Shopify accessibility: how to make your store WCAG- and EAA-ready
Shopify gives you an accessible foundation — but whether your store actually meets WCAG depends on your theme, your apps, and the content you add. Most Shopify accessibility failures are a handful of recurring issues in the theme and product content, not something Shopify itself got wrong. Since the European Accessibility Act became enforceable on 28 June 2025, those failures also carry real compliance risk for EU/UK stores. Here is what commonly breaks, and how to check yours.
Why “Shopify is accessible” isn't the whole story
Shopify's platform and its newer default themes give you a reasonable starting point. But an accessible platform is not an accessible store. Three things you control decide the outcome:
- Your theme. Thousands of free and paid themes vary widely — colour choices, focus styles, heading structure, and how sale badges and carousels are built are all theme decisions.
- Your apps. Review widgets, pop-ups, upsell blocks, and cookie banners inject their own markup. A single third-party app can introduce keyboard traps or unlabelled controls storewide.
- Your content. Every product image you upload, every custom colour you pick, every “shop now” link you write is a place accessibility is won or lost — and it's entirely in your admin.
The accessibility issues that most often fail on Shopify stores
These are the WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA checks that most commonly flag on e-commerce storefronts — and exactly what an automated scan (including Curbcut's) looks for:
| Issue | Where it shows up on a Shopify store | Who fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Images missing alt text | Product photos, lifestyle images, logos, image-only banners | You (in the admin) |
| Text fails colour contrast | Sale badges, muted “was” prices, buttons, light text on hero images | You (theme colours) or developer |
| Links with no readable name | Icon-only cart and wishlist links, “read more” arrows, social icons | Developer (theme) |
| Buttons with no accessible name | Quick-add, quantity steppers, carousel arrows, menu toggles | Developer (theme or app) |
| Form inputs missing labels | Newsletter signup, search, variant selectors, checkout fields | Developer (theme or app) |
| Tap targets too small | Colour swatches, close buttons on pop-ups, footer links on mobile | Developer (theme) |
None of these are exotic. They are ordinary consequences of building a real store — and every one of them is something a screen-reader or keyboard user hits on the path to buying from you.
Why it matters now: the EAA and ADA reality
The European Accessibility Act has been enforceable since 28 June 2025, and consumer e-commerce is squarely in scope. If you sell to EU consumers and aren't a microenterprise (fewer than 10 staff and under €2M turnover), your store is expected to meet WCAG-level accessibility. In the US, thousands of ADA website-accessibility lawsuits are filed each year, and online retail is the most targeted sector. This isn't about a perfect score — it's about not being the store that quietly turns paying customers away and shows up on a demand letter.
How to check your Shopify store
You don't have to guess. An automated scan catches the mechanical failures above in under a minute, and it's the right first step before you spend a developer's time:
- Scan it. Paste your store URL into a WCAG scanner. Curbcut checks against WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA and returns each issue in plain English, with a screenshot showing exactly where it is on your page.
- Split the list. Fix the content issues yourself in the admin (alt text, some colours); hand the theme/app issues to whoever maintains your store.
- Keep a record. A report and a remediation history is the evidence that actually holds up — far more than any badge in your footer.
- Re-scan on a schedule. Themes update and apps get added; monitoring catches regressions before a customer or a regulator does.
See where your Shopify store stands right now — free, no account, no card. Curbcut scans it against WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA and hands you a plain-English fix list. No overlay, ever.
Run a free scan →
FAQ
- Is Shopify accessible by default?
- Partly. Shopify gives you an accessible foundation, but your store’s real accessibility depends on the theme you chose, the apps you installed, and the content you added — product images, colours, custom sections. Two Shopify stores can score very differently.
- Does the European Accessibility Act apply to my Shopify store?
- If you sell to consumers in the EU and are not a microenterprise (fewer than 10 staff and under €2M turnover), the EAA has applied since 28 June 2025. It expects your store to meet WCAG-level accessibility; a Shopify storefront is squarely the kind of e-commerce service it covers.
- Do I need a developer to fix Shopify accessibility issues?
- For some, yes — theme code changes need someone who edits Liquid/CSS. But many issues are content you control in the admin: missing alt text on product images, low-contrast custom colours, unlabelled links. Curbcut explains each issue in plain English and shows where it is, so it’s usually clear which you can fix yourself and which to hand to a developer.
- Should I install an accessibility app or overlay on Shopify?
- An overlay runs on top of unchanged code and does not make your store compliant — the FTC fined a leading overlay vendor $1M in 2025 over that claim. Fix the real issues in your theme and content instead. Curbcut finds them; it will never sell you an overlay.
- How do I check my Shopify store’s accessibility?
- Run a free scan: paste your store URL and Curbcut checks it against WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA and returns a plain-English list of what’s wrong, where it is (with a screenshot), and how to fix it. No account, no card.
Sources: Directive (EU) 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act); FTC final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1M (April 2025); WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA success criteria (W3C).
See the data: we scanned 41 online stores — 93% failed accessibility