Law / Austria

Barrierefreiheitsgesetz (BaFG), accessibility duties of providers of consumer services, including electronic communications, audiovisual media access, passenger transport, banking, e-book and e-commerce websites and apps, with the transitional rules for older products, contracts and self-service terminals

Barrierefreiheitsgesetz (BaFG) §§ 2 Abs. 2 und 3, 3, 4 Abs. 3, 5, 6, 14, 15, 17, 18, 36, 37 Abs. 2 und 3 sowie Anlagen 1, 3 und 4, BGBl. I Nr. 76/2023

In force since 28 Jun 2025.

An accessibility requirements rule binding public and private bodies.

What it requires

If you offer or provide to consumers after 28 June 2025 a service listed in section 2(2) of the BaFG (electronic communications services other than emergency calls and machine-to-machine transmission services; services giving access to audiovisual media services; the websites, mobile services including apps, electronic tickets, transport information (for information screens, only interactive screens within the Union) and interactive self-service terminals (other than those built into vehicles, aircraft, ships and rolling stock) of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport, where for urban, suburban and regional transport only the interactive self-service terminals are covered; consumer banking services; e-books and dedicated software; e-commerce services), design, offer and provide it to the requirements of Annex 1, Sections 3 and 4 (for urban, suburban and regional transport, Section 4 only) (BaFG, ss. 2(2), 4(3) and 14(1); Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 4(3) and 13(1)).
If you are a microenterprise (fewer than ten persons employed and either annual turnover or annual balance sheet total of at most EUR 2 million) that offers or provides services, you are exempt from the accessibility requirements of section 4(3) and from all obligations connected with meeting them; if you rely on the exemption, give the Sozialministeriumservice on request the documents it needs to check it (BaFG, ss. 3(19), 6(1) and 24(2); Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 4(5)).
Make websites, their online applications and mobile services including apps perceivable, operable, understandable and robust in a consistent and adequate way; make the products covered by the Act that you use to provide the service meet Section 1 (and where relevant Section 2) of Annex 1; give information about how the service works, about the products it uses and their accessibility features, through more than one sensory channel and in understandable, perceivable, text-based formats, in an adequate font size with sufficient contrast, with an alternative for non-text content; and where you offer support services (help desks, call centres, technical support, relay services and training services), give information on the accessibility of the service and its compatibility with assistive technologies through accessible means of communication (BaFG, Annex 1, Section 3, lit. a to d).
If you provide electronic communications services, add real-time text beside voice and, where video is offered, total conversation services; if you provide services giving access to audiovisual media services, offer perceivable, operable, understandable and robust electronic programme guides that give information on the accessibility available, and transmit access components (subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, audio description, spoken subtitles, sign language interpretation) in full, in adequate quality, synchronised with sound and video, and so that users can control their display and use (BaFG, Annex 1, Section 4, lit. a and b).
If you provide passenger transport services (other than urban, suburban and regional), give information on the accessibility of vehicles, surrounding infrastructure and buildings and on assistance, and on electronic tickets and ticketing services, real-time travel information and additional service information; for urban, suburban and regional transport, make the self-service terminals accessible (BaFG, Annex 1, Section 4, lit. c and d).
If you provide consumer banking services, offer identification methods, electronic signatures, security and payment services that are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, and keep information at or below language level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (BaFG, Annex 1, Section 4, lit. e).
If you provide e-books and dedicated software, keep text and audio synchronised, do not let the digital files block assistive technologies, ensure access to content, navigation and layout, allow alternative presentation, make accessibility features discoverable through metadata, and do not let digital rights management block accessibility features (BaFG, Annex 1, Section 4, lit. f).
If you provide e-commerce services, give the accessibility information about the products and services on sale where the responsible operator supplies it, make identification, security and payment functions provided as a service accessible, and offer identification methods, electronic signatures and payment services that are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust (BaFG, Annex 1, Section 4, lit. g).
Prepare the information of Annex 3 and state in your general terms and conditions, or a similar document, how the service meets the requirements, with a general description of the service in an accessible format, the explanations needed to understand how it is carried out and a description of how it meets the requirements of Annex 1, and present information showing that the way the service is provided and monitored ensures that it meets them (Annex 3, points 1 and 3); make it available to the public in written and oral form, including in a form accessible to persons with disabilities, and keep it for as long as you offer the service (BaFG, s. 14(2) and Annex 3).
Keep procedures in place so that the requirements are always met while the service is offered, and take account of changes in the features of the service, in the requirements and in the harmonised standards or technical specifications relied on (BaFG, s. 14(3)); a service that meets harmonised standards or parts of them, whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, is presumed to conform to the requirements they cover, and one that meets technical specifications is deemed to conform to the requirements they cover (s. 5).
If a service does not conform, take the corrective measures needed, inform the Sozialministeriumservice and the competent authorities of the Member States where the service is provided at once, with details of the non-conformity and the measures taken, and hand over on its reasoned request the information and documents in German or English that show conformity, cooperating in remedying the non-conformity (BaFG, s. 14(4) and (5)).
If you provide services through self-service terminals, prepare information on whether, and to what extent, the built environment of the terminals that falls within your responsibility is accessible to persons with disabilities, make it available to the public, including in an accessible form, and keep it for as long as you offer the service (BaFG, s. 15).
The requirements apply only so far as compliance does not need a significant change that fundamentally alters the basic nature of the service, and only so far as it does not impose a disproportionate burden; if you rely on either, assess it (for the disproportionate burden against the criteria of Annex 4), document the assessment, keep the results for five years after the service was last provided, produce a copy on request, and send information to the Sozialministeriumservice and the market surveillance authorities of the Member State where the service is provided; if you rely on the disproportionate-burden exception, renew the assessment for each category or type of service when the service changes, when the Sozialministeriumservice asks and at least every five years (BaFG, ss. 17 and 18(1) to (4) and (6); Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 14).
You cannot rely on the disproportionate-burden exception if you received public or private funds, other than your own, to improve accessibility (BaFG, s. 18(7); Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 14(6)).
Websites and mobile applications need not make accessible recorded time-based media or office file formats published before 28 June 2025, online maps and map services that give essential navigation information in accessible digital form, third-party content that you neither finance, develop nor control, or archive content that is neither updated nor revised after 28 June 2025 (BaFG, s. 2(3)).
A service that complies with the provisions on accessible information and information on accessibility in Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Regulation (EC) No 1107/2006, Regulation (EU) No 1177/2010, Regulation (EU) No 181/2011, Regulation (EU) 2021/782 or the acts adopted under Directive 2008/57/EC meets the corresponding requirements of the BaFG, and the additional requirements of the BaFG apply in full (BaFG, s. 7; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 5).
Until 28 June 2030 you may continue to provide services using products that you lawfully used for similar services before 28 June 2025; service contracts agreed before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until they expire, for no longer than five years from that date; and self-service terminals that you lawfully used before 28 June 2025 may stay in use for comparable services until the end of their economic useful life, for no longer than 20 years after first use and not beyond 28 June 2040 (BaFG, s. 37(2) and (3); Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 32).

