Portugal Accessibility Laws and EAA Compliance

What are the Portugal accessibility laws?

Portugal regulates accessibility through three instruments that work together, rather than one comprehensive code.

Decreto-Lei n.º 83/2018

Covers the websites and mobile apps of public sector bodies.

Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022

Transposes the European Accessibility Act. It extends accessibility obligations into the private sector — e-commerce, banking, telecoms and specific product categories.

Lei n.º 46/2006

Sits underneath both as a general non-discrimination law protecting persons with disabilities across public and private life, not just in digital contexts.

Why three laws changes how you scope the work

An organization's obligations depend entirely on what it is and what it sells.

A municipal council answers to DL 83/2018 alone. A bank answers to DL 82/2022 for its digital channels, and remains bound by Lei 46/2006's broader non-discrimination duties regardless of channel.

Treating "Portugal accessibility law" as a single checklist is the mistake that leads organizations to miss the instrument that actually applies to them.

How does the European Accessibility Act apply in Portugal?

The EAA is an EU directive. It doesn't take effect in Portugal automatically — it had to be transposed into Portuguese law before it created any binding obligation.

That transposition happened through Decreto-Lei n.º 82/2022, published on 6 December 2022. That decree is the actual legal text Portuguese businesses are bound by, not the EU directive directly.

A phased timeline, not one start date

The main compliance deadline for new products and services placed on the market fell on 28 June 2025. That's also the date the EAA became applicable across the EU under the directive's own schedule.

Before DL 82/2022, Portugal's only binding digital accessibility law was DL 83/2018, and it applied exclusively to public sector bodies. DL 82/2022 is what brought private companies into scope for the first time.

Who must comply with Portugal's accessibility laws?

Obligations fall differently depending on which role an organization plays. Conflating these roles is where most confusion starts.

Public sector bodies

Ministries, municipal councils, public universities and public hospitals are bound directly for their websites and mobile apps. Compliance isn't optional or phased in by sector — the law names public administration by definition.

Manufacturers of covered products

Companies producing computers, smartphones, e-readers or self-service terminals such as ATMs and ticketing machines must meet the requirements before placing those products on the Portuguese market — and must hold technical documentation showing how they did it.

Service providers in covered sectors

E-commerce operators, banks and payment providers, electronic communications operators, and providers of certain audiovisual and passenger-transport information services. They're bound for the digital and service-delivery aspects the law defines, not for every product or channel they operate.

Businesses outside the EAA's covered sectors

A company that isn't a manufacturer of a listed product category and doesn't provide one of the listed services isn't directly bound by DL 82/2022. It remains subject to Lei 46/2006's general prohibition on disability discrimination in how it treats customers.

Which products and services are covered?

DL 82/2022's scope is defined by specific categories rather than a general "digital products" rule. That's why checking the actual list matters more than assuming coverage.

Products

• Computers and operating systems
• Smartphones
• E-readers
• Self-service terminals — including ATMs, ticketing and check-in machines, and payment terminals

Services

• E-commerce
• Banking and financial services
• Electronic communications services
• Elements of audiovisual media and passenger transport services tied to digital access

A retailer's own website falls under DL 82/2022 specifically because e-commerce is a named covered service. It isn't because "websites" are covered as a category in the private sector, the way they are for public bodies under DL 83/2018.

If an organization's activity sits near the edge of these categories, confirm coverage against the current legal text. Scope is defined service-by-service, not by a blanket digital-accessibility rule.

Which accessibility requirements apply to digital products and services?

Across both the public and private regimes, the underlying technical bar is largely the same standard. What differs is the legal instrument requiring it.

Websites and mobile applications

For public sector bodies, DL 83/2018 requires websites and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 at Level AA. It applies to essentially all of a public body's digital content by default.

For private organizations, DL 82/2022 reaches a website or app only through the covered service it delivers. A bank's online banking portal is in scope because online banking is a covered financial service, not because the bank operates a website.

That difference matters when scoping a compliance project. A public entity typically has to assess its whole site. A private company usually needs to isolate the specific pages, flows or app screens tied to the covered service itself.

Accessibility standards

The technical standard behind both laws is EN 301 549, the European harmonized standard for ICT accessibility. In its web-content sections it mirrors WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

Meeting EN 301 549 gives an organization a presumption of conformity with the legal requirement. That's why most Portuguese guidance — including the validator tools referenced by public administration bodies — tests against WCAG 2.1 AA criteria directly, rather than a separate homegrown standard.

Products with components beyond web content, like hardware or embedded software, draw on other sections of EN 301 549 that WCAG alone doesn't address.

Accessibility statement

Public sector bodies under DL 83/2018 must publish an accessibility statement. It covers their compliance status, any content that isn't yet accessible and why, and a way for citizens to report barriers they encounter.

Under DL 82/2022, private service providers carry a comparable but distinct duty. They have to make available information and explanations showing how their product or service meets the applicable requirements. The law frames this as a documentation obligation for the service, rather than a named "accessibility statement" in the public-sector sense.

Confirm the exact format required for your specific sector against the current text of DL 82/2022 before publishing anything.

How can organizations comply with Portugal's accessibility requirements?

Compliance isn't a single filing. It's a sequence that starts with assessing where a product or service currently stands, and only then moves into documentation and ongoing monitoring.

Establishing compliance status

Before anything gets published or claimed, an organization needs an actual assessment against the applicable standard.

Under DL 82/2022, manufacturers must carry out a conformity assessment against the accessibility requirements before a product reaches the market, and keep technical documentation demonstrating how that assessment was done.

