Do I face 5%-of-turnover fines as an SME selling into Italy?

Almost certainly not. The 5%-of-annual-turnover sanction is a Stanca framework rule (Legge 4/2004 as extended by DL 76/2020) that applies to private companies with a 3-year average turnover above €500 million, plus public administrations and specific regulated entities. As an SME you are far more likely to face D.Lgs. 82/2022 exposure of €5,000–€40,000 per violation, with an additional €2,500–€30,000 for ignoring an AgID supervisory order. Any vendor describing the 5% figure as a generic EAA fine is conflating the two regimes.

Does AgID enforce against non-Italian sellers?

Yes. The EAA, including D.Lgs. 82/2022, applies to any economic operator placing covered products or services on the Italian market regardless of where the company is headquartered. AgID can receive complaints about a non-Italian e-commerce site shipping to Italian consumers and open an inquiry. Practical enforcement against foreign sellers happens through the EU cooperation mechanism for cross-border market surveillance, with national authorities sharing case files.

What is the difference between D.Lgs. 82/2022 and Stanca?

D.Lgs. 82/2022 is Italy's transposition of the European Accessibility Act and covers EAA service categories (e-commerce, banking, transport ticketing, e-books, etc.) with administrative fines of €5,000–€40,000 per violation, plus €2,500–€30,000 for ignoring AgID orders. It has no percentage-of-turnover provision. Stanca (Legge 4/2004 + DL 76/2020) is the older Italian framework that historically covered public administrations and was extended in 2020 to private companies with 3-year average turnover above €500 million and a few named regulated industries; under Stanca, AgID can sanction up to 5% of annual turnover. Both regimes are administered by AgID and can apply to the same company at the same time.

Is an Italian-language accessibility statement required?

Italian law does not always demand a strictly Italian-only statement, but Italian-language accessibility information is strongly recommended for any service marketing to Italian consumers and is what AgID will expect to see in practice. The defensible pattern is to publish an accessibility statement in both English and Italian on a stable URL, with the Annex V content fields under the EAA and a clear feedback mechanism that responds in Italian.

What does 'notice and cure' mean in Italian administrative law?

Notice and cure (in Italian, "diffida ad adempiere" or the broader "procedura di contestazione") is the pattern where the regulator formally notifies the operator of an alleged violation and gives a defined window to remediate before applying a sanction. Under the Stanca framework, AgID's regulation sets a default 90 days from receipt of the complaint to conclude the procedure. Under D.Lgs. 82/2022, the cure period is set by AgID per case rather than by statute. In both regimes, demonstrably good-faith remediation inside the cure window typically avoids the financial sanction.

European Accessibility Act

Italy's EAA: D.Lgs. 82/2022 Fines vs the Stanca Framework

Last updated May 24, 2026

Italy enforces accessibility through two parallel regimes, both administered by the same authority — the Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale (AgID). Many third-party summaries blur them together. Do not.

The first regime is D.Lgs. 82/2022, the Italian transposition of the European Accessibility Act. Under D.Lgs. 82/2022, AgID can impose administrative fines of €5,000 to €40,000 per violation, plus a separate €2,500 to €30,000 for ignoring AgID supervisory orders. There is no percentage-of-turnover provision under D.Lgs. 82/2022. This regime applies to all EAA-covered services — e-commerce, banking, transport ticketing, e-books, and the rest of Annex I.

The second regime is the older Stanca framework (Legge 4/2004, extended to private companies via DL 76/2020). Stanca applies to public administrations by default and, after the 2020 extension, to private companies with a 3-year average turnover above €500 million (plus certain regulated industries such as transport and publicly-funded IT). Under Stanca, AgID can impose sanctions up to 5% of annual turnover after a notice-and-cure procedure. The 90-day cure period commonly cited online is an AgID procedural rule under thisregime — not a statutory rule under D.Lgs. 82/2022.