These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.

If you get it wrong

Penalty structure

Section 36(1), item 3 fines offering or providing a service in breach of section 14(1) up to EUR 80,000, and up to EUR 50,000 where the offender is a microenterprise or a small or medium-sized enterprise. Section 36(2), item 2 fines a failure to prepare the Annex 3 information properly up to EUR 40,000 (EUR 25,000 for such an enterprise), and section 36(3) fines, among others, a failure to provide or keep the information (item 3), to inform the Sozialministeriumservice (item 4), to cooperate (item 5), to prepare or provide the built-environment information (item 7) and to repeat the disproportionate-burden assessment (item 12) up to EUR 16,000 (EUR 10,000 for such an enterprise). Each amount is a ceiling per offence.

Rule: Fixed only
As of: 4 November 2026
Currency: EUR
Fixed cap: 80,000

Who enforces it

Enforcement body

The Sozialministeriumservice (Bundesamt für Soziales und Behindertenwesen), which runs the central market surveillance under the Act in its Landesstelle Oberösterreich

What it reaches

Instrument type

an act of a legislature

Applicability criteria

As of: 4 November 2026
Combinator: Any of
Criteria: a provider that offers or provides to consumers a service listed in section 2(2) of the BaFG and is not a microenterprise (Kleinstunternehmen), which section 3, item 19 defines as an enterprise that employs fewer than ten persons and has an annual turnover or an annual balance sheet total of at most EUR 2 million

What this law does

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Research summary

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Section 14(1) of the BaFG allows a service provider to offer or provide a service only if it is designed, offered and provided to the accessibility requirements of section 4(3). Article 13(1) of Directive (EU) 2019/882 is the source of that duty. Section 3, item 4 defines a service provider as any natural or legal person that provides a service on the Union market or offers to provide such a service to consumers in the Union.

Section 2(2) applies the Act to the services that it lists and that are provided to consumers after 28 June 2025.

Those services are electronic communications services other than emergency calls and machine-to-machine transmission services, services giving access to audiovisual media services, the websites, mobile services including apps, electronic tickets, transport information and interactive self-service terminals of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport, consumer banking services, e-books and dedicated software, and e-commerce services.

