Latvia's Accessibility Fine Is €20,000 — and It Lives in a Law From 1996
Latvia's accessibility act contains no penalty. Read the cross-reference it points to and you find a tiered fine schedule in a conformity-assessment law adopted in 1996 — amended in July 2026 to hook accessibility into it explicitly. And for services there is still no fine at all, only orders.
Quick answer
Latvia's EAA law (Preču un pakalpojumu piekļūstamības likums, adopted 16 March 2023, in force 28 June 2025, itself amended with effect from 5 June 2026) sets no monetary penalty. For products, it cross-refers to the Law "Par atbilstības novērtēšanu" (On Conformity Assessment) of 1996, whose Section 19 carries tiered fines reaching €20,000 for a legal person — enforced by PTAC. For services, there is no fine: seven competent authorities can only issue binding corrective decisions. An amendment in force from 10 July 2026 explicitly wrote EU accessibility requirements into the provision that triggers the product fines.
"No fixed figure" — until you read the next law
Latvia is usually recorded as having no fixed figure. The reasoning is sound on its face: neither the accessibility law's market-surveillance chapter nor its services chapter states an amount, and the implementing regulation doesn't either. The law simply points at another statute.
Read that other statute and the fines are one document away, and they are real:
| Section 19 offence | Legal person | Natural person |
|---|---|---|
| (9) Failure to ensure conformity under Section 4(2), or to follow the goods-circulation procedure | 40–1,400 units — €200–€7,000 | 14–140 units (€70–€700) |
| (10) Placing or selling goods not meeting the Section 4(2) safety, essential or technical requirements | 56–2,800 units — €280–€14,000 | 14–140 units (€70–€700) |
| (11) Failure to ensure internal control processes, resulting in systematic non-compliance | 140–4,000 units — €700–€20,000 | 40–400 units (€200–€2,000) |
Amounts are denominated in fine units of €5, which is part of why the figures get mangled downstream — the statute says "4,000 units," not "€20,000," and a reader has to know the conversion.
You may also see a ceiling of €4,300 quoted for Latvia. That figure comes from Section 19(8) — a related but distinct general product-safety offence — rather than the accessibility-specific limbs. Right statute, wrong row.
The general lesson, and it applies to several countries in this series: a "no fixed figure" finding should be treated as provisional wherever it rests on an unread cross-reference. Latvia, Hungary and Malta all look identical from the outside. Latvia's chain ends in €20,000, Hungary's in HUF 650 million, and only Malta's dead-ends.
The link that makes it accessibility law
Section 19's accessibility limbs work by reference to Section 4(2) of the same 1996 law, which defines the goods to which the enforcement regime applies. The amendment of 11 June 2026, in force 10 July 2026, added EU legislation on the accessibility requirements of products to that scope expressly.
That removes any argument that the fine schedule reaches accessibility only by implication. It now says so.
A structural note for anyone tracing this themselves: the fines are not in Chapter III¹, which the accessibility law points to. Chapter III¹ contains market-surveillance powers — inspection, sampling, corrective orders, market withdrawal, online-interface restrictions — and no amounts. The money is in Chapter VIII, Section 19, inserted in 2019 and effective from 1 July 2020 alongside Latvia's general Administrative Liability Law. Following the citation literally leads you to the wrong chapter.
For services, there is no fine
Having found the products figure, we checked the services side directly against the statute. There is no equivalent.
Article 23(3) is the operative power:
« Ja pakalpojuma sniedzējs nenovērš pakalpojuma neatbilstību tam piemērojamām piekļūstamības prasībām labprātīgi, kompetentā iestāde ir tiesīga pieņemt lēmumu, ar kuru uzdod veikt nepieciešamās darbības »
("If the service provider does not voluntarily remedy the service's non-compliance with the applicable accessibility requirements, the competent authority is entitled to adopt a decision ordering the necessary actions to be taken.")
— Preču un pakalpojumu piekļūstamības likums, Art. 23(3) (Likumi.lv)
A binding order, with a deadline, and verification that it was carried out. No monetary sanction attaches. So Latvia joins Greece as a jurisdiction that relies on orders rather than money for one of its two tracks — except that the split runs the other way round. In Greece products get no fine; in Latvia products carry the fine, services don't.
One procedural point that sharpens this: under Art. 23, an appeal does not suspend the decision's effect. Decisions of any competent authority except the Public Utilities Commission go to the Administrative District Court; the Commission's go to the Administrative Regional Court. You comply while you appeal.
