An accessibility statement for your Shopify store: what to write and what never to claim

An accessibility statement is a public page on your store that says how you work on accessibility: what you check, what you know is still broken, and how a customer can reach you if something blocks them. It describes work, not a result.

Why EU shops are asked for one

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied to online shops selling to consumers in the EU since 28 June 2025. Article 13(2) asks a service provider to publish information on how its service meets the accessibility requirements, in its terms or another place customers can find. In practice that page is your accessibility statement. Each EU country enforces the act under its own law — in Germany, for example, it is the BFSG.

Small businesses: the act exempts microenterprises that provide services — fewer than 10 people and no more than €2 million in annual turnover or balance sheet (Article 4(5)). Whether that covers your shop is a question for your own adviser; we only point to where the rule is written.

What a useful statement contains

• What you check and how often — for example, an automated check of the storefront every week, and when a person last tested it by hand.
• What you know is still broken, in plain words: “some product images have no description yet”, not a list of rule codes.
• How to reach you if something blocks a customer, and how quickly you answer.
• The date it was last updated. A statement from 2023 tells a reader the work stopped in 2023.

What never to write

Anything that says the work is finished: a promise that every customer can use the store, that it passes WCAG, or that it meets every legal requirement. Nobody can verify that from an automated check, and a claim you cannot support is worse than no claim. In 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission fined an accessibility overlay vendor $1 million over claims of exactly this kind.

Where to publish it on Shopify

Create a page in Online Store → Pages and link it from the footer menu, next to your other policies, so a customer can find it from any page.

How Barrier Watch helps

Barrier Watch writes the statement from your store’s own dated record — what the weekly check found, what you fixed and when — and keeps every version. It never claims compliance on your behalf. See how the record works.