For transport information screens, item 3 covers only interactive screens within the territory of the Union, and it does not cover terminals installed as integrated parts of vehicles, aircraft, ships and rolling stock used to provide such passenger transport services.

Section 3, item 25 defines consumer banking services as credit agreements within the meaning of Directive 2008/48/EC or Directive 2014/17/EU, certain services listed in Directive 2014/65/EU, payment services, services linked to a payment account and electronic money, provided to consumers.

Section 3, item 27 defines e-commerce services as 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. For urban, suburban and regional transport services, section 2(2), item 3 covers only the interactive self-service terminals.

Section 2(3) excludes from websites and mobile applications recorded time-based media and office file formats published before 28 June 2025, online maps and map services that give essential navigation information in accessible digital form, third-party content the operator neither finances, develops nor controls, and archive content. Section 2(4) leaves section 42d of the Urheberrechtsgesetz and Regulation (EU) 2017/1563 on the cross-border exchange of accessible-format copies unaffected.

Section 7 deems services that meet the provisions on accessible information and information on accessibility in the Union passenger-transport acts to meet the corresponding requirements of the Act, and applies the Act's additional requirements in full. Section 4(3) applies Sections 3 and 4 of Annex 1 to services, and only Section 4 of Annex 1 to urban, suburban and regional transport services.

Section 3 of Annex 1 requires websites, their online applications and mobile services including apps to be made perceivable, operable, understandable and robust in a consistent and adequate way. Section 4 of Annex 1 adds requirements for specific kinds of service. Section 5(1) presumes conformity with the accessibility requirements for services that meet harmonised standards, or parts of them, whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Section 6(1) exempts microenterprises that offer or provide services from the accessibility requirements of section 4(3) and from all obligations connected with meeting them. Section 3, item 19 defines a microenterprise by the number of persons it employs and by its annual turnover or annual balance sheet total. Section 6(2) requires the federal ministries responsible for social affairs and for the economy to draw up guidelines that help microenterprises apply the Act.

Section 14(2) requires the provider to prepare the information of Annex 3, make it available to the public in written and oral form, including in a form accessible to persons with disabilities, and keep it for as long as the service is offered. Annex 3 requires the provider to state in its general terms and conditions or a similar document how the service meets the accessibility requirements of section 4(3).

Section 14(3) requires the provider to keep procedures in place so that the requirements are always met while the service is offered or provided. Section 14(4) requires the provider, where a service does not conform, to take the corrective measures needed and to inform the Sozialministeriumservice and the competent authorities of the Member States where the service is provided, with details of the non-conformity and the measures taken.

Section 14(5) requires the provider to hand over to the Sozialministeriumservice, on its reasoned request, the information and documents in German or English that show conformity, and to cooperate in remedying non-conformity. Section 15(1) requires a provider that provides services through self-service terminals to prepare information on whether, and to what extent, the built environment of the terminals that falls within its responsibility is accessible, and to make it available to the public.

Article 4(4) of the Directive lets Member States decide that the built environment used by clients of covered services complies with its Annex III. Section 17(1) applies the requirements only so far as compliance does not need a significant change that fundamentally alters the basic nature of the service. Section 18(1) applies the requirements only so far as compliance does not impose a disproportionate burden on the economic operator.

A service provider that relies on section 18(1) must repeat its assessment for each category or type of service when the service changes, when the Sozialministeriumservice asks, and at least every five years. Section 18(7) bars an operator that received public or private funds, other than its own, to improve accessibility from relying on section 18(1).

Section 37(2) lets service providers continue until 28 June 2030 to offer or provide their services using products that they lawfully used for similar services before 28 June 2025. Service contracts agreed before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until they expire, but for no longer than five years from that date.

Under section 37(3), self-service terminals that a provider lawfully used before 28 June 2025 may stay in use for comparable services until the end of their economic useful life, but not longer than 20 years after first use and not beyond 28 June 2040. Section 36(1), item 3 fines a person who offers or provides a service in breach of section 14(1) up to EUR 80,000, and up to EUR 50,000 where the offender is a microenterprise or a small or medium-sized enterprise.

Section 36(2), item 2 fines a failure to prepare the Annex 3 information properly, up to EUR 40,000. Section 36(3), item 3 fines a failure to provide the Annex 3 information or to keep it for as long as the service is offered, up to EUR 16,000. Section 36(3), item 7 fines a failure to prepare or provide the information on the built environment of self-service terminals, up to EUR 16,000.

When LexLint raises it

When your app profile says your app ships a consumer interface, ships a mobile app, distributes a software product, provides telecom services or provides financial services.

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Page updated 4 November 2026.