What is the EU Digital Fairness Act (DFA)?

By James Tamim - Last Updated 11/11/2026

The Digital Fairness Act (DFA) is a European Commission proposal to update EU consumer protection rules for digital markets. Presented on 11 November 2026 under Commissioner Michael McGrath, it aims to tackle unfair commercial practices affecting consumers online, while simplifying and harmonising parts of the existing legal framework.

The Digital Fairness Act is not yet law. The Commission has presented a legislative proposal, which must be considered by the European Parliament and the Council before it can be adopted.

The Commission has proposed a regulation that would repeal and replace the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). It would preserve the core EU rules against misleading and aggressive commercial practices while introducing specific provisions on digital fairness. Despite its name, the proposed regulation would cover business-to-consumer commercial practices both online and offline.

The main areas addressed by the Digital Fairness Act proposal are:

  • Dark patterns and manipulative online interface design

  • Addictive design of apps, games and other digital products

  • Loot boxes, in-game currencies and other spending-maximising practices

  • Unfair personalisation, including certain forms of targeted advertising and personalised pricing

  • Influencer marketing and the disclosure of paid promotions

  • Unfair pricing practices, including price changes during online ticket sales and virtual queues

  • Digital contracts, free trials, subscriptions and cancellation procedures

This page explains what the EU Digital Fairness Act is, what the Commission has proposed, who it would apply to and what happens next.

Why is the EU working on a Digital Fairness Act?

From the New Consumer Agenda to “digital fairness”

In its 2020 New Consumer Agenda, the European Commission committed to examining whether existing EU consumer law offered adequate protection in digital markets. In May 2022, it launched a Fitness Check of EU consumer law on digital fairness, covering three core instruments:

The Fitness Check report, published on 3 October 2024, found that these directives remain relevant but are only partially effective in addressing problems in digital markets. It highlighted legal uncertainty, enforcement difficulties and practices that exploit consumers' vulnerabilities. The Commission estimated that problematic digital commercial practices cause at least €7.9 billion in annual financial detriment to EU consumers.

Political mandate for a Digital Fairness Act

In her September 2024 mission letter to Michael McGrath, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a Digital Fairness Act addressing:

“unethical techniques and commercial practices related to dark patterns, marketing by social media influencers, addictive design of digital products and online profiling, in particular when consumers’ vulnerabilities are exploited for commercial purposes.”

The 2030 Consumer Agenda, adopted by the Commission on 19 November 2025, subsequently confirmed the initiative as part of its plans for stronger consumer protection online, particularly for children, alongside simplification and more effective enforcement.

The Commission's proposal seeks both to close identified gaps in consumer protection and to provide more uniform rules for businesses operating across the EU.

What does the Digital Fairness Act propose to change?

The Commission's proposal goes beyond a general statement about online fairness. It sets out measures addressing particular commercial practices, although their final wording will depend on negotiations between the Parliament and the Council.

1. Dark patterns and manipulative interfaces

Dark patterns are design choices that deceive, manipulate or otherwise interfere with consumers' ability to make free and informed decisions. Examples include:

  • Giving disproportionate prominence to an option that benefits the trader while obscuring alternatives

  • Hiding important information behind unnecessarily complicated steps

  • Creating misleading urgency or scarcity to pressure consumers into a purchase

  • Introducing disproportionate obstacles when consumers try to exercise their rights

The DFA proposal would introduce an express prohibition on online interface designs that are likely to deceive or manipulate consumers, or otherwise materially distort their economic behaviour. It also envisages a list of particularly harmful dark patterns that would be considered unfair in all circumstances.

This would build on the existing prohibition of unfair practices under the UCPD and complement Article 25 of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which already regulates certain manipulative interface designs used by online platforms. Dark patterns are not currently unregulated; one objective of the DFA is to clarify the rules and their application to a wider range of traders.

2. Addictive design and attention-maximising features

The proposal addresses digital features designed, or reasonably foreseeable, to encourage excessive or compulsive use. These can include:

  • Autoplay or uninterrupted content consumption without effective stopping points

  • Notifications unrelated to a user's own activity

  • Streaks, rewards or penalties that encourage frequent return visits

  • Features that simulate interpersonal relationships to encourage prolonged engagement with automated systems

For consumers covered by the provision, traders would have to provide accessible tools to switch off these features individually or together. This is an important distinction: the DFA proposal does not amount to a general ban on infinite scrolling, autoplay or all engagement features for adults.

The treatment of minors must also be read alongside the separate proposed EU KIDS Act, which includes additional age-specific safeguards for certain digital services.

3. Loot boxes, virtual currencies and in-game purchases

The DFA contains targeted measures addressing spending-maximising practices, particularly in video games and apps:

  • Paid virtual currencies: Traders would have to display the corresponding real-world monetary value of virtual items or other products bought with paid-for virtual currencies. Where a product is directed at minors or known with reasonable certainty to be used by them, paid-for virtual currencies would be disabled by default and could be activated only with parental or guardian approval.

