Belgium accessibility law: Loi 19/07/2018 + Loi-EAA explained

Who has to comply

Public-sector since 2018; consumer-facing private-sector under the EAA transposition.

Belgium is a compact but wealthy market sitting at the linguistic crossroads of the EU, and its trilingual reality (Dutch, French, German) is the main practical wrinkle for foreign sellers. A non-EU store selling to Belgian consumers is covered under the EAA transposition on the country-of-consumption basis, and where the service addresses multiple language regions, the accessibility statement is expected in the relevant languages, not just English. Cross-border sellers often underestimate the language-region dimension that a purely domestic Belgian provider handles by default.

What the law actually requires

The technical baseline is WCAG 2.1 Level AA via EN 301 549. EN 301 549 references WCAG 2.1 Level AA in full and adds a few requirements specific to mobile apps and documents. Beyond the technical bar, Belgium requires the following operational items, which auditors check first because they are simple to verify:

• EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA

• Trilingual accessibility statement (NL/FR/DE) where relevant

• Feedback mechanism with response within 30 days

Penalties and how enforcement actually works

Administrative fines and corrective orders; amounts vary by region.

Belgium's federal structure splits enforcement between BOSA at the federal level and the regional digital agencies of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, with the EAA transposition unifying private-sector obligations across the three regions. Enforcement is largely complaint- and monitoring-driven, and the required feedback mechanism with a 30-day response window is a concrete, checkable obligation. Which authority engages you depends on the language region your service primarily targets, so a Belgium-wide seller can face oversight coordinated across more than one body.

Practical first steps for a Belgium site

If you are starting now and want to land before enforcement, run an automated audit, fix the high-impact issues (contrast, labels, keyboard, focus), publish an accessibility statement, and set up a feedback inbox. That sequence covers 80% of what auditors look for in a first sweep.

• Run a baseline scan to know your current score

• Fix critical and serious issues in priority order — these are the ones cited in complaints

• Publish a public accessibility statement on a stable URL (Belgium regulators expect this discoverable)

• Add a feedback channel and answer within the country-specified window

• Re-scan after every major release; track regressions