So when a vendor blog warns about “5% of turnover EAA fines” or a “mandatory 90-day cure period” in Italy, they have conflated the two regimes. The 5% figure exists, but only under Stanca, only for private companies above €500 million in 3-year average turnover. The 90-day default exists, but only as an AgID procedural rule under Stanca. The EAA-specific exposure for most businesses — including non-Italian sellers shipping into Italy — is the €5K–€40K range under D.Lgs. 82/2022.

Two regimes, one regulator — why the distinction matters

AgID is the Autorità di vigilanza sull'accessibilità dei servizi digitalifor both regimes. Because the same agency enforces both laws, English-language summaries often describe Italian accessibility enforcement as a single thing. It is not. The two regimes have different statutory bases, different scopes, different sanction ceilings, and different procedural rules. Where they overlap — for example, a large Italian e-commerce platform with €800 million in revenue selling to consumers — both regimes can apply, and AgID can choose which procedural track to open.

The practical implication: if you are a non-Italian seller shipping to Italian consumers, you are almost certainly in scope of D.Lgs. 82/2022 (EAA transposition). You are almost certainly notin scope of Stanca unless you cross the €500 million 3-year-average threshold or operate in a Stanca-named sector. Confusing the two leads to either panic (assuming 5% of turnover is on the table when it is not) or complacency (assuming the EAA carries no fines because you read a Stanca-only article).

D.Lgs. 82/2022 — Italy's EAA transposition

Decreto Legislativo 82/2022 transposes Directive 2019/882 (EAA) into Italian law. The scope tracks the directive: covered services include e-commerce, consumer banking, e-books and reading software, electronic communications, ticketing and check-in for passenger transport, and access to audiovisual media services. Products in scope include consumer terminal equipment, self-service terminals (ATMs, ticket machines), and e-readers. The substantive obligation is conformity with EN 301 549, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content.

On sanctions, D.Lgs. 82/2022 gives AgID a two-tier administrative penalty structure:

€5,000 to €40,000 per violation for failure to meet the accessibility requirements of covered products and services.
€2,500 to €30,000 for failure to comply with an AgID supervisory order (for example, ignoring a request to publish a corrective accessibility statement or to remedy a specific issue within a deadline AgID has set).

A notice-and-cure step typically precedes sanctions: AgID opens an inquiry, identifies the specific violations, and sets a deadline for remediation before issuing a fine. The cure period is set by AgID per caseunder D.Lgs. 82/2022 — it is not a fixed statutory 90 days. There is no provision for fines computed as a percentage of turnover.

Stanca framework — when it applies

Legge 4/2004, popularly called the Legge Stanca after its sponsor, originally obligated only public administrations to meet accessibility requirements. For sixteen years, it had no application to private companies. That changed with DL 76/2020(the “Decreto Semplificazioni”), which extended Stanca's reach to large private operators and certain regulated industries.

After the 2020 extension, Stanca now applies to:

Public administrations — the original 2004 scope.
Private companies with a 3-year average turnover above €500 million — measured on the company's last three financial years.
Group / transport / publicly-funded IT entities — specific categories named in the implementing rules.

Under Stanca, AgID can impose sanctions up to 5% of annual turnover after a notice-and-cure procedure defined in AgID's implementing regulation. AgID's rules set a default 90-day cure windowfrom receipt of the complaint — the figure that gets quoted (often wrongly) as an EAA universal. This is the regime that large Italian retailers, banks, and platforms fall under in addition to D.Lgs. 82/2022. For a multinational e-commerce operator with Italian turnover well past the threshold, both regimes are live at the same time.

Which regime applies to my business?

A rough decision tree (consult counsel for edge cases):

Are you EAA-in-scope (e-commerce, banking, transport ticketing, e-books, etc.) and selling to Italian consumers? Then D.Lgs. 82/2022 applies. Your exposure is the €5K–€40K range plus €2.5K–€30K for ignored supervisory orders.
Are you a private company with 3-year average turnover above €500 million, a public administration, or a Stanca-named regulated entity (transport, publicly-funded IT)? Then Stanca also applies, and the up-to-5%-of-turnover exposure is real. Most companies in this bucket are also D.Lgs. 82/2022-in-scope, so both regimes can be triggered by the same complaint.
Are you under the EAA microenterprise exemption (under 10 employees and under €2 million annual turnover)? For service obligations under D.Lgs. 82/2022 you may be exempt. Even then, Stanca may or may not apply depending on sector. The microenterprise carve-out is interpreted narrowly — consult Italian counsel before relying on it.