  • Loot boxes and other paid variable-reward systems: Traders would have to disclose the types of rewards available and the probability of obtaining them, and provide consumers with tools to disable such systems. Paid variable-reward systems would be prohibited for minors, subject to the proposal's sector-specific provisions.

  • Pay-to-win and pay-to-progress mechanisms: These would be prohibited for minors where the relevant conditions are met.

These measures would not ban all in-game purchases or virtual currencies. The proposal distinguishes between transparency requirements, controls available to consumers and stricter restrictions for minors.

4. Unfair personalisation and profiling

Personalised advertising, recommendations and prices can become problematic where businesses use information about consumers to exploit vulnerabilities or cause harm.

The DFA proposal would:

  • Prohibit advertising targeted through profiling using personal data where the trader knows with reasonable certainty that the consumer is a minor, with an exclusion for online platforms already subject to the relevant DSA provisions

  • Restrict advertising based on special categories of personal data where that targeting is reasonably likely to harm the consumer

  • Prohibit personalised pricing based on profiling where it is reasonably likely to harm a minor or a consumer known with reasonable certainty to be vulnerable in the circumstances specified by the proposal

The proposal is not a blanket prohibition on personalised advertising or personalised pricing for adults. Its provisions must be read alongside the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the DSA, which already impose separate restrictions on data processing and targeted advertising.

5. Influencer marketing and advertising disclosure

The DFA would clarify the obligations of influencers and other traders involved in paid promotional content on social media and elsewhere.

Under the proposal:

  • Commercial communications would need to be identified clearly and prominently, using terms such as “advertisement” or “commercial collaboration”.

  • Influencers could not disguise commercial promotions as independent recommendations, or directly encourage minors to purchase products or pressure adults to buy them.

  • Influencer marketing would be prohibited for products whose advertising is forbidden under EU or national law, and for products considered dangerous under applicable EU product-safety rules.

  • Brands, agencies and other traders using influencer marketing services would have responsibilities for ensuring compliance, rather than leaving disclosure entirely to the influencer.

Undisclosed commercial advertising can already breach EU consumer law. The proposed rules would make the duties more explicit and address responsibilities across the influencer marketing chain.

6. Unfair pricing, ticket sales and virtual queues

The proposal also addresses how prices are presented to consumers, with particular provisions for online ticket sales and virtual waiting rooms.

For event tickets whose prices may rise because of a trader's actions or automated processes, traders would have to disclose how many tickets are available at the advertised price and the maximum price consumers might have to pay.

Where a trader uses a virtual queue, consumers would have to be informed of the current price, whether it may change while they wait and, if so, the maximum price. The current price would need to be updated if it changes during the waiting period.

Other problematic pricing practices, including misleading price comparisons and drip pricing (mandatory charges introduced late in the purchasing process), are part of the broader consumer-law concerns behind the initiative. Some misleading pricing practices are already prohibited; the DFA does not start from a legal vacuum.

7. Digital contracts, subscriptions and cancellation traps

The DFA proposes more specific safeguards for digital contracts, recurring subscriptions and cancellation procedures:

  • Free trials: Before a free trial becomes a paid contract, consumers would have to receive a reminder and expressly agree to continue on a paid basis. Without the required agreement, they would not be bound by the paid contract.

  • Automatic renewal: Certain contracts would be subject to advance renewal reminders. The proposal distinguishes between contracts of six months or more and shorter contracts, rather than applying one identical reminder rule to every renewal.

  • Online cancellation: Where traders offer online contracting, they would generally have to provide an accessible online contract termination function, even where the individual contract was originally concluded another way.

  • Human customer service: Traders providing online post-contract customer service would have to make communication with a human available on request, subject to specified exceptions.

  • Automated contracting: Consumers would have greater control over automated systems that conclude contracts on their behalf, including choices about when individual contracts require confirmation.

A separate proposal to simplify EU consumer protection rules, presented as part of the same consumer policy package, would also make targeted changes to the Consumer Rights Directive. Those changes should not be confused with the provisions of the DFA regulation itself.

How does the DFA fit into the wider EU digital rulebook?

The Digital Fairness Act is intended to complement existing EU law, but its proposed relationship with consumer law is particularly important:

  • UCPD: The DFA is proposed as a regulation replacing this directive, while retaining its central rules on unfair, misleading and aggressive business-to-consumer practices.

  • CRD and UCTD: These remain part of the EU consumer-law framework. The accompanying simplification initiative proposes separate targeted changes to the CRD.

  • DSA: Regulates intermediary services and online platforms, including obligations concerning online interface design, advertising and minors. The DFA would address the fairness of commercial practices across a broader range of traders.

  • GDPR: Governs the processing of personal data. The DFA would address certain harmful commercial uses of profiling, without replacing data protection law.

  • DMA: Imposes obligations on designated gatekeepers to promote contestability and fairness in digital markets.

  • AI Act: Establishes rules for artificial intelligence systems, including certain prohibited practices and risk-based requirements.

  • EU KIDS Act: A separate legislative proposal addressing minors' safety and age-appropriate experiences on specified online services. The two proposals contain provisions intended to interact without imposing identical obligations on all the same services.

