operating systems for those hardware systems;
b
the following self-service terminals:
1. payment terminals;
2. the following self-service terminals dedicated to the provision of services covered by this Directive:
  - automated teller machines;
  - ticketing machines;
  - check-in machines;
  - interactive self-service terminals providing information, excluding terminals installed as integrated parts of vehicles, aircrafts, ships or rolling stock;
c
consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability, used for electronic communications services;
d
consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability, used for accessing audiovisual media services; and
e
e-readers.
2
Without prejudice to Article 32, this Directive applies to the following services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025:
a
electronic communications services with the exception of transmission services used for the provision of machine-to-machine services;
b
services providing access to audiovisual media services;
c
the following elements of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport services, except for urban, suburban and regional transport services for which only the elements under point (v) apply:
1. websites;
2. mobile device-based services including mobile applications;
3. electronic tickets and electronic ticketing services;
4. delivery of transport service information, including real-time travel information; this shall, with regard to information screens, be limited to interactive screens located within the territory of the Union; and
5. interactive self-service terminals located within the territory of the Union, except those installed as integrated parts of vehicles, aircrafts, ships and rolling stock used in the provision of any part of such passenger transport services;
d
consumer banking services;
e
e-books and dedicated software; and
f
e-commerce services.
3
This Directive applies to answering emergency communications to the single European emergency number ‘112’.
4
This Directive does not apply to the following content of websites and mobile applications:
a
pre-recorded time-based media published before 28 June 2025;
b
office file formats published before 28 June 2025;
c
online maps and mapping services, if essential information is provided in an accessible digital manner for maps intended for navigational use;
d
third-party content that is neither funded, developed by, or under the control of, the economic operator concerned;
e
content of websites and mobile applications qualifying as archives, meaning that they only contain content that is not updated or edited after 28 June 2025.
5
This Directive shall be without prejudice to Directive (EU) 2017/1564 and Regulation (EU) 2017/1563.

Definitions
Article 3
For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions apply:
1. ‘persons with disabilities’ means persons who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others;
2. ‘product’ means a substance, preparation, or good produced through a manufacturing process, other than food, feed, living plants and animals, products of human origin and products of plants and animals relating directly to their future reproduction;
3. ‘service’ means a service as defined in point 1 of Article 4 of Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ;
4. ‘service provider’ means any natural or legal person who provides a service on the Union market or makes offers to provide such a service to consumers in the Union;
5. ‘audiovisual media services’ means services as defined in point (a) of Article 1(1) of Directive 2010/13/EU;
6. ‘services providing access to audiovisual media services’ means services transmitted by electronic communications networks which are used to identify, select, receive information on, and view audiovisual media services and any provided features, such as subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, audio description, spoken subtitles and sign language interpretation, which result from the implementation of measures to make services accessible as referred to in Article 7 of Directive 2010/13/EU; and includes electronic programme guides (EPGs);
7. ‘consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability, used for accessing audiovisual media services’ means any equipment the main purpose of which is to provide access to audiovisual media services;
8. ‘electronic communications service’ means electronic communications service as defined in point 4 of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;
9. ‘total conversation service’ means total conversation service as defined in point 35 of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;
10. ‘public safety answering point’ or ‘PSAP’ means public safety answering point or PSAP as defined in point 36 of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;
11. ‘most appropriate PSAP’ means most appropriate PSAP as defined in point 37 of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;
12. ‘emergency communication’ means emergency communication as defined in point 38 of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;
13. ‘emergency service’ means emergency service as defined in point 39 of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;
14. ‘real time text’ means a form of text conversation in point to point situations or in multipoint conferencing where the text being entered is sent in such a way that the communication is perceived by the user as being continuous on a character-by-character basis;
15. ‘making available on the market’ means any supply of a product for distribution, consumption or use on the Union market in the course of a commercial activity, whether in return for payment or free of charge;
16. ‘placing on the market’ means the first making available of a product on the Union market;
17. ‘manufacturer’ means any natural or legal person who manufactures a product or has a product designed or manufactured, and markets that product under its name or trademark;
18. ‘authorised representative’ means any natural or legal person established within the Union who has received a written mandate from a manufacturer to act on its behalf in relation to specified tasks;
19. ‘importer’ means any natural or legal person established within the Union who places a product from a third country on the Union market;
20. ‘distributor’ means any natural or legal person in the supply chain, other than the manufacturer or the importer, who makes a product available on the market;
21. ‘economic operator’ means the manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor or the service provider;
22. ‘consumer’ means any natural person who purchases the relevant product or is a recipient of the relevant service for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession;
23. ‘microenterprise’ means an enterprise which employs fewer than 10 persons and which has an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 2 million or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million;
24. ‘small and medium-sized enterprises’ or ‘SMEs’ means enterprises which employ fewer than 250 persons and which have an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million, but excludes microenterprises;
25. ‘harmonised standard’ means a harmonised standard as defined in point 1(c) of Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012;
