The European Accessibility Act for self-publishers

Since 28 June 2025 the European Accessibility Act has covered ebooks sold to readers in the EU. Most self-publishers are likely exempt as microenterprises, but the stores ask about your ebook's accessibility either way. This is what the law says, from its own text, and what each store asks.

What the law covers

The Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) applies to ebooks provided to consumers in the EU after 28 June 2025, including by publishers outside the EU. Under its transitional rules (Article 32), service contracts agreed before that date may run on unchanged until they end, for five years at most. It treats an ebook as a service: the files, and the apps made for reading them. Print books aren't on its list. For ebooks it asks that:

• an ebook with audio has its text and audio in sync;
• the files don't stop assistive technology, such as screen readers and braille displays, from working;
• readers can reach and navigate the content, follow its structure and change how it's laid out;
• the content can be presented in other ways and works with a range of assistive technologies;
• its accessibility features are described in its metadata, so readers can find them;
• copy protection (DRM) doesn't block accessibility features.

For ebooks, the Act says, the service provider can include publishers as well as the others who distribute them. Online stores have a duty of their own: to pass on to readers the accessibility information that the business responsible for the book provides. KDP's announcement of its accessibility question says the answers support compliance with the Act.

The microenterprise exemption

Microenterprises that provide services are exempt from the Act's requirements for services, and from the duties that come with them. A microenterprise employs fewer than 10 people and has an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than €2 million. Both parts count: fewer than 10 people, and one of the two money tests. A self-publisher working alone usually is one. The EU's definition, which the Act points to, also counts the staff and turnover of businesses linked to yours.

The exemption doesn't stop you doing more: the Act encourages microenterprises to meet its requirements anyway, and readers who use screen readers buy books too. Each EU country wrote the Act into its own law and gives microenterprises guidelines, such as Ireland's. If you're unsure whether the exemption covers you, get legal advice: Ireland's regulator and the W3C both say so.

Saying so in your EPUB

A W3C note gives an EPUB a way to say which exemption it falls under. Its example, two lines in the EPUB's package metadata:

<meta property="dcterms:conformsTo">none</meta>
<meta property="a11y:exemption">eaa-microenterprise</meta>

Google Play doesn't read accessibility metadata from the file, so there you enter it in Partner Center.

What each store asks

An accessible ebook, in practice

• Real headings for chapters and parts, so the table of contents and screen readers can find them.
• Reflowable text, unless the book needs a fixed layout, as some picture books do.
• A short description (alt text) of every picture that carries meaning: at most 140 characters, KDP says. A picture that's only decoration gets an empty one.
• Text as text, never as a picture of text.
• Tables with header cells and a caption.
• The book's language set, and passages in other languages marked as such.
• Enough contrast between text and background: at least 4.5 to 1, KDP says, or 3 to 1 for large text.

The free EPUB checker tells you whether a file follows the EPUB rules that stores expect, and DAISY's free Ace checks its accessibility.

In PenStranding

Every ebook PenStranding builds says in its metadata how it can be read and what it offers: a table of contents, structural navigation and reading order, text descriptions when every picture has one, no hazards, and a summary in words. Each page carries the book's language, and passages in other languages are marked. Importing a manuscript keeps its pictures' descriptions (Word's alt text) and tells you how many pictures have none. You can add them in the editor, and until you do, the summary says some are missing.