How AgID enforces

AgID publishes a public complaint channel for accessibility issues. Any citizen can file a complaint — “Ogni persona può presentare un reclamo per eventuali problemi di accessibilità riscontrati in un servizio digitale”. AgID then verifies the complaint and may direct the service provider to adopt corrective measures (misure correttive necessarie).

The enforcement pipeline, in stages:

Complaint— user reports an accessibility barrier, ideally first via the operator's own feedback mechanism. Unresolved cases escalate to AgID and, where relevant, to the Difensore Civico per il Digitale (Digital Rights Defender).
Inquiry— AgID reviews the service, requests information from the operator, and characterises the alleged failure.
Notice— AgID issues a formal notice identifying the violations and demanding remediation.
Cure period— under Stanca, AgID's regulation sets a 90-day default from receipt of the complaint to conclude the procedure. Under D.Lgs. 82/2022, the cure period is set per case by AgID, not by statute.
Sanction— if the cure period expires without remediation, AgID issues the administrative penalty appropriate to the regime (€5K–€40K bands under D.Lgs. 82/2022; up to 5% of turnover under Stanca).

AgID can act on its own initiative as well as on complaints, particularly for high-traffic services and after public reports of systemic issues.

Practical Italy checklist for non-Italian sellers

Confirm you are in EAA scope at all (covered service category, EU consumer sales). If yes, assume D.Lgs. 82/2022 applies in Italy.
Check your 3-year average global turnover. Above €500 million and you should treat Stanca as live as well; below, focus on D.Lgs. 82/2022.
Run a full WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit covering homepage, product, cart, checkout, account, and any authenticated areas customers regularly use.
Publish an accessibility statement on a stable URL with a clear feedback channel and contact route. English plus Italian is recommended; Italian becomes far more defensible if AgID ever opens an inquiry.
Stand up a documented intake for accessibility complaints so you can credibly say you responded inside the operator-side feedback stage — before AgID gets the file.
Track remediation work in a system you can show to a regulator: a ticket queue with timestamps, severity, and resolution dates is usually enough.
Re-scan on a schedule. AgID inquiries often surface regressions, not new sites — a service that was fine a year ago and broke after a redesign.

If you sell into Italy and want a clear, defensible baseline, scan your site for EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA gaps and start the statement before the first complaint lands. Start with a free SweepHound scan and see the violations a regulator would see.

