Since 28 June 2025, selling online to consumers in Spain has required an accessible website. The most common failure is also the most elegant.

Picture this: a Sunday evening, and someone aged 72 wants to book two nights at a five-star hotel in Marbella for their anniversary. The website is beautiful: full-bleed photography, thin type, light grey text on white. They enlarge the text on their phone, the menu falls apart and the cookie banner covers the payment button. On Monday they phone. Or they book through a platform, whose website is less beautiful and easier to read.

In luxury, the design that looks most refined is often the one fewest people can use. Since June 2025, in Spain, that is no longer just a sales problem. It can be a breach of the law.

What the law says.

Law 11/2023 of 8 May transposes the European directive on the accessibility of products and services into Spanish law. Its Title I came into force on 28 June 2025, the same date the directive sets across the European Union, and it applies, among others, to e-commerce services provided to consumers. The law defines them as services provided at a distance, through websites and apps, at a consumer’s request and with a view to concluding a contract with them. A hotel booking paid for on the website, or a medical consultation bought online, fits that definition in my view. Whether your case fits is a question for your lawyer. I am not a lawyer.

The requirement is in Annex I: websites and apps must be “perceivable, operable, understandable and robust”, and in e-commerce the same applies to identification, security and payment. Micro-enterprises providing services are exempt: those with fewer than 10 employees and no more than EUR 2 million in turnover or balance sheet total.

The obligations that are not about design.

The part that strikes me most is not about colours or buttons. Article 13 requires the general terms and conditions, or an equivalent document, to include information on how the service meets the accessibility requirements. That information must be available in writing, orally and in an accessible format, and kept up to date. Article 15 also requires ongoing staff training in accessible products and services.

There is a safety valve, the “disproportionate burden” of Article 16, but it is not a free pass. It must be justified against the criteria in Annex V, documented, kept for five years and renewed whenever the service changes and, in any case, every five years. And a business that has received funding to improve accessibility cannot invoke it.

Who can complain.

Enforcement lies with Spain’s autonomous communities. But Article 29 also allows consumers, organisations in the disability sector and other legal entities with a legitimate interest to go to the authorities and the courts to demand compliance. Penalties follow the relevant sector’s legislation and, where that is silent, the regime of Spain’s General Law on the rights of persons with disabilities. Under that regime, breaching the accessibility rules for services available to the public in a way that limits their use by persons with disabilities is a serious infringement, with fines of EUR 30,001 to 90,000. Which regime applies to your business, and in which region, is for your lawyer to tell you.

The most common failure is the most elegant.

Every year, WebAIM analyses the home pages of the top one million websites. In its 2026 report, 95.9% had detectable WCAG 2 failures, with an average of 56.1 errors per page. The most frequent failure, found on 83.9% of pages, is low-contrast text. Next come images without alternative text, on 53.1%, and form fields without labels, on 51%.

Low-contrast text is rarely an oversight. It is an aesthetic choice: the pale grey that looks discreet, or the white headline over a photo of snow. I suspect it weighs even more in luxury, because it is the failure that most resembles good taste. I have no figure that measures this. The guidelines do set the minimum: a contrast ratio of 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text.

What the law does not say yet.

The law allows businesses to rely on harmonised standards published in the Official Journal of the European Union, and the reference standard, EN 301 549, is changing. Version 4.1.1 was published on 2 September 2026 and moves from WCAG 2.1 to WCAG 2.2. According to Ireland’s National Disability Authority, its citation in the Official Journal is expected on 16 December 2026, and until then the 2021 version remains in force. A website audited against WCAG 2.1 today will soon be measured with a different yardstick.

And on 23 October 2026, Spain’s Law 4/2026 comes into force, broadening the legal definition of universal accessibility: it now includes cognitive accessibility, delivered through easy-read text, pictograms and other means, as well as accessibility for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. I do not yet know how it will apply to a private company’s website. What I do know is that four paragraphs of small print before the payment button are not easy-read.

The blind spot: what you did not design.

Many businesses will review their website and forget what is not theirs: the booking engine, the payment gateway, the chat, the cookie banner. Article 14 says that even if part of a service is subcontracted, its accessibility must not be compromised and the service provider must comply. The exclusion of third-party content in Article 2 covers content the business neither funds, develops nor controls. A booking engine you pay for hardly fits there, although this, again, is one for your lawyer.

In the opening scene, the hotel did not lose the booking because of its website. It lost it at the last step, inside a component nobody in the house had ever tested with large text.

Elegant and illegible look far too much alike.

Where I stand.

I do not think accessibility is a legal formality solved with a plug-in installed in an afternoon. I think it is the test of whether a design is well made. My own brand is grey on black, so I know this failure up close: every grey has to be measured, including the ones in effects that light up text as you scroll. A 72-year-old with money and no patience is exactly who luxury sells to. A website your best client cannot read is not elegant. It is a well-designed locked door.

What I would check.

• Contrast. Every grey of text against its background, including text over photographs and on buttons.
• The payment path by keyboard. Booking or paying from start to finish without a mouse, and with the phone’s screen reader.
• The general terms. Whether they include the accessibility information Article 13 requires, in writing and in an accessible format.
• What is not yours. Booking engine, payment gateway, chat and cookie banner: what each supplier contract says.
• New documents. PDFs and videos published before 28 June 2025 are excluded. New ones are not.

Where to start.

1. This week

   Try it yourself

   Book or pay on your own website with the phone’s text size at maximum and, on a computer, using only the keyboard.

2. This month

   Measure and document

   An audit against WCAG 2.2 level AA. If you are a micro-enterprise, keep the figures that prove it to hand.

3. This quarter

   Fix what gets used

   The booking and payment path first, then the rest, plus the accessibility information in the general terms.

4. Every year

   Measure again

   When the reference standard or the service changes, review again and renew the assessment if you rely on disproportionate burden.

There is a test that takes five minutes and almost nobody runs. Put the mouse aside and try to book on your own website using only the keyboard. Then switch on your phone’s screen reader, close your eyes and try to reach the payment.

If you manage it, notice how long it took. If you do not, the question changes: how many people have tried this year without telling anyone, and on which other website did they end up booking?

If you would like a full reading of your website and your booking or payment journey, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. Whether your business is covered, and to what extent, is for your lawyer to decide, not a designer.