Act XVII of 2022 on the general rules of compliance with the accessibility requirements for products and services, requirements for services and their enforcement under Government Decree 605/2022

Section 1(2) of the Accessibility Act applies the Act to electronic communications services other than machine-to-machine transmission services, to services that give access to audiovisual media services, to elements of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport services, to consumer banking services, to e-books and dedicated software, and to e-commerce services that economic operators provide to consumers.

For passenger transport, section 1(2)(c) covers websites, mobile-device-based services including mobile applications, electronic tickets and electronic ticketing services, passenger information including real-time travel information, and the services that interactive self-service terminals provide, and for urban, suburban and regional transport only the services that interactive self-service terminals provide.

Section 1(3) excludes online maps and mapping services, provided that the essential information for navigation maps is available in accessible digital form, and excludes content of websites and mobile applications that belongs to a third party and that the economic operator did not fund, develop or control. Section 3(1) allows an economic operator to provide a service only if it meets the accessibility requirements of Annex 1 to the Act.

Article 4(1) of the Directive requires the Member States to ensure that economic operators only place products on the market and only provide services that comply with the accessibility requirements of its Annex I. Section 3(3) exempts a micro-enterprise that provides services from the requirements of points 3 and 4 of Annex 1 and from the Act's duties on compliance with the accessibility requirements.

Section 3(2) requires an economic operator to ensure the continuous training of its employees so that accessible products and services are provided. The training also covers information, advice and advertising activities. Section 3(4) requires the provider to ensure compliance with the accessibility requirements also where a third party provides the service or part of it as a subcontractor.

Section 3(5) leaves the accessibility requirements for the built environment that service users use to the Government decree on national town-planning and building requirements. Section 138 of Government Decree 280/2024 repealed Government Decree 253/1997 on national town-planning and building requirements from 1 January 2025.

Article 4(4) of the Directive allows the Member States to decide, in the light of national conditions, that the built environment used by clients of the services it covers must comply with the accessibility requirements of its Annex III. Section 4(1) presumes that products and services that meet harmonised standards, or parts of them, whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, meet the accessibility requirements that those standards or parts cover.

Section 4(2) gives the same presumption to products and services that meet the technical specifications that the European Commission publishes by implementing act where no harmonised standard exists.

Section 4(3) treats passenger transport services that meet the accessible-information requirements of the EU passenger rights regulations and of the rail interoperability rules as meeting the accessibility requirements, and section 4(4) requires any additional requirement of the Act to be met in full.

Section 4(5) presumes that a product or service whose features, elements and functions meet the accessibility requirements as point 6 of Annex 1 sets out fulfils, for those features, elements and functions, the accessibility obligations of other European Union acts and of the laws that implement them, unless those acts provide otherwise.

Section 5(1) applies the accessibility requirements only to the extent that compliance does not require a significant modification that fundamentally alters the essential characteristics of the service and does not impose a disproportionate burden on the economic operator. Section 5(2) bars an economic operator that receives funding from a source other than its own to improve accessibility from relying on the disproportionate burden condition.

Section 5(3) requires an economic operator that relies on section 5(1) to inform the supervising authority and the competent authorities of the other Member States where it provides the service, and a micro-enterprise need not do so. Section 5(4) requires the economic operator to prepare a written assessment, with the reasons set out in detail, of whether section 5(1) applies, and the criteria of Annex 2 govern that assessment.

Section 5(5) limits the duty of a provider whose self-service terminals cannot all meet the requirements without a disproportionate burden to the extent that does not impose that burden. Section 5(6) requires the provider to review the assessment when the service changes and when the supervising authority asks, and at least every five years.

Section 5(7) requires the economic operator to keep the assessment for five years from the last provision of the service and to give the authority a copy on request. Section 6(1) requires a service provider to assess and document, in line with Annex 3, how its service meets the accessibility requirements, to publish the documentation in written and oral form in a manner accessible to people with disabilities, and to keep it for as long as it provides the service.

Point 1 of Annex 3 requires the service provider to set out that information in its general terms and conditions or an equivalent document, with at least a general description of the service in an accessible format, the descriptions needed to understand how the service works, and an account of how it meets the accessibility requirements.

Section 6(2) requires the provider to ensure that the service continuously meets the requirements and to monitor changes in the service, in the requirements and in the harmonised standards or technical specifications that apply to it.

Section 6(3) and (4) require a provider that judges, or has reason to suppose, that its service does not meet the requirements to take corrective measures without delay and to inform the supervising authority, and the competent authorities of the other Member States where it provides the service, giving details of the non-compliance and the measures taken.

Section 6(5) and (6) require the provider, when the supervising authority asks, to hand over the information and documentation needed to show that the service meets the requirements and to cooperate with the authority. Section 11 applies the Act to the products placed on the market and the services provided after it took effect, including used products imported from third countries.

Section 12(1) excludes from the Act the pre-recorded time-based media that websites and mobile applications published before it took effect, the office file formats published before it took effect, and the archive content that is no longer updated or edited after it took effect. Section 12(2) leaves service contracts concluded before the Act took effect, and not meeting its requirements, unaffected until they expire but no later than 28 June 2030.

Section 12(3) lets self-service terminals that providers lawfully used before the Act took effect remain in use to the end of their economically useful life but for no more than 20 years after they entered use. Section 12(4) lets providers continue until 28 June 2030 to provide services with products that do not meet the Act and that they lawfully used before that day to provide similar services.

Article 32(1) of the Directive requires the Member States to provide a transitional period ending on 28 June 2030 for services provided with products lawfully used before that date. Section 8(3) lets the supervising authority call on a non-compliant economic operator to comply in a decision that contains a warning and open a consultation on the time within which the operator will remedy the deficiencies.

