Who has to comply
Public-sector since 2018; consumer services from 28 June 2025.
Romania is one of the larger emerging markets in the EU with fast-growing e-commerce, so foreign sellers increasingly ship into it. Under the EAA-implementing law extending GD 1112/2018, a non-EU store selling to Romanian consumers is covered on the country-of-consumption basis. A Romanian-language accessibility statement is expected, and cross-border sellers targeting the wider Balkan region should treat Romania's requirements as a distinct national obligation.
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, Romania requires the following operational items, which auditors check first because they are simple to verify:
- EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA
- Romanian-language statement
Penalties and how enforcement actually works
Administrative fines under EAA-implementing law.
Enforcement is led by the Romanian Digitalisation Authority (ADR), which oversaw the GD 1112/2018 public-sector regime and now extends supervision to covered consumer-facing services. Romania's model is centralised and complaint-driven, with administrative fines under the EAA-implementing law. As ADR builds out private-sector enforcement from a public-sector base, the early focus is likely to be on visible, easily verified failures — statement presence, obvious WCAG breaches, and a working feedback channel — before deep technical audits.
Most enforcement starts with a complaint or a routine sweep. The first signal is usually a written notice giving you 30–60 days to remediate before fines kick in.
Practical first steps for a Romania 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 (Romania regulators expect this discoverable)
- Add a feedback channel and answer within the country-specified window
- Re-scan after every major release; track regressions