Platform guide · TYPO3
TYPO3 accessibility and the BFSG
TYPO3 sits under a large share of German public-sector and enterprise websites — which means many TYPO3 projects face BITV 2.0 obligations as well as the BFSG, and have done for longer.
- Strong accessibility tradition in the core
- Editors are the main source of findings
- BITV 2.0 often applies as well
What the CMS gives you, and what it does not
- You get: a core with a long-standing accessibility culture and sensible default output
- You get: Fluid templates, where a fix in one partial reaches every page rendering it
- You get: a backend with real editor support — alt-text fields, structured content elements
- You do not get: control over what editors do with the RTE, which is where most findings come from
- You do not get: accessible third-party extensions, and long-lived TYPO3 sites accumulate many
Platform guide · TYPO3
What we find on TYPO3 sites
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Editor-created heading chaos
Heading levels chosen for size rather than structure, so pages skip from h1 to h4. It is the most common finding on a content-heavy TYPO3 site.
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Layout tables from the RTE
Tables used to position content, pasted from Word, with no headers and a reading order nobody intended.
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Old extensions
A slider or accordion extension installed years ago that renders markup no current standard would accept.
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PDF downloads
Public-sector TYPO3 sites link to hundreds of PDFs. Untagged ones are in scope and usually outnumber the HTML pages.
Where to look first
Each links to a plain-language page on that criterion: what it asks for, how it fails in practice, and how far an automated check can get.
A sensible order of work
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Constrain the RTE
Remove the formatting options that let editors fake structure. Most heading and table findings stop appearing once the button is gone.
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Audit the extension list
Long-lived TYPO3 projects carry extensions nobody has looked at in years. Sort by which templates they render on.
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Inventory the PDFs
You cannot remediate what you have not counted. Start from the documents that are actually downloaded.
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Check whether BITV 2.0 applies too
If you are a public body, it does — and it asks for a published statement and a reporting mechanism with specific wording.
TYPO3 questions
We are a public body. Is the BFSG or BITV 2.0 the one that applies?
BITV 2.0, implementing the Web Accessibility Directive, is the one that has applied to public bodies for years. The BFSG covers consumer-facing products and services, so a public body offering one can face both. The technical benchmark — EN 301 549, pointing at WCAG — is the same, so the testing does not double even where the paperwork does.
Does upgrading TYPO3 help?
It helps with the core output and gives you better editor tooling. It does not change the content your editors have already created, which is where most findings on a TYPO3 site live.
Written to be useful, not to be legal advice. It reflects our reading of the BFSG and EN 301 549 as of 2026-09-13; for a binding assessment of your obligations, ask a lawyer.
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