Building for
Germany
The Law Behind Your Impressum Was Renamed in 2024
German business websites need an Impressum, and the obligation now sits in §5 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz. The DDG replaced the old Telemediengesetz in May 2024, and the TTDSG became the TDDDG at the same time. Any privacy policy, Impressum or terms page on a German site still citing TMG or TTDSG is quoting legislation that no longer carries that name. On its own that reads like pedantry — until you remember that Germany has an entire cottage industry of competitors and specialist firms sending Abmahnungen over exactly this class of defect. It costs an afternoon to fix and rather more to receive a letter about.
BFSG Made Accessibility a Legal Requirement in June 2025
The Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz took effect on 28 June 2025, implementing the European Accessibility Act in German law, with WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the working technical benchmark. It targets business-to-consumer digital services — online shops, booking systems, customer portals, and generally any site where a consumer can transact rather than only read. There is a carve-out for micro-enterprises under ten employees with annual turnover or balance-sheet total at or below €2 million, though it applies to services rather than products. Fines reach €100,000, market surveillance authorities began operating in October 2025, and unlike the older BITV rules this one is pointed squarely at the private sector.
The Abmahnung Is the Faster Risk, and Its Footing Is Contested
The first BFSG Abmahnungen circulated around August 2025, roughly six weeks after the law took effect, and volumes rose through late 2025 and into the first quarter of 2026. The grounds cited are rarely exotic. Missing alt text. Contrast below threshold. Forms that cannot be completed with a keyboard. A missing or thin Barrierefreiheitserklärung, which is one of the cheapest items on that list to fix and one of the most frequently cited. Worth being straight about the other half of this, though: whether the BFSG counts as a Marktverhaltensregel under §3a UWG — the thing that makes a competitor Abmahnung legally sound — has not yet been decided by a German court. Plenty of the letters going out rest on an unresolved question. Building the site properly is still the cheaper answer than arguing about it, and it is the same work our ongoing support keeps in place as the site changes.
Selling Into Germany From Abroad Puts You In Scope
The EAA reaches any business offering covered services to consumers in the EU, whatever country it operates from. A UK, US or Indian company running a German-language online store does not sit outside the German requirements because its office does. Enforcement authorities and penalty frameworks vary between member states, which is the part that makes multi-market compliance awkward — the standard is harmonised, the consequences are not.
Plumbers
Emergency-ready sites with tap-to-call and service areas.
View Website SolutionsElectricians
Built for fast quote requests and callout coverage.
View Website SolutionsDentists
Appointment booking and treatment information, done right.
View Website SolutionsDoctors & Clinics
Clear specialties, patient enquiries and clinic details.
View Website SolutionsRestaurants
Menus, hours and reservations that are easy to find.
View Website SolutionsSalons & Spas
Service menus, pricing and booking in one clean flow.
View Website SolutionsReal Estate
Listings and agent profiles that build instant trust.
View Website SolutionsLaw Firms
Practice areas and consultation requests, presented with authority.
View Website SolutionsFitness & Gyms
Class schedules, memberships and trial sign-ups.
View Website SolutionsConstruction
Project galleries and quote requests for builders.
View Website SolutionsAutomotive
Service booking and repair information customers trust.
View Website SolutionsAccountants
A credible front door for client enquiries and services.
View Website SolutionsRoofers
Project galleries and quote requests, built for trust.
View Website SolutionsCafes
Menus, hours and location, easy to find on mobile.
View Website SolutionsHotels
Rooms, amenities and booking, presented clearly.
View Website SolutionsHVAC & AC Repair
Fast callout requests for heating and cooling issues.
View Website SolutionsWebsite Packages for Germany Businesses
Typical agency cost: $1,499+
A focused five-page site for a small business that needs to be found, understood and contacted.
- Up to 5 pages
- Custom responsive design — no template
- Contact form with spam protection
- Speed and Core Web Vitals work
- Accessible markup (WCAG-aware build)
- Basic schema and meta setup
- 2 revision rounds
- 30 days post-launch support
- Full ownership of the finished site
Typical agency cost: $2,399+
More pages, more integrations, and the structure a growing business needs to keep adding to.
- Up to 12 pages
- Everything in Starter
- Blog or news section
- Google Business Profile and maps integration
- Newsletter or CRM connection
- Multi-location or service-area pages
- 3 revision rounds
- 60 days post-launch support
- Full ownership of the finished site
Typical agency cost: $3,799+
Booking, payments and a design built around how your business actually converts.
- Up to 25 pages
- Everything in Business
- Booking or appointment system
- Online payments (Stripe or equivalent)
- Customer portal or member area
- Bilingual build where the market needs it
- Advanced schema and AEO structure
- 4 revision rounds
- 90 days post-launch support
- Full ownership of the finished site
Typical agency cost: $5,499+
A complete online store — catalogue, checkout, tax and shipping, built to sell from launch day.
- Up to 100 products at launch
- Everything in Premium
- Full catalogue with variants and filtering
- Checkout, tax and shipping configuration
- Payment gateway integration
- Order, stock and customer management
- Abandoned-cart recovery setup
- 4 revision rounds
- 90 days post-launch support
- Full ownership of the finished site
Questions, Answered Directly
The trigger is whether the site offers a covered business-to-consumer digital service. A pure brochure site with no transactional function is more likely to sit outside it; a booking function, an order path or a customer login pulls it in. Legal commentary genuinely differs on where a plain contact form falls, so a site sitting close to that line is worth checking properly rather than assuming.
It covers service providers with fewer than ten employees and annual turnover or a balance-sheet total at or below €2 million. It does not extend to covered products a small company manufactures, imports or distributes.
An accessibility statement, kept permanently reachable — usually from the footer — setting out how far the site meets the accessibility requirements. It is one of the most commonly cited grounds in the Abmahnungen sent so far, and one of the least technical items to put right.
Our view is yes, and not primarily as insurance. Around 13 million people in Germany live with some form of impairment, and the same work that satisfies WCAG — real headings, labelled fields, keyboard operation, readable contrast — makes a site easier for everyone on a phone in bad light. None of this is legal advice; it is what we build to by default.
One Process, Wherever You Are
- Submit your project details through the quote form
- Review a proposed structure and package for your business
- We design and build while you review progress
- Launch, with your support window starting from day one