SwedenLag (2023:254) om vissa produkters och tjänsters tillgänglighet (Act on the accessibility of certain products and services), services: scope, microenterprise exemption, duties of service providers, e-books and transitional rules
In force since .
An accessibility requirements rule binding public and private bodies.
What it requires
- If you offer to consumers an electronic communications service (other than machine-to-machine transmission), access to audiovisual media services, consumer banking services, e-books or an e-commerce service, or the website, app, e-tickets, ticket sales, travel information or interactive self-service terminals of a bus, ship, air or rail passenger transport service (for urban, suburban and regional transport, only the self-service terminals), provide it only if it meets the accessibility requirements in Annex 2 to Förordning (2023:676) and the supplementary rules of the authority concerned (Act, ss. 4 and 6; Ordinance, ss. 6 and 7; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 4(1) and (3)).
- If you are a microenterprise (fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover or annual balance sheet total of no more than EUR 2 million), you are exempt from the service accessibility requirements; if you are not, they apply to you in full (Act, ss. 2 and 10; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 4(5)).
- Keep the service in conformity with the accessibility requirements continuously, and if it does not conform take the action needed to bring it into conformity and notify at once the supervisory authorities of every Member State where the service is provided, with details of the non-conformity and the action taken (Act, s. 24; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 13(3) and (4)).
- Prepare information on how the service meets the applicable accessibility requirements, including a description of the service's design and operation where needed to assess conformity and, where you invoke section 7, which requirements the exemption covers; make it available to the public in written and oral form, including in a form accessible to persons with disabilities, keep it as long as the service is provided, and include it in the general terms of the service or an equivalent document (Act, s. 25; Ordinance, s. 24; PTSFS 2024:6, ss. 3 to 5; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 13(2)).
- On request from a supervisory authority, give it all the information needed to assess conformity and cooperate on the action to be taken (Act, s. 26; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 13(5)).
- If you are responsible for the content of an e-book you must see that the accessibility requirements are met even if you are not a service provider (Act, s. 27).
- Content on websites and apps that is pre-recorded time-based media or a document file format published before , or archive content not updated or edited after that day, is outside the Act (transitional provision 2).
- You may keep using products you lawfully used for similar services before until , and finish service contracts concluded before that day when they expire, no later than ; self-service terminals lawfully in use before that day may stay in use for 20 years after they were taken into use (transitional provisions 3 to 5; 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 39 of the Act sets the sanction fee (sanktionsavgift) at not less than SEK 10,000 and not more than SEK 10,000,000, determined by the seriousness and extent of the breach and the circumstances, reducible wholly or partly for special reasons, and payable to the State. The same range applies to a natural or a legal person, and the Act sets no turnover-based ceiling. No fee is decided in a minor case or where the breach underlies an application to impose a vite (sections 37 and 38). An order under sections 32 to 34 may also carry a vite (section 35), which the Vite Act (1985:206) sets at an amount likely to make the addressee comply, with no statutory ceiling. A person responsible for the content of an e-book who is not a service provider is not subject to the sanction fee (section 27).
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Minimum
- 10,000
- Currency
- SEK
- Fixed cap
- 10,000,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) for electronic communications, banking and e-commerce services and for coordination between supervisory authorities, the Swedish Media Authority (Mediemyndigheten) for services giving access to audiovisual media services, the Swedish Agency for Accessible Media (Myndigheten för tillgängliga medier, MTM) for e-book services, the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) for the websites, mobile services and electronic tickets of passenger transport, and the Swedish Transport Agency (Transportstyrelsen) for travel information and self-service terminal services, under sections 28 to 31 of the Ordinance
What it reaches
Instrument type
an act of a legislature
Applicability criteria
Section 2 joins turnover and balance sheet total with "or" and sets the limits in euro in the Act itself, matching Article 3(3) of the Directive: "mikroföretag: företag med färre än tio anställda och som har en årsomsättning eller en årlig balansomslutning som inte överstiger 2 miljoner euro" (a microenterprise is an enterprise with fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover or annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million). The Act borrows no definition of an enterprise from another law.
- As of
- Combinator
- All of
- Criteria
- the service provider is not a microenterprise, which section 2 of the Act defines as an enterprise with fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million
What this law does
Section 4 of the Act covers, when intended for consumers, electronic communications services other than transmission services used for machine-to-machine services, services giving access to audiovisual media services, features of bus, ship, aircraft and rail passenger transport services other than urban, suburban and regional transport that concern websites, mobile device services including apps, electronic tickets and ticket sales, and travel information, consumer banking services, e-book services and e-commerce services.
