In short
- There are two regimes, not one. The micro-enterprise exemption and disproportionate burden share neither their effect, nor their conditions, nor their administrative consequences.
- Only one exempts you from everything. A micro-enterprise providing services is exempt from the accessibility requirements and from every obligation attached to them. Nothing to calculate, nothing to write, nothing to declare.
- Disproportionate burden exempts nothing wholesale. It is a limit, not a switch: the requirements you have not found disproportionate apply in full.
- It is calculated, documented for five years, declared to the authorities, and it expires. Reassessment whenever the service changes, at the authorities’ request, and in any event at least every five years.
- Outside funding cancels it. If you received public or private money to improve accessibility, you can no longer invoke it.
In almost every conversation we have on this subject, the same sentence arrives after twenty minutes: “in any case, for a company our size, it will be disproportionate”. It is delivered as a conclusion. In the text, it is a procedure.
That confusion is expensive, because it turns a structured process into a subjective impression, and because it merges two regimes that have almost nothing in common.
Two doors, and only one is wide
| Micro-enterprise exemption | Disproportionate burden | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | Fewer than ten staff, and annual turnover or balance sheet total not exceeding two million euros | Any economic operator, whatever its size |
| Effect | Exempt from the requirements and from every obligation attached to them | Limits the obligation to what is not disproportionate; the rest applies in full |
| Calculation | None | Mandatory assessment against the Annex VI criteria |
| Evidence | None | To be produced and kept for five years |
| Declaration | None | Authorities must be informed when it is invoked |
| Duration | As long as the thresholds hold | Five years at most, less if the service changes |
The micro-enterprise, the only clean exemption
The text defines a micro-enterprise as an undertaking employing fewer than ten persons and whose annual turnover does not exceed two million euros, or whose annual balance sheet total does not exceed two million euros. Both conditions stack: headcount on one side, and one of the two financial criteria on the other.
When a micro-enterprise provides services, it is exempt from the accessibility requirements and from all obligations relating to compliance with them. It is the only clean exemption in the whole scheme, and the reasoning behind it is worth knowing: the legislator took the view that asking a company that size to carry out the proportionality assessment itself would, in itself, be a disproportionate burden.
The threshold cannot be engineered The text refers expressly to the European definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and the case law attached to it, “intended to prevent circumvention of its rules”. Splitting an activity into two nine-person structures does not manufacture two micro-enterprises. The linked and partner enterprise rules in that definition put the whole back together.
One detail catches mixed businesses out: the exemption covers micro-enterprises that provide services. Those manufacturing, importing or distributing products covered by the text get lighter obligations, not an exemption. If you sell online and also make an e-reader or a terminal, both regimes live under your roof.
Disproportionate burden, what the text actually asks
First misreading, and the costliest: it is not a switch. The requirements apply “to the extent that” compliance does not impose a disproportionate burden. The operator must make the service as accessible as possible within the proportion that does not impose that burden, and the requirements it has not found disproportionate apply in full.
In practice: you cannot invoke disproportionate burden for your checkout as a whole. You can invoke it for one specific component, having demonstrated why, and the rest of the checkout is still owed.
Second misreading, on what counts as a reason. The text is explicit: only legitimate reasons enter the assessment, and lack of priority, lack of time or lack of knowledge are not among them.
The calculation, as written
The assessment is not made by eye. It rests on three criteria, and all three are numerical.
| Criterion | What is compared |
|---|---|
| 1 | The net costs of compliance against the overall costs, operating and capital expenditure included, of providing the service |
| 2 | The costs and benefits for the business against the estimated benefit for people with disabilities, taking account of the amount and frequency of use of the service |
| 3 | The net costs of compliance against the net turnover of the business |
The text also spells out what is allowed into the cost column. One-off and organisational: hiring specialist skills, training, building a process that embeds accessibility, drafting internal guidance, reviewing the legislation. Recurring: designing the accessibility features, production costs, testing, and producing the documentation.
An honest file runs to a few pages. A file that merely asserts “this is too expensive for us” is worth nothing, and it will be worth no more on the day someone asks for it.