Public sector bodies under DL 83/2018 go through a comparable exercise for their own digital properties. They test against WCAG 2.1 AA and record the result — full conformity, partial conformity or non-conformity — as the compliance status published in the accessibility statement.

Monitoring procedures

Compliance status isn't established once and then left alone. It has to be re-checked whenever the underlying product, service or website changes.

For public sector bodies, AMA (Agência para a Modernização Administrativa) monitors compliance with DL 83/2018 on an ongoing basis, rather than through a single audit.

For the private sector, monitoring takes the form of market surveillance carried out continuously by the sectoral regulator responsible for that category — Banco de Portugal and CMVM for financial services, ANACOM for electronic communications, ASAE for e-commerce, equipment and self-service terminals. The Instituto Nacional para a Reabilitação (INR, I.P.) is entitled to the information these regulators gather.

A new release, a redesigned checkout flow or an updated app version each reopens the compliance question. A result from months earlier doesn't carry over.

Measures that keep compliance in place

Meeting the legal minimum and staying compliant over time require different habits. The second is where most organizations underinvest.

• Run structured audits before launch, not after a complaint — combine automated testing (tools referenced by Portuguese public administration, such as AccessMonitor, check WCAG 2.1 conformance) with manual testing for what scans can't catch, like logical reading order or genuinely usable focus states.
• Build accessibility checks into development and procurement — catching a keyboard-navigation failure in design review costs far less than remediating it after a product has shipped to every customer.
• Keep the feedback channel functional, not decorative — a reporting mechanism people can't actually reach defeats the purpose the law assigns it, whether that's a public body's accessibility statement contact or a private service's customer support channel.
• Re-test after every meaningful change — a new component, template or app release can silently reintroduce a barrier an earlier audit had already resolved.

How is accessibility compliance enforced in Portugal?

Enforcement is split across several bodies rather than centralized in one accessibility regulator. Which one applies depends on the sector and the law in question.

Competent authorities

• AMA (Agência para a Modernização Administrativa) — monitors public sector compliance with DL 83/2018 and provides the technical guidance and validation tools public bodies use to test conformance.
• INR, I.P. (Instituto Nacional para a Reabilitação) — receives and channels complaints under Lei n.º 46/2006's non-discrimination provisions, and is entitled to information from the sectoral bodies enforcing DL 82/2022.
• Banco de Portugal and CMVM — supervise accessibility compliance in banking, payments and financial services covered by DL 82/2022.
• ANACOM — regulates and enforces accessibility compliance for electronic communications operators.
• ASAE (Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica) — inspects e-commerce, equipment and software, and self-service terminals, with regional equivalents handling the same role in the Azores and Madeira.
• Other sectoral authorities — bodies such as the Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes and Turismo de Portugal handle transport- and tourism-related services within their existing regulatory remit.

Penalties

DL 82/2022 treats non-compliance as a contraordenação — an administrative offense — with fines set in tiers according to how serious the violation is judged to be, rather than a single flat penalty.

Reported figures for the more serious tier put fines for individuals in roughly the €2,000 to €3,740 range, and for companies in roughly the €24,000 to €44,891 range. A separate, lower tier applies to less severe violations.

These figures are tied to a general administrative-offense ceiling that gets periodically updated. Confirm them against the current published text of DL 82/2022 before relying on them for risk planning.

Ancillary sanctions

Beyond the fine itself, DL 82/2022 allows ancillary sanctions. Publishing the decision at the offender's expense applies in every case. Depending on severity and fault, exclusion from public tenders or loss of the right to receive public support may also come into play.

A separate regime: Lei n.º 46/2006

Lei n.º 46/2006 separately prohibits and penalizes disability discrimination. Complaints can be filed with INR, I.P. INR refers the complaint to the inspectorate or regulator with jurisdiction over the matter, which then carries out the investigation and imposes the penalty.

Lei 46/2006 penalty amounts

Fines are indexed to the minimum wage: 5–10 times the minimum wage for individuals, 20–30 times for legal entities. Because the minimum wage is updated every year, the amounts change with it — calculate the current figure using that year's minimum wage.

How does Portuguese law protect persons with disabilities?

Lei n.º 46/2006 is the foundation underneath Portugal's accessibility rules. It protects persons with disabilities far more broadly than the digital-specific laws do.

It prohibits direct discrimination — treating someone with a disability worse than a comparable person without one — and indirect discrimination, where a rule that looks neutral ends up disadvantaging persons with disabilities in practice. The law binds public and private entities alike, and covers access to goods, services, education, employment and other economic and social rights.

DL 83/2018 and DL 82/2022 can be read as specific applications of that broader principle to one domain, rather than as a separate legal tradition. An inaccessible website isn't only a technical non-conformance with WCAG. Depending on the circumstances, it can also be the kind of practical barrier Lei 46/2006 was written to address.

Where to report a barrier

INR, I.P.

General disability discrimination complaints go to INR through a complaint form submitted by email. INR forwards it to whichever authority has jurisdiction, and publishes an annual report summarizing how Lei n.º 46/2006 was applied that year.

The accessibility statement

For a barrier on a public sector website or app, the statement each public body publishes under DL 83/2018 includes its own feedback mechanism for exactly this purpose.

The sectoral authority

For a barrier tied to a covered product or service under DL 82/2022, the complaint goes to the authority responsible for that category. Consumer and disability associations can also file on an affected person's behalf.