Section 4 covers urban, suburban and regional passenger transport only for services conveyed through interactive self-service terminals located within the territory of the Union, other than terminals mounted as integral parts of vehicles, aircraft, ships or rolling stock. Section 4 covers travel information conveyed through interactive information screens only where the screens are located within the territory of the Union.
Section 5 excludes maps not intended for navigation, navigation maps whose essential information is provided in an accessible digital way, and third-party content on websites and mobile applications that the economic operator neither finances, develops nor controls. Section 10 provides that services provided by microenterprises need not meet the accessibility requirements.
Section 2 defines consumer banking services as consumer credit agreements, investment services listed in the Securities Market Act (2007:528), payment services, services related to payment accounts and electronic money. From section 2 defines the consumer credit agreements within consumer banking services by reference to the Consumer Credit Act (2026:1011).
Section 2 defines e-commerce services as services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile device services, by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer with a view to concluding a consumer contract.
Section 6 allows a covered service to be provided only if it meets the accessibility requirements on information, user interface or functional design, the accessibility requirements of directly applicable acts adopted under Directive (EU) 2019/882, and the requirements of sections 11 to 13, 15, 16 and 25.
Section 9 presumes that a service that conforms wholly or partly to a harmonized standard whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, or to a technical specification, meets the accessibility requirements to the extent the standard or specification covers them. Section 24 requires a service provider that provides a service to a consumer to ensure continuously that the service meets the accessibility requirements.
Section 24 requires a service provider whose service does not conform to take the action needed to bring it into conformity and to notify at once the supervisory authorities of the Member States where the service is provided, with details of the non-conformity and the action taken. Section 25 requires a service provider to prepare the necessary information on how the service meets the accessibility requirements, and to state in it which requirements an invoked exemption under section 7 covers.
Section 25 requires a service provider to ensure that the services it designs and provides are accompanied by that information. Section 26 requires a service provider, on request from a supervisory authority, to provide all information needed to assess whether a service meets the accessibility requirements and to cooperate on the action to be taken.
Section 27 requires the person responsible for the content of an e-book to ensure that the accessibility requirements are met even if that person is not a service provider. Section 27 applies the provisions for service providers to that person, except the provisions on sanction fees.
Most e-books are protected by the Freedom of the Press Act or the Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression, and the accessibility requirements cannot apply to e-books with that protection until those constitutional laws are amended. Section 24 of the Ordinance requires the information on how a service meets the accessibility requirements to include an account of the accessibility requirements that apply to the service.
Section 24 of the Ordinance requires the service provider to give the public access to the information in written and oral form and in a way that is accessible to persons with disabilities, and to keep it for as long as the service is provided. Section 5 of PTSFS 2024:6 requires the service provider to include the information on how the service meets the accessibility requirements in the general terms for the service or an equivalent document.
Section 6 of PTSFS 2024:6 requires electronic communications services to provide real-time text in addition to voice, and total conversation where video is provided in addition to voice.
Section 7 of PTSFS 2024:6 requires banking services to provide identification methods, electronic signatures, security functions and payment services that are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, and to make the information about the service understandable at no more than level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Section 8 of PTSFS 2024:6 requires e-commerce services to provide information on the accessibility of the products and services sold when responsible economic operators provide it, and to make identification, security and payment functions and methods perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
Transitional provision 2 provides that the Act does not apply to content on websites and mobile applications that is pre-recorded time-based media published before the Act entered into force, document file formats published before then, or archive content not updated or edited after then. Transitional provision 3 lets a service provider keep providing its services using products it lawfully used for similar services before the Act entered into force, at the latest until .
Transitional provision 4 lets a service provider that provided services under a contract concluded before the Act entered into force keep providing them until the contract expires, at the latest until . Transitional provision 5 lets self-service terminals that service providers lawfully used before the Act entered into force stay in use for similar services for 20 years after they were taken into use.
Article 32(2) of the Directive lets Member States allow self-service terminals lawfully used before to stay in use until the end of their economically useful life, but no longer than 20 years after their entry into use. Section 37 of the Act allows a market surveillance authority or a supervisory authority to order an economic operator to pay a sanction fee for breach of sections 6, 8, 11 to 13, 15 to 17 or 19 to 26, section 28 second paragraph point 6, or rules made under them.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app ships a consumer interface, ships a mobile app, provides telecom services or provides financial services.
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