Frequently asked questions

Do I face 5%-of-turnover fines as an SME selling into Italy?: Almost certainly not. The 5%-of-annual-turnover sanction is a Stanca framework rule (Legge 4/2004 as extended by DL 76/2020) that applies to private companies with a 3-year average turnover above €500 million, plus public administrations and specific regulated entities. As an SME you are far more likely to face D.Lgs. 82/2022 exposure of €5,000–€40,000 per violation, with an additional €2,500–€30,000 for ignoring an AgID supervisory order. Any vendor describing the 5% figure as a generic EAA fine is conflating the two regimes.
Does AgID enforce against non-Italian sellers?: Yes. The EAA, including D.Lgs. 82/2022, applies to any economic operator placing covered products or services on the Italian market regardless of where the company is headquartered. AgID can receive complaints about a non-Italian e-commerce site shipping to Italian consumers and open an inquiry. Practical enforcement against foreign sellers happens through the EU cooperation mechanism for cross-border market surveillance, with national authorities sharing case files.
What is the difference between D.Lgs. 82/2022 and Stanca?: D.Lgs. 82/2022 is Italy's transposition of the European Accessibility Act and covers EAA service categories (e-commerce, banking, transport ticketing, e-books, etc.) with administrative fines of €5,000–€40,000 per violation, plus €2,500–€30,000 for ignoring AgID orders. It has no percentage-of-turnover provision. Stanca (Legge 4/2004 + DL 76/2020) is the older Italian framework that historically covered public administrations and was extended in 2020 to private companies with 3-year average turnover above €500 million and a few named regulated industries; under Stanca, AgID can sanction up to 5% of annual turnover. Both regimes are administered by AgID and can apply to the same company at the same time.
Is an Italian-language accessibility statement required?: Italian law does not always demand a strictly Italian-only statement, but Italian-language accessibility information is strongly recommended for any service marketing to Italian consumers and is what AgID will expect to see in practice. The defensible pattern is to publish an accessibility statement in both English and Italian on a stable URL, with the Annex V content fields under the EAA and a clear feedback mechanism that responds in Italian.
What does 'notice and cure' mean in Italian administrative law?: Notice and cure (in Italian, "diffida ad adempiere" or the broader "procedura di contestazione") is the pattern where the regulator formally notifies the operator of an alleged violation and gives a defined window to remediate before applying a sanction. Under the Stanca framework, AgID's regulation sets a default 90 days from receipt of the complaint to conclude the procedure. Under D.Lgs. 82/2022, the cure period is set by AgID per case rather than by statute. In both regimes, demonstrably good-faith remediation inside the cure window typically avoids the financial sanction.

How SweepHound supports Italian readiness

We will not claim SweepHound makes you AgID-proof. What it does:

Dual-engine WCAG 2.1 AA scan — axe-core plus IBM Equal Access, the standard mapped from EN 301 549 and used by AgID-side reviewers as the practical checklist for the web portion of D.Lgs. 82/2022.
Auto-generated accessibility statement — SweepHound currently generates English statement drafts only. You can publish the English statement and add an Italian translation alongside it on the same URL.
Monitoring for regressions — scheduled rescans with diffs so a redesign or a marketing template change does not silently break a service AgID would consider in scope.
Code-level remediation guidance — every detected violation comes with the specific HTML, CSS, or ARIA change to make. No overlays, no badge-washing.

For most non-Italian sellers, the path forward is: work through the EAA compliance checklist, scan, fix the high-severity issues, publish your accessibility statement, and set up monitoring before AgID's complaint box gets to you first. See pricing or start a free scan to begin.

Sibling country guides: Germany (BFSG) and France (Loi 2023-171 / RGAA 4.1).

Sources

AgID — Accessibilità e usabilità (primary authority page) — AgID designation as 'Autorità di vigilanza sull'accessibilità dei servizi digitali' under D.Lgs. 82/2022, plus complaint mechanism and the Difensore Civico per il Digitale 90-day procedural term.
AgID — Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale (homepage) — Primary regulator administering both Stanca and D.Lgs. 82/2022.
Normattiva — Decreto Legislativo 82/2022 (EAA transposition) — Search "decreto legislativo 82 2022". Primary statutory text for the €5,000–€40,000 and €2,500–€30,000 administrative fine ranges and the absence of any percentage-of-turnover provision.
Normattiva — Legge 4/2004 (Stanca framework, primary text) — Original Stanca law obligating public administrations on accessibility.
Normattiva — DL 76/2020 (extension of Stanca to large private companies) — 2020 Semplificazioni decree extending Stanca to private companies with 3-year average turnover above €500M plus regulated industries; basis for the up-to-5%-of-turnover sanction.
European Commission — European Accessibility Act (EAA) hub — EU parent directive (2019/882) that D.Lgs. 82/2022 transposes.
Fieldfisher — Understanding the EAA: risks of non-compliance and key authorities — Cross-country legal briefing covering both Italian regimes. Used as secondary source for the EAA-side fine ranges where Normattiva deep-linking is blocked.
UsableNet — EAA complaints guide: France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain — Cross-reference for the practical Italy complaint pipeline and AgID enforcement context.