Shopify Accessibility 2026: Correctly Implementing BFSG Compliance

The German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) has been in effect since June 28, 2025. It obliges many online shops to make their offerings barrier-free – and thus also affects your Shopify shop. Unlike data protection, this is not about data, but about ensuring that all people can use your shop. This guide shows you who the BFSG affects, what specifically needs to be done, and how you can achieve barrier-free access step by step.

01What the BFSG means for Shopify shops

The BFSG implements the European Accessibility Act into German law. For e-commerce, this means: the entire purchasing process – from product search and product page to completed checkout – must be usable for people with disabilities. The practical technical benchmark is the WCAG 2.1 standard at Level AA.

02Who is affected – and who is not

In principle, companies that sell products or services to consumers are affected. There is an important exception: Micro-enterprises that offer services and have fewer than 10 employees and a maximum annual turnover of €2 million are partially exempt. Those who sell pure goods via an online shop are generally subject to the obligation – the micro-enterprise exemption does not automatically apply here. In case of doubt, a brief legal assessment is worthwhile.

Important: The exemption for micro-enterprises is narrow and does not apply across the board. Do not rely on it without having examined your specific case. No legal advice.

03The 4 principles of WCAG – practically translated

• Perceivable: Alt-texts for images, sufficient color contrasts, subtitles for videos.
• Operable: Everything accessible via keyboard, visible focus, no mouse-only functions.
• Understandable: clear language, comprehensible forms, helpful error messages.
• Robust: clean, semantic HTML that screen readers can read correctly.

04The most common barriers in Shopify themes

In practice, we repeatedly see the same stumbling blocks: insufficient contrasts in buttons and action colors, missing alt texts, sliders and pop-ups that cannot be closed by keyboard, form fields without labels, and icon buttons without descriptions. Many of these can be specifically fixed in the theme code without changing the design.

05BFSG checklist for your shop

• Check color contrasts for at least 4.5:1 for text.
• Every content-relevant image receives a meaningful alt text.
• Complete checkout playable via keyboard.
• Form fields with real labels, errors clearly named.
• Focus indicator visible everywhere.
• Publish an accessibility statement on a separate page.

We check your Shopify shop for BFSG weaknesses and fix them directly in the theme – without changing your design. Schedule an appointment →

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