What is the EU Digital Fairness Act (DFA)?
By James Tamim - Last Updated 09/12/2025
The Digital Fairness Act (DFA) is a forthcoming EU legislative proposal aimed at updating consumer protection rules for the digital age. It is being prepared by the European Commission under Commissioner Michael McGrath.
The DFA is not yet law. It is a Commission initiative under preparation, building on the findings of the Digital Fairness Fitness Check of EU consumer law. Its core goal, as set out by the Commission, is to:
“strengthen protection and digital fairness for consumers, while ensuring a level playing field and simplifying rules for businesses in the EU.”
In practice, the Digital Fairness Act is expected to tackle a cluster of problematic online practices, including:
Dark patterns and other manipulative interface designs
Addictive design of apps, games and digital services
Unfair personalisation and profiling, including personalised pricing
Misleading influencer marketing on social media
Unfair pricing, e.g. drip pricing and misleading offers
Problems with digital contracts, subscriptions and cancellation flows
If you are asking yourself, “What is the Digital Fairness Act and what will it change?”, this page is meant to give you an overview.
Why is the EU working on a Digital Fairness Act?
From the New Consumer Agenda to “digital fairness”
In the 2020 New Consumer Agenda, the European Commission committed to checking whether additional legislation was needed to ensure consumers enjoy comparable protection online and offline.
To deliver on that promise, the Commission launched in May 2022 a Fitness Check of EU consumer law on digital fairness. This review examined three core directives:
the Consumer Rights Directive (CRD), and
The final Fitness Check Staff Working Document, published on 3 October 2024, concluded that while these rules remain broadly fit for purpose, they do not fully address new forms of digital harm. It highlighted persistent issues such as manipulative design, complex subscription traps, and opaque personalisation techniques, and estimated at least €7.9 billion per year in financial harm to EU consumers from digital problems alone.
Political mandate for a “Digital Fairness Act”
Following the Fitness Check, President Ursula von der Leyen’s mission letter to Michael McGrath explicitly tasks him with developing a Digital Fairness Act to tackle:
“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 DFA is now one of the headline initiatives in the EU’s 2030 Consumer Agenda, adopted on 19 November 2025, which confirms the Commission’s plan to table a legislative proposal in late 2026 as part of a wider consumer policy strategy up to 2030.
In short, the Digital Fairness Act is the legislative follow-up to a multi-year evaluation showing that today’s consumer law does not fully keep pace with manipulative business models in digital markets.
What problems will the Digital Fairness Act address?
The Commission’s own description of the initiative groups the DFA around a set of concrete commercial practices.
1. Dark patterns and manipulative interfaces
“Dark patterns” (also called deceptive or manipulative design) are interface choices that steer users towards decisions they would not otherwise make, for example:
Making the “accept all” option bright and prominent, but hiding “reject” or “manage settings”
Using fake scarcity claims like “Only 1 room left at this price!” when this is not accurate
Designing cancellation flows that are much longer or more confusing than sign-up flows
The DFA is expected to clarify and strengthen rules against such design tricks, building on the general prohibition of unfair commercial practices under the UCPD and the targeted ban on certain dark patterns in Article 25 of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which currently applies only to online platforms.
2. Addictive design and attention-maximising features
The Fitness Check and subsequent policy debates give particular weight to addictive design: features deliberately engineered to maximise time and money spent, often by exploiting psychological biases.
Examples include:
Infinite scroll and autoplay that remove natural stopping points
Reward loops and “daily streaks” that penalise taking a break
Gambling-like mechanics such as loot boxes and “wheel of fortune” spins in games
The DFA might introduce clearer standards for such design practices, especially where minors or other vulnerable users are concerned.
3