Complaint first, regulator second
Latvia requires the consumer to come to you before coming for you.
| Services (Art. 21) | Products | |
|---|---|---|
| First stop | The service provider | The seller |
| Deadline to respond | One month in writing (extendable to two, with notice) | 15 working days |
| Then | Escalation to the competent authority, attaching the provider's response | Complaint to PTAC, which assists within one month (extendable to four, up to a year in complex cases) |
Electronic-communications complaints follow the Public Utilities Regulators Law's own deadline instead. Public-law bodies and private legal persons with a legitimate interest in protecting persons with disabilities may act on a complainant's behalf, with their consent.
Compare Poland, where silence for 30 days converts the complaint into a binding obligation. Latvia's version is gentler — the consequence of not replying is escalation, not deemed admission — but the one-month clock is the moment your file starts.
Seven authorities for services, one for products
Products are simple: PTAC (Patērētāju tiesību aizsardzības centrs, the Consumer Rights Protection Centre) is the sole market surveillance authority, and also the body that conducts the Section 19 administrative violation proceedings.
Services are not. Article 22 splits them seven ways:
| Authority | Covers |
|---|---|
| Sabiedrisko pakalpojumu regulēšanas komisija (Public Utilities Commission) | Electronic communications |
| Nacionālā elektronisko plašsaziņas līdzekļu padome (National Electronic Mass Media Council) | Audiovisual media access |
| Civilās aviācijas aģentūra (Civil Aviation Agency) | Air passenger transport — websites, apps, travel information, self-service terminals |
| Autotransporta direkcija (Road Transport Administration) | Bus and domestic rail |
| Valsts dzelzceļa administrācija (State Railway Administration) | International rail |
| PTAC | Financial services, e-books and software, e-commerce, waterborne transport, and air-transport e-ticketing |
| Pašvaldība (the local municipality) | Urban self-service terminals on buses, trams and trolleybuses |
Two things stand out. PTAC is both the sole products regulator and the busiest services regulator by category count — in practice, most businesses' Latvian counterparty is PTAC whichever side they're on. And the seventh entry is unusual: a municipal council as an EAA enforcement authority — a structure we've otherwise only seen in Portugal, where municipalities also police self-service terminals.
Usefully, PTAC has published ready-made Excel assessment tools — one for products, one for services — for the disproportionate-burden assessment. That is more practical tooling than we've seen from most other regulators.
Has it been enforced yet?
No fines or decisions have been reported. Latvia's position is complicated by timing: the accessibility law was itself amended with effect from 5 June 2026, and the provision that expressly hooks accessibility into the product fine schedule only took effect on 10 July 2026. The enforcement framework has only been fully assembled since this summer.
What this means for your business
Products and services are different countries here. If you place products on the Latvian market, you face a real tiered fine to €20,000 from a single, well-resourced regulator, on a schedule that was expressly extended to accessibility in July 2026. If you provide services, your exposure is a binding corrective order — no fine — from one of seven authorities, and the order takes effect even while you appeal it.
- Answer complaints inside one month, because that response is what determines whether the matter escalates to a regulator at all.
- Expect PTAC whichever track you're on.
- If you rely on the disproportionate-burden exemption, use PTAC's own Excel templates. An assessment built on the regulator's own tool is materially harder to reject than one built on your own format.
Frequently asked questions
What is the EAA fine in Latvia?
For products, up to €20,000 for a legal person under Section 19(11) of the 1996 Law on Conformity Assessment, with lower tiers of €7,000 and €14,000. For services, there is no fine.
Why do some sources say Latvia has no fine?
Because the accessibility law itself contains none and points to another statute. Read that statute and the fines are there.
Why do some sources say €4,300?
That figure comes from Section 19(8), a general product-safety offence, not the accessibility-specific limbs.
Who enforces it?
PTAC for all products and for financial services, e-books, e-commerce, waterborne transport and air e-ticketing. Six other authorities cover the remaining service categories, including the local municipality for urban self-service terminals.
Does appealing a decision buy me time?
No. An appeal does not suspend the decision's effect.
Related
- ← Back to EAA Fines by Country — the full 27-state comparison
- Official text: Preču un pakalpojumu piekļūstamības likums and Par atbilstības novērtēšanu (Likumi.lv)
- Hungary's EAA fine — the other cross-reference chain that ends in a real number
- Malta's EAA fine — the one that dead-ends
- Greece's EAA penalties — the mirror image: no fine for products, sector fines for services
