Back to Blog
WebshopLovSMBTilgjengelighet

New Laws for Online Stores in 2026 — One You Should Check Now

Every time a new EU directive shows up, my mind drifts back a little to the years in the car industry. A new consumer regulation or an updated quality standard landed almost every quarter. Most of it we'd already covered one way or another. But every now and then there was something real — something that actually changed how we received customers, delivered cars, documented sales.

In 2026 there's one that actually matters if you run an online store. It's called the European Accessibility Act, or in Norwegian Tilgjengelighetsdirektivet (EAA).

Let me walk through what it is, who it applies to, and what you should actually do now.

What the EAA Is

The directive requires that digital services — online stores, payment solutions, apps — be accessible to everyone, including people with reduced vision, hearing, motor skills or cognition. In concrete terms, that means your website should follow WCAG 2.2, the international standard for universal design.

WCAG 2.2 sounds dry. In practice it means things like:

  • Your images need alt text, so screen readers can describe them
  • Colour contrast between text and background has to be strong enough
  • Buttons and links must work without a mouse, using the keyboard alone
  • Forms need clear field labels
  • Video needs subtitles

Much of this is nothing new for the public sector in Norway — the same principles have applied for a while through the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act. What's new is that private online stores are now hit the same way.

Who's Affected

The EAA applies to digital services aimed at consumers. That includes:

  • Online stores selling to private customers (B2C)
  • Booking services
  • Payment terminals and self-service machines
  • Customer-service chats

It does not apply to pure B2B portals — so if you sell only to other businesses through a closed platform, you're outside it for now.

What About Small Online Stores?

Here's the most important part if you run things alone or with a few employees: there's a micro-enterprise exemption.

If your company has:

  • fewer than 10 employees, and
  • under 2 million euros in annual turnover (around 23 million kroner)

— then as a service provider you're exempt from the technical requirements. It's a both-conditions rule, not an either-or. Most Norwegian sole-proprietor online stores fall naturally under this exemption.

But. Even if you're exempt, it's smart to start making things accessible. The competitors who aren't exempt will soon have accessible websites — and that builds an expectation among customers. Universal design is also free SEO in many cases (Google likes accessible pages).

Norway Has Postponed Implementation

Here's the nuance many people miss: Norway hasn't formally adopted the EAA into Norwegian law, and implementation is postponed indefinitely. The Authority for Universal Design of ICT, which sits under the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency (Digdir), points to legal uncertainty about how the directive should be interpreted — whether it's full-harmonising or a minimum directive. The matter has therefore stalled.

The directive was originally meant to apply from 28 June 2025 in the EU. It does there, too. But in Norway the deadline is postponed until further notice.

That means as a purely Norwegian online store you technically don't have a direct obligation under the EAA yet. But:

  1. If you sell to EU customers — from the first order from Sweden, Denmark, Germany or other EU countries, the EAA already applies.
  2. The Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act already has WCAG requirements for private websites in Norway — just not as sharp as the EAA version will be.
  3. Implementation is coming — we don't know when, but it's part of the EEA obligation.

What You Should Do This Week

If you're curious where you stand, run these three things:

1. Test your website. Free tools like WAVE or Lighthouse in Chrome show you most of the WCAG violations in minutes. Just paste in the URL.

2. Count employees and check turnover. If you're under both thresholds (10 employees / 2 million euros), you have more time on your side.

3. Make a list of which EU countries you ship to. If you invoice EU customers directly, the rules already apply.

That's the boring-but-concrete version I like to start with. Not a big compliance package from a consultant. Just a quick test and a list.

For the vast majority of Norwegian small businesses, this law is more a nudge in the back than an acute problem. But if you have poor colour contrast that affects a customer with reduced vision — or forms that don't work with a keyboard — that's the kind of boring mistake you'll want to fix before the Authority for Universal Design, or a frustrated customer, gets in touch.

Boring, but done.

Need help going through your online store? Get in touch.