What brings it down
Three mechanisms cut into this limit, and they are rarely anticipated.
It expires. The service provider must reassess whenever the service is modified, at the request of the authorities responsible for checking compliance, and in any event at least every five years. A rebuild, a change of payment provider, a new checkout: the assessment starts again, on costs that have fallen in the meantime.
Funding cancels it. Where an operator receives, for the purpose of improving accessibility, funding from sources other than its own resources, whether public or private, it may no longer invoke disproportionate burden. A grant, a regional support scheme, a funded programme: the door closes.
It is declared, and it is checked. An operator invoking it must inform the authorities of the member state where the service is provided. And when those authorities check, they do not merely look at the service: they verify that the assessment was carried out, examine it, and check that the Annex VI criteria were used correctly. Your homework gets marked.
What this looks like in practice
For a smaller company selling online, the useful question is not “are we exempt”, it is “what does the work we owe actually cost”. In the audits we run, the genuinely expensive part of an accessibility project is narrow: it sits in the business components of the checkout and in the payment link. The rest, field labels, contrast, tab order, error messages tied to their field, is tooling and needs no budget arbitration.
When you cost the three Annex VI ratios honestly across that narrow scope, disproportionate burden rarely holds up, and the file needed to establish it often costs more than the fixes it seeks to avoid. That is the paradox of this exemption: it is dearer to document than to leave unused.
We set out elsewhere where the blockages actually happen and how to test for them in half a day, with no paid tooling. That comes first: you cannot cost what you have not yet identified.
What this says more broadly
A scheme that makes its exemption dearer than its compliance is not badly drafted, it is drafted for that. Disproportionate burden exists for real cases, a small organisation facing a technical rebuild beyond its reach, not as a fallback position for those who have not started.
And the reverse argument remains the strongest: the fixes that make a checkout usable by keyboard improve everyone’s conversion rate. That is the ground of our UX and CRO practice, and it is why we treat this subject with the tools of conversion rather than as a separate compliance file.
Sources
The verifiable claims in this article link to their primary source, opened on 18 August 2026. We do not cite a source we have not read.
- Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for products and services: Article 3(23) (definition of micro-enterprise), Article 4(5) (exemption), Article 14 (fundamental alteration and disproportionate burden), Article 19(2) and Article 23 (enforcement), Annex VI (assessment criteria), recitals 53, 66, 67, 70 and 71. Read the source
- Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, linked and partner enterprise rules. Read the source
- French Consumer Code, Article L412-13, exemption for companies with fewer than ten staff providing services. Read the source
- Decree No. 2023-931 of 9 October 2023 on the accessibility of products and services to persons with disabilities. Read the source
FAQ
There are eight of us, so we are exempt?
If you provide services and your annual turnover or balance sheet total does not exceed two million euros, yes, the exemption is clean. Do check the linked and partner enterprise rules in the European definition though: a company owned by a larger one, or tied to other entities, does not count its headcount and figures in isolation.
Can I invoke disproportionate burden for my whole site?
No. It limits the obligation to what is not disproportionate, component by component. Requirements you have not established as imposing a disproportionate burden apply in full. A blanket claim, with no scope and no figures, carries no weight.
How long does my assessment stay valid?
Five years at most. And less than that as soon as the service is modified, or if the authorities responsible for checking ask you for it. A checkout rebuild resets the clock.
We obtained support funding for our accessibility project, is that an advantage?
It is good budget news and a door closing. An operator receiving, for the purpose of improving accessibility, funding other than its own resources, whether public or private, may no longer invoke disproportionate burden.
What happens if nobody checks?
Member states must set up procedures to verify the conformity of services, follow up complaints, and check that corrective measures have been taken. Where the operator has invoked disproportionate burden, the authority verifies that the assessment was carried out, examines it, and checks the correct use of the criteria. So the subject does not rest on goodwill alone.
Can Dotsland help us decide?
Yes. We cost the real scope before talking about exemptions: a checkout audit, fixes ranked by cost and impact, and a documented assessment where one is genuinely warranted. In most cases the quote for the fixes is shorter than the file that would try to avoid them. Let’s talk.