Section 8(4) requires the supervising authority to impose an administrative fine on an operator that does not cooperate in that consultation or does not meet the accessibility requirements within the time set. Section 8(6) lets a consumer start proceedings before the supervising authority or a court so that the accessibility requirements are enforced.

Section 8(7) gives consumer-protection associations and associations of people with disabilities the rights of a party in proceedings that a consumer starts before the supervising authority, and lets them start proceedings before it where an infringement of the accessibility requirements, or its direct threat, affects a larger group of consumers that cannot be precisely identified.

Section 8(8) lets those associations bring a public-interest action and intervene in a consumer's court action on the consumer's side. Section 3 of the Decree requires an application to the supervising authority to name the economic operator concerned, to state the place of the suspected infringement and to describe the infringement. Section 2(1) of the Decree gives competence to the supervising authority for the place where the product was bought or the service provided.

Section 8(10) requires the supervising authority to suspend its proceedings until the final court decision where proceedings on the same infringement start before a court. Government Decree 605/2022 designates the NMHH as supervising authority for electronic communications services and for services that give access to audiovisual media services.

The Decree designates the aviation authority, the bus market surveillance and passenger rights authority, the railway administrative body and the shipping authority as supervising authorities for the matching passenger transport services. Section 1(2) of the Decree designates the railway administrative body instead for integrated and linked passenger public transport services as defined in Act XLI of 2012.

The Decree designates the consumer protection authority as supervising authority for e-commerce services and for e-books and dedicated software. Section 1(3) of the Decree makes the Hungarian National Bank the supervising authority for consumer banking services, acting under the legal provisions that govern it. Section 39(5) of the Act on the Hungarian National Bank has the Bank act as supervising authority under the Accessibility Act for consumer banking services whose provision it supervises.

Section 6 of Act XLVII of 2025 inserted section 39(5) of the Act on the Hungarian National Bank. Section 6 of Act XLVII of 2025 took effect on 19 June 2025. Until Decree 288/2025 amended it, section 1(1)(f) of Decree 605/2022 designated the consumer protection authority for consumer banking services as well as for e-books, dedicated software and e-commerce services.

Section 7 of the Decree requires an economic operator that the supervising authority warns under section 8(3) of the Act to inform the authority without delay of the corrective measures it takes.

Section 8 of the Decree has the supervising authority set the amount of a fine taking into account, beyond the general criteria for administrative sanctions, the consumer interests affected, the range of products and services concerned, and the measures the operator took to reduce or make good the loss consumers suffered.

Section 5(1) of the Decree requires the supervising authority to publish a notice of each final decision and of each administrative contract it concludes, without natural-person identifiers. Section 5(3) of the Decree requires the authority to remove the notice from its website six months after publication.

Section 4 of the Decree lets the supervising authority conclude an administrative contract instead of a decision with an operator that undertakes to stop the infringement and to bring its conduct into line with the accessibility requirements. Section 1(3a) of the Act excludes procurement and concession award procedures from the enforcement subtitle. Section 30 of Act CXIX of 2025 inserted section 1(3a) of the Accessibility Act.

Section 31 of Act CXIX of 2025 inserted section 6(6) of the Accessibility Act. The subtitle of Act CXIX of 2025 that amends the Accessibility Act applies from 1 January 2026.

Point 7.1 of Annex 1 requires any function of a product or service that points 1 to 6 do not address to be made accessible by meeting the relevant functional performance criteria, which point 7.2 lists, among them at least one mode of use that does not require vision, one that does not require hearing and one that does not require speech. Point 3.1 of Annex 1 requires the products used in providing the service to be made accessible.

Point 3.3 of Annex 1 requires websites, including related online applications, and mobile-device-based services, including mobile applications, to be made accessible in a consistent and adequate way by making them perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Point 3.2 of Annex 1 requires information about how the service works and about its accessibility features to be made available through more than one sensory channel, in an understandable way and with an alternative for non-text content. Point 3.4 of Annex 1 requires support services, where they are available, to give information on the accessibility of the service and its compatibility with assistive technologies through accessible means of communication.

Points 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 of Annex 1 require electronic communications services to provide real-time text in addition to voice and, where video is used, total conversation. Point 4.2 of Annex 1 requires services that give access to audiovisual media services to provide perceivable, operable and understandable electronic programme guides and to pass on subtitles, audio description, spoken subtitles and sign language interpretation completely and in step with sound and video.

Point 4.3 of Annex 1 requires air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport services to give information on the accessibility of vehicles, infrastructure and the built environment and on the assistance available to people with disabilities, and on smart ticketing, real-time passenger information and further service information.

Point 4.5 of Annex 1 requires consumer banking services to provide perceivable, operable, understandable and robust identification methods, electronic signatures, security and payment services and to give information that does not exceed level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Point 4.6 of Annex 1 requires e-books to keep text and audio in step, to keep their digital files from obstructing assistive technologies, to make content navigable and presentable in a flexible way, and to carry accessibility information as metadata. Point 4.6.6 of Annex 1 requires e-book providers to ensure that digital rights management measures do not block accessibility features.

Point 4.7 of Annex 1 requires e-commerce services to give information on the accessibility of the products and services sold where the responsible economic operator provides it, to make identification, security and payment functions accessible, and to provide perceivable, operable, understandable and robust identification methods, electronic signatures and payment services.

Decree 288/2025 amended section 1 of Decree 605/2022 and inserted section 5/A. The amendments of Decree 288/2025 to Decree 605/2022 took effect on the day after the promulgation of Decree 288/2025.