Country reference
United Kingdom
National implementing law
Substantive obligations effective: 2018-09-23.
Enforcement body
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC); monitoring by the Minister for the Cabinet Office (delivered by the Government Digital Service) is the designated national authority.
Scope
These regulations apply to UK public sector bodies (central and local government, most publicly funded bodies, and some charities) and require their websites and mobile applications to meet the accessibility requirement and publish an accessibility statement. The regulations do not apply to private sector businesses, which are instead subject to the general non-discrimination duties in the Equality Act 2010. The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) does not apply in the UK because the UK left the EU before its application date.
What is unclear
Honest gaps in this article. If you need certainty on any of these, the authoritative source is the primary law text linked above, not this page.
- The regulations do not themselves prescribe fixed monetary penalties; enforcement runs through EHRC's general powers under the Equality Act 2006. We did not locate a primary-source penalty figure and have not asserted one.
Practical notes
The regulations transposed EU Directive 2016/2102 (the Web Accessibility Directive) before the UK left the EU; they remain in force as retained UK law. Regulation 1(2) confirms the coming-into-force date of 23 September 2018 and Regulation 11 designates EHRC (England, Scotland, Wales) and ECNI (Northern Ireland) as the enforcement bodies, both verified against the primary text on legislation.gov.uk. GDS publishes periodic monitoring reports on gov.uk. We are not aware of publicly reported EHRC enforcement actions taken specifically under these regulations as of the research date.
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