Bulgaria accessibility law: EGA + EAA explained

Who has to comply

Public-sector since 2018; consumer services from 28 June 2025.

Bulgaria is one of the EU's smaller and more price-sensitive markets, but cross-border e-commerce from other EU states into Bulgaria is common. Under the EAA-implementing legislation, a foreign store reaching Bulgarian consumers is covered on the country-of-consumption basis. A Bulgarian-language accessibility statement (in Cyrillic) is expected, which is an easy requirement for cross-border sellers to miss when they default to a Latin-script English statement.

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, Bulgaria requires the following operational items, which auditors check first because they are simple to verify:

• EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA

• Bulgarian-language statement

Penalties and how enforcement actually works

Administrative fines per the EAA-implementing legislation.

Enforcement is centralised through the Ministry of e-Government, which administers the accessibility regime under the Electronic Governance Act and now extends to covered consumer services. Bulgaria's approach is centrally coordinated and largely complaint-driven, with administrative fines under the EAA-implementing legislation. As one of the EU's less mature enforcement regimes, Bulgaria is likely to prioritise clearly detectable non-compliance in early cycles, with the presence and language of the accessibility statement being the most straightforward thing to check.

Practical first steps for a Bulgaria 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 (Bulgaria regulators expect this discoverable)

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

• Re-scan after every major release; track regressions