26. ‘technical specification’ means a technical specification as defined in point 4 of Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 that provides a means to comply with the accessibility requirements applicable to a product or service;
27. ‘withdrawal’ means any measure aimed at preventing a product in the supply chain from being made available on the market;
28. ‘consumer banking services’ means the provision to consumers of the following banking and financial services:
  1. credit agreements covered by Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council or Directive 2014/17/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ;
  2. services as defined in points 1, 2, 4 and 5 in Section A and points 1, 2, 4 and 5 in Section B of Annex I to Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ;
  3. payment services as defined in point 3 of Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council ;
  4. services linked to the payment account as defined in point 6 of Article 2 of Directive 2014/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ; and
  5. electronic money as defined in point 2 of Article 2 of Directive 2009/110/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ;
29. ‘payment terminal’ means a device the main purpose of which is to allow payments to be made by using payment instruments as defined in point 14 of Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2015/2366 at a physical point of sale but not in a virtual environment;
30. ‘e-commerce services’ means services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile device-based services by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract;
31. ‘air passenger transport services’ means commercial passenger air services, as defined in point (l) of Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2006, on departure from, on transit through, or on arrival at an airport, when the airport is situated in the territory of a Member State, including flights departing from an airport situated in a third country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member State where the services are operated by Union air carriers;
32. ‘bus passenger transport services’ means services covered by Article 2(1) and (2) of Regulation (EU) No 181/2011;
33. ‘rail passenger transport services’ means all rail passenger services as referred to in Article 2(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007, with the exception of services referred to in Article 2(2) thereof;
34. ‘waterborne passenger transport services’ means passenger services covered by Article 2(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1177/2010, with the exception of services referred to in Article 2(2) of that Regulation;
35. ‘urban and suburban transport services’ means urban and suburban services as defined in point 6 of Article 3 of Directive 2012/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ; but for the purposes of this Directive, it includes only the following modes of transport: rail, bus and coach, metro, tram and trolley bus;
36. ‘regional transport services’ means regional services as defined in point 7 of Article 3 of Directive 2012/34/EU; but for the purposes of this Directive, it includes only the following modes of transport: rail, bus and coach, metro, tram and trolley bus;
37. ‘assistive technology’ means any item, piece of equipment, service or product system including software that is used to increase, maintain, substitute or improve functional capabilities of persons with disabilities or for, alleviation and compensation of impairments, activity limitations or participation restrictions;
38. ‘operating system’ means software, which, inter alia, handles the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running including a graphical user interface, regardless of whether such software is an integral part of consumer general purpose computer hardware, or constitutes free-standing software intended to be run on consumer general purpose computer hardware, but excluding an operating system loader, basic input/output system, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system;
39. ‘consumer general purpose computer hardware system’ means the combination of hardware which forms a complete computer, characterised by its multipurpose nature, its ability to perform, with the appropriate software, most common computing tasks requested by consumers and intended to be operated by consumers, including personal computers, in particular desktops, notebooks, smartphones and tablets;
40. ‘interactive computing capability’ means functionality supporting human-device interaction allowing for processing and transmission of data, voice or video or any combination thereof;
41. ‘e-book and dedicated software’ means a service, consisting of the provision of digital files that convey an electronic version of a book, that can be accessed, navigated, read and used and the software including mobile device-based services including mobile applications dedicated to the accessing, navigation, reading and use of those digital files, and it excludes software covered under the definition in point (42);
42. ‘e-reader’ means dedicated equipment, including both hardware and software, used to access, navigate, read and use e-book files;
43. ‘electronic tickets’ means any system in which an entitlement to travel, in the form of single or multiple travel tickets, travel subscriptions or travel credit, is stored electronically on a physical transport pass or other device, instead of being printed on a paper ticket;
44. ‘electronic ticketing services’ means any system in which passenger transport tickets are purchased including online using a device with interactive computing capability, and delivered to the purchaser in electronic form, to enable them to be printed in paper form or displayed using a mobile device with interactive computing capability when travelling.
Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market (OJ L 376, 27.12.2006, p. 36).
Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Council Directive 87/102/EEC (OJ L 133, 22.5.2008, p. 66).
Directive 2014/17/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 February 2014 on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property and amending Directives 2008/48/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010 (OJ L 60, 28.2.2014, p. 34).
Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on markets in financial instruments and amending Directive 2002/92/EC and Directive 2011/61/EU (OJ L 173, 12.6.2014, p. 349).
Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on payment services in the internal market, amending Directives 2002/65/EC, 2009/110/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010, and repealing Directive 2007/64/EC (OJ L 337, 23.12.2015, p. 35).
Directive 2014/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on the comparability of fees related to payment accounts, payment account switching and access to payment accounts with basic features (OJ L 257, 28.8.2014, p. 214).
Directive 2009/110/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 on the taking up, pursuit and prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions amending Directives 2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and repealing Directive 2000/46/EC (OJ L 267, 10.10.2009, p. 7).
Directive 2012/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 establishing a single European railway area (OJ L 343, 14.12.2012, p. 32).