European Accessibility Act Compliance in Portugal

Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022 applies to economic operators that place covered products on the Portuguese market and to businesses that provide covered services to consumers in Portugal. Article 2(1) lists the products: consumer general purpose computer hardware and its operating systems, self-service terminals (payment terminals, cash machines, ticketing machines, check-in machines and interactive information terminals), consumer terminal equipment used for electronic communications or to reach audiovisual media services, and e-readers. Article 2(3) lists the services: electronic communications other than machine-to-machine transmission, services giving access to audiovisual media services, the websites, apps, electronic tickets and travel information of air, bus, rail, maritime and inland waterway passenger transport, interactive self-service terminals in urban and suburban transport and in regional transport, consumer banking and financial services, e-books and dedicated software, and e-commerce services. Article 2(4) adds the answering of emergency communications to 112.

Article 2(5)(b) exempts micro-enterprises that provide the services in Article 2(3). The decree-law has no definition of its own, since Article 3 adopts the definitions of Directive (EU) 2019/882, so a micro-enterprise employs fewer than 10 persons and has an annual turnover or an annual balance sheet total of no more than EUR 2 million. The exemption covers services only, and a micro-enterprise that deals in covered products still has to meet the product requirements. Article 2(5)(a) also leaves out some website and app content, for example office files published before 28 June 2025 and websites and apps that only hold content not updated or edited after that date.

Under Article 13(2) a covered service provider has to prepare the information set out in Annex II, explaining how the service meets the accessibility requirements, and has to make that information available to the public in writing and orally, in a form accessible to persons with disabilities, for as long as the service is available. Annex II(1) puts that information in the general terms and conditions or an equivalent document. Public-sector websites and apps follow a separate regime, Decreto-Lei n.º 83/2018, which transposes Directive (EU) 2016/2102 and which Article 2(6) leaves unaffected.

Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022 of 6 December 2022, published in the Diário da República, 1.ª série, n.º 234, at pages 109 to 132, transposes Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services. The Council of Ministers approved it on 24 November 2022. Under Article 40 it entered into force on 7 December 2022, the day after publication, and Article 39(1) applies it from 28 June 2025.

Declaração de Retificação n.º 5/2023 of 2 February 2023 corrected several points, among them Article 28(1)(e) on the banking services Banco de Portugal supervises, and the consolidated text in the Diário da República records no other change. Portaria n.º 220/2023 of 20 July 2023, adopted under Article 37, sets the accessibility requirements and the criteria for assessing a disproportionate burden, and Declaração de Retificação n.º 17/2023 of 4 August 2023 republished its Annex II. EUR-Lex lists the decree-law and the two rectifications as the transposition measures Portugal notified.

Transposition was late, since the deadline was 28 June 2022. The Commission sent Portugal a letter of formal notice for non-communication, INFR(2022)0319, on 19 July 2022 and closed the case on 18 June 2025.

Decreto-Lei n.º 60/2026 renamed the monitoring body from 1 March 2026, and its Article 2 makes references to the Instituto Nacional para a Reabilitação, I. P. in other laws, this decree-law included, refer to the Instituto para os Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência, I. P. Regulamento n.º 237/2024 of the Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM), in force since 28 June 2025 under its Article 15, required companies offering publicly available electronic communications services to tell ANACOM within 30 working days of that date which website accessibility requirements they had implemented under Section III(c) of Annex I to Portaria n.º 220/2023, as its Article 13(2) sets out.

Portugal's EAA rules name no technical standard. Neither Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022 nor Portaria n.º 220/2023 mentions EN 301 549 or WCAG. The requirements are written out in Annex I to Portaria n.º 220/2023. Under its Article 2(2) every covered service has to meet Section IV, and every service except urban and suburban transport and regional transport also has to meet Section III, whose point (c) requires websites and mobile apps to be accessible in a consistent and adequate way. Section IV(g) adds duties for e-commerce services, among them passing on the accessibility information about the products and services sold where the responsible economic operator supplies it, and making identification and payment functions accessible.

Article 15 of the decree-law presumes conformity for products and services that meet harmonised standards whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, and Annex II(3) lets a service provider apply those standards in whole or in part when it prepares its service information. EN 301 549 is the European standard for ICT accessibility. EN 301 549 V3.2.1 applies the WCAG 2.1 level AA success criteria to web content. EN 301 549 V4.1.1, which adopts WCAG 2.2 AA, was published on 2 September 2026 and is not yet cited in the Official Journal.

Article 28(1) splits supervision by sector. Under Article 28(1)(a) the Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM) supervises e-commerce services and electronic communications services. It also handles the answering of emergency communications to 112 and some radio and electronic communications equipment, apart from operating systems. The Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (ERC) covers services giving access to audiovisual media services. The Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes and the Autoridade Nacional da Aviação Civil (ANAC) cover the websites, apps, electronic tickets and travel information of passenger transport, and the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes, I. P. covers self-service terminals in urban and suburban transport and in regional transport.

Banco de Portugal covers credit agreements, payment services, payment account services and electronic money, and the Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários covers investment services. The Inspeção-Geral das Atividades Culturais covers e-books and dedicated software, and municipalities cover cash machines. The Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica (ASAE) covers operating systems and most products that neither work by radio nor are electronic communications equipment, and Article 28(5) passes its role in the autonomous regions to the regional services.

The Instituto para os Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência, I. P. (IDiPD), called the Instituto Nacional para a Reabilitação, I. P. (INR) until 1 March 2026, monitors how the regime is applied under Article 36 and forwards complaints it receives to the competent authority. Its online complaint form for Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022 asks the consumer to have complained to the business first and to attach proof.

Article 34 lets consumers complain to the competent Article 28 authority about a breach of the decree-law, or about an earlier complaint that got no timely and reasoned reply or no satisfactory solution, alongside the complaints book rules of Decreto-Lei n.º 156/2005 and action in the courts. Consumer and disability organisations may join the complaint or file it on the consumer's behalf. Article 36(2)(e) requires the IDiPD to publish, from 2026 and by 31 March each year, a report that names the economic operators that did not meet the accessibility requirements.

Article 29(2) sets fines in two bands. A contraordenação grave carries EUR 650 to EUR 1,500 for an individual and EUR 12,000 to EUR 24,000 for a company. A contraordenação muito grave starts at EUR 2,000 for an individual and EUR 24,000 for a company and runs to the ceiling in Decreto-Lei n.º 433/82, which its Article 17 sets at EUR 3,740.98 for an individual and EUR 44,891.81 for a company.

Under Article 29(4)(a), offering a product or service that does not meet the accessibility requirements and failing to carry out the Article 14 assessment are very serious offences, so for a company the band is EUR 24,000 to EUR 44,891.81 per offence. Failing to prepare the Annex II service information is a serious offence under Article 29(1)(f)(i) and 29(3). Article 29(6) halves both limits where the offence was negligent or only attempted. Article 18(2) of Decreto-Lei n.º 433/82 lets a fine rise above the ceiling, by at most a third of it, where the offender's calculable economic gain was larger and cannot be removed another way, and Article 19(2) caps the combined fine for several offences at double the highest ceiling. Article 29(9) requires every conviction to be published at the offender's expense, including in two national newspapers.