What did the German BFSG scan actually find?

DataPulse Research, working with Buzzmatic, tested 2,446 German online shop homepages against WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 using an automated Lighthouse-based accessibility score. Only 1% of shops, 28 out of 2,446, met all the requirements checked; 19.7% scored 90 or higher, 80.1% scored between 50 and 89, and 0.2% scored below 50.

Why does this matter now instead of before June 2025?

Because the BFSG's enforcement date has already passed. The law took effect on June 28, 2025 for e-commerce and most digital services, with no grace period for online shops specifically, and market surveillance authorities can fine non-compliant businesses up to EUR 100,000 and, in serious cases, order a non-compliant offering taken offline.

Is Germany worse than other EU countries on accessibility?

Not obviously. A separate scan of Romanian company websites found roughly nine in ten still failing basic checks a year after EAA enforcement began, and the WebAIM Million 2026 found low contrast text on 83.9% of the one million home pages it tested worldwide. Germany's gap looks broadly in line with what shows up whenever anyone actually measures compliance rather than assuming the law changed behavior on its own.

Germany's BFSG Accessibility Gap: What a 2,446-Shop Scan Shows

More than a year after Germany’s Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) took effect, a scan of 2,446 German online shop homepages found that just 1%, 28 shops, fully met the accessibility requirements it checked, according to DataPulse Research’s e-commerce accessibility study, run in collaboration with Buzzmatic. That’s the most recent concrete data point on how far actual compliance has, or hasn’t, caught up with a law that’s already in force, and it’s a striking gap for one of the EU’s largest e-commerce markets.

The scan and what it found

DataPulse Research tested the homepages of 2,446 German online shops using an automated Lighthouse-based accessibility score benchmarked against WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2, looking at text contrast, alternative text on images, navigation landmarks and ARIA attributes. Beyond the 1% that met every requirement checked, 19.7% scored 90 or higher out of 100, 80.1% landed in the 50-to-89 range, and 0.2%, five shops, scored below 50. An automated Lighthouse scan of homepages isn’t the same as a full manual WCAG audit of an entire site, so it should be read as a directional signal of where the market actually stands rather than a certified compliance count. But as a large, recent sample of one specific, heavily regulated sector, it’s a meaningful and sourced data point.

Why the timing matters

The BFSG, Germany’s implementation of the EU’s European Accessibility Act, took effect on June 28, 2025 for e-commerce, telecommunications, banking and other covered digital services, with no grace period for online shops specifically. Existing devices and pre-2025 contracts get transition time through June 27, 2030, but a shop selling to consumers today doesn’t get that cushion. Germany’s market surveillance authorities can fine non-compliant businesses up to EUR 100,000, and in serious cases order a non-compliant offering taken offline; violations can also count as unfair competition under German law, adding civil exposure on top of the regulatory fine. A scan showing 99% of shops falling short of full compliance, more than a year after that date passed, means the large majority of German online retailers currently sit outside a law that’s already actively enforceable against them.

What “not meeting requirements” likely includes

DataPulse’s own study lists text contrast, missing alternative text and missing navigation landmarks among the most common issues found, which lines up closely with accessibility research generally. The WebAIM Million 2026, testing the top one million home pages worldwide, found low contrast text on 83.9% of pages and an average of 56.1 detectable errors per page. It’s the same handful of common, inexpensive-to-fix issues showing up again in a market-specific German sample, not a uniquely German problem or a list of exotic technical failures.

What German businesses should do next

For a business that hasn’t checked where it stands, the honest read of this data is that falling short right now is the current norm among German online shops, not an unusual position, which removes some of the surprise factor but none of the legal exposure. The practical next step is the same regardless of company size: run a WCAG 2.1 AA check against the actual site, since EN 301 549 v3.2.1 fully incorporates WCAG 2.1 AA and conforming to it creates a presumption of BFSG and EAA compliance. Fixing the cheap, high-frequency issues first, contrast, alt text, and landmark structure, moves a shop out of the 99% and into a much smaller, better-positioned group before enforcement attention increases.

What a business gains by acting now

A market where 99% of shops fall short of full compliance is also, from a competitive standpoint, one where actually meeting the standard is still rare enough to stand out. This pattern isn’t unique to Germany: a similar scan of Romanian company websites found roughly nine in ten still failing basic accessibility checks a year after EAA enforcement began there too, suggesting the gap between the law taking effect and businesses actually closing it is a broader European pattern rather than one country lagging behind another. A German shop that fixes its contrast, alt text and navigation structure today isn’t just reducing exposure to a EUR 100,000 fine. It’s positioning itself ahead of the large majority of competitors measured in the same scan, at a point when EU procurement teams and public-sector partners increasingly screen for accessibility directly.