1 September 2026

Your provider’s accessibility statement does not cover you

No, your provider’s accessibility statement does not cover you. French legislation designates the entity that offers the service, not the one that builds it. And if you are an ordinary commercial business, the accessibility statement is probably not what you need to produce: the rules that apply to you require something else, in your terms and conditions. One final clarification on timing: the administrative fine of 20,000 euros cited by most articles on this subject was repealed on 27 August 2026.

This article cites one source for each claim, and the texts were read in the version currently in force, not in a summary.

The question, simply put

Your website was built by an agency or runs on a platform. This provider tells you that it manages accessibility, and it sometimes publishes its own accessibility statement or an equivalent document. The question is therefore legitimate: does this document cover you?

The short answer is no. Not because any text expressly prohibits it, but for a simpler and more robust reason: these obligations do not fall on your provider. They are addressed to you.

Who the texts address

Two regimes coexist in France, and they do not cover the same companies.

• Article 47 of loi n° 2005-102 covers the public sector and, among companies, only those whose turnover exceeds a threshold set by decree. This threshold is 250 million euros. Section III states that “the persons referred to in I shall publish an accessibility statement”. The subject of the verb is the entity itself.
• Article L. 412-13 of code de la consommation, resulting from the transposition of the European Accessibility Act, covers “economic operators” that provide services to consumers. This is the regime that applies to an ordinary commercial company.

This distinction has a practical consequence that few articles state clearly: if your turnover is below 250 million euros, the accessibility statement within the meaning of the 2005 law does not apply to you. Nor do the multi-year plan, the annual action plan or the notice on the home page. These are genuine obligations, but they are not yours.

Why your provider’s document does not protect you

Under both regimes, the obligation follows the party offering the service to the public, not the party that created it.

Under the public-sector regime, the statement must contain “the organisation’s assessment information” (décret n° 2019-768, Article 6). It is an assessment of the entity, concerning its own service. The decree recognises only one exception involving a third party, in Article 3: it covers content “that is neither funded nor developed by the organisation concerned and that is not under its control”. All three conditions are cumulative. A website that you commissioned and paid for meets none of the three.

Under the consumer regime, Article D. 412-57 lists the obligations “of service providers”, and the service provider in this context is the party that provides the service to the consumer. Your agency does not provide a service to your customers: it provides a service to you. You are the party that appears before the consumer, and the text therefore designates you.

The European legislature had anticipated the issue. The recitals of Directive (EU) 2019/882 state that even when a service is outsourced, in whole or in part, its accessibility should not be affected as a result. This is a recital, which informs the interpretation of the articles without having any independent normative force in itself. We cite it for what it is: an indication of intent, consistent with the interpretation of the articles.

No text explicitly states that a provider’s statement does not cover its client. This conclusion follows from the designation of the party to whom the obligation applies. We prefer to put it this way rather than attribute to the texts a sentence they do not contain.

What the law requires of you

If you fall under the consumer law framework, the information obligation does not take the form of an accessibility statement published on a dedicated page. The annex to Article D. 412-57 is explicit about where it must appear:

“The service provider includes information assessing how the service meets the accessibility requirements referred to in Article L. 412-13 of the Consumer Code in the terms and conditions or in an equivalent document.”

Where applicable, this documentation includes a general description of the service in accessible formats, the explanations needed to understand how it works, and a description of how the accessibility requirements are met. Article D. 412-57 adds four ongoing obligations: to design and provide the service in accordance with the requirements, to maintain procedures to ensure continued conformance, to take corrective measures and inform the authorities in the event of non-conformance, and to provide, upon a reasoned request, information demonstrating conformance.

An exemption exists. Businesses that employ fewer than ten people and whose annual turnover or balance sheet total does not exceed two million euros are exempt from these requirements and all related obligations (Article L. 412-13, I).

Be aware of a point that is rarely mentioned: if you receive public or private funding intended to improve the accessibility of a service, you can no longer invoke disproportionate burden for that service (Article L. 412-13, II).

What changed on 27 August 2026

Most French articles on this subject mention an administrative fine of 20,000 euros for failures to meet statement obligations. This amount appeared in Article 8 of Decree No. 2019-768, which set the fine at 2,000 euros for municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants and 20,000 euros for other entities.

This article has been repealed. Decree No. 2026-816 of 24 August 2026, published in the Journal officiel of 26 August and effective from 27 August, repeals Article 8 and replaces Article 9 with annual monitoring. In the official database, Article 8 now has the status “repealed”, with an end date of 27 August 2026.

This does not mean that breaches are no longer penalised. The regime under Article 47-1 of the 2005 law remains fully in force: Arcom issues formal notices, makes them public and may impose a financial penalty if the formal notice is not acted upon. The cap is 50,000 euros for failure to meet the accessibility obligation itself, and 25,000 euros for the accessibility statement, multi-year plan and homepage notice obligations.

One point is worth noting because it is almost always omitted. For the companies referred to in 4° of I of Article 47, those with a turnover exceeding 250 million euros, Arcom may establish breaches of paragraphs III and IV, but not paragraph I. For these companies, the applicable cap is therefore 25,000 euros, not 50,000.

Under the consumer protection regime, the scale is entirely different. A breach constitutes a fifth-class offence under Article R. 451-4 of the code de la consommation. Article 131-13 of the code pénal sets this amount at a maximum of 1,500 euros, increased to 3,000 euros for a repeat offence where the regulations so provide. For a legal entity, Article 131-41 increases the maximum to five times that applicable to individuals, namely 7,500 euros.

What you can ask your provider for

None of this means that your provider is out of the picture. It remains the party that can act on the code. It simply changes the nature of what you should ask it for: not a document that protects you, but what you need to produce your own.

• A dated assessment of the service as it is currently live, not of the template or theme from which it was created.
• A list of points of non-conformance, including the impact on the user for each one, rather than only the criterion reference.
• What was corrected, when, and how it was rechecked after correction.
• A contractual clause stating what happens if the service still fails to conform, and within what timeframe.
• The information needed for the documentation required by the annex to Article D. 412-57, since you are responsible for producing it.

A reputable provider will supply all of this without difficulty. A provider that responds by sending you its own accessibility statement is not answering the question.

This article describes legal obligations and who they apply to. It does not constitute legal advice and is not a substitute for advice from a lawyer about your situation.