Answers / one question
Which products does the European Accessibility Act cover?
Five product groups are covered when first supplied in the Union from 28 June 2025: consumer general purpose computer hardware and its operating systems, named self-service terminals, consumer terminal equipment for electronic communications, consumer terminal equipment for audiovisual media, and e-readers. Each must meet Annex I Section I, and most also Section II.
The five groups in Article 2(1)
The list is closed. It covers consumer general purpose computer hardware systems and the operating systems for them; payment terminals and the self-service terminals dedicated to services covered by the Directive, namely cash machines, machines for tickets, check-in and interactive information that are not built into a vehicle, aircraft, ship or rolling stock; consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability used for electronic communications services; the same kind of terminal equipment used to access audiovisual media services; and e-readers.
What the product has to meet
Article 4(2) applies Annex I Section I to every product. Section II, which makes packaging and the installation, maintenance, storage and disposal instructions accessible, applies to every product except a self-service terminal. A payment terminal, cash machine, ticket machine, check-in machine or interactive information terminal therefore meets Section I but not Section II.
The date that decides scope
The trigger is the first placing on the market after 28 June 2025. Placing on the market is the first making available of the product on the Union market, not every later sale. A model first placed before that date is outside the product duties, but a new model, a new variant or a first placing in the Union after the date is not. Record the evidence for the first placing date, because it is the fact an authority will test.
Where teams read the scope too widely or too narrowly
The list is sometimes read as all consumer electronics, which it is not, and sometimes as only desktop computers, which is also wrong. A smartphone is consumer general purpose computer hardware under the definition in Article 3(39). A self-service terminal installed inside a vehicle is outside the terminal list. A product that is outside this list can still be caught by another accessibility regime, but not by this Directive.
The provisions behind this answer
Check it against the source
Read the provision at EUR-Lex, CELEX 32019L0882. This page states the rule in our own words; the instrument governs. Not legal advice; does not certify.