The DFA's main focus is the fairness of business-to-consumer commercial practices, rather than the regulation of technology as such. Which instrument applies to a given practice will depend on the trader, the service and the specific obligations involved.

Who will the Digital Fairness Act apply to?

The proposed regulation would have broad business-to-consumer (B2C) coverage, not just obligations for the largest technology companies. Depending on the practice concerned, it could affect:

  • Online retailers, travel and ticketing businesses, including services using algorithmic prices or virtual queues

  • Online platforms and marketplaces engaging in business-to-consumer commercial practices

  • App developers and video-game publishers, particularly those using paid virtual currencies, loot boxes or engagement-maximising features

  • Subscription businesses, including streaming and other digital services

  • Influencers, brands and advertising agencies engaged in commercial promotions

  • Other traders selling to EU consumers, including businesses operating outside the EU when they target consumers in the EU

The proposal would also retain a horizontal framework for offline unfair commercial practices through its replacement of the UCPD. It should therefore not be described as applying only to websites, apps or technology companies.

Small businesses are not automatically excluded. However, the exact obligations and any relevant exclusions or sector-specific rules need to be assessed provision by provision.

How would the Digital Fairness Act be enforced?

National consumer protection authorities would continue to play a central role. The Commission has also linked the DFA to its proposed reform of the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Regulation, which would strengthen cooperation and allow the Commission to investigate and enforce certain infringements at EU level.

Under the proposed approach, the Commission could impose fines of up to 6% of a trader's worldwide annual turnover for infringements investigated under the proposed centralised CPC enforcement framework. This is not a universal fine automatically applicable to every breach of the DFA; the enforcement route and conditions matter.

The proposal also envisages improved access to evidence about the design and operation of online commercial practices, subject to safeguards, to help authorities and courts assess suspected infringements.

Digital Fairness Act timeline: what happens next?

A more detailed DFA timeline is available here. The principal milestones are:

Next steps: The proposed regulation proceeds through the EU's ordinary legislative procedure, in which the European Parliament and the Council will examine and negotiate its provisions. The final text, the date of formal adoption and the date the new rules would apply are not yet settled.

The draft proposal envisaged entry into force on the twentieth day after publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, with its rules applying 12 months later. That timetable remains subject to the final legislative text. A Commission proposal does not itself create new obligations for businesses.

Is the DFA a new law or an update to existing consumer rules?

It is both a proposed replacement of an existing legal instrument and an effort to introduce additional rules. The central structural change is the Commission's choice to propose turning the UCPD's substantive framework into a directly applicable regulation, rather than maintaining 27 national transpositions of the directive.

This has implications beyond digital interfaces. The new instrument is intended to preserve the UCPD's general unfair-commercial-practices framework while specifying obligations for practices that have become more prominent in the digital economy.

The policy debate also continues. Consumer organisations have argued for clearer and stronger safeguards against manipulative design, addictive features and the exploitation of vulnerability. Business associations have emphasised the need to enforce existing legislation effectively, avoid overlapping rules and keep compliance proportionate. The Parliament and Council will determine how those competing considerations are reflected in the final legislation.

Frequently asked questions about the Digital Fairness Act

Is the Digital Fairness Act already in force?

No. The Commission presented its proposal on 11 November 2026, but a proposal is not an adopted EU regulation. The European Parliament and the Council must agree on the legislation before it can be formally adopted, published and eventually applied.

Is the Digital Fairness Act a regulation or a directive?

The Commission has proposed a regulation. It would repeal and replace the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. The final form and content remain subject to the ordinary legislative procedure.

Will the DFA replace the Digital Services Act or GDPR?

No. It is intended to complement the DSA, GDPR, DMA and other EU laws. The directive it would replace is the UCPD, not the DSA or GDPR.

Will the Digital Fairness Act ban loot boxes or addictive design?

Not across the board. The proposal would prohibit paid loot boxes and pay-to-win/pay-to-progress mechanisms for minors in the relevant circumstances, while imposing transparency and opt-out requirements more broadly. For addictive features, it generally proposes tools allowing consumers to disable specified features, rather than an outright prohibition for all adults.

Does the DFA cover influencers and social media advertising?

Yes. It proposes clearer identification of influencer advertisements, restrictions intended to protect minors and greater responsibility for brands and other businesses commissioning influencer promotions. Existing consumer law already prohibits misleading commercial advertising.

Who will enforce the Digital Fairness Act?

The proposal envisages continued enforcement by national consumer protection authorities, alongside a role for the European Commission in certain cases through the separately proposed revision of the CPC enforcement framework.

Will the DFA apply to non-EU companies?

Yes, where the relevant business-to-consumer commercial practices target consumers in the EU. EU consumer law is not limited to businesses established within the Union.

When will the Digital Fairness Act apply?

No final application date has been established. The Commission's draft envisaged application 12 months after entry into force, but the period and any transitional arrangements may change during negotiations. The new requirements will not apply merely because the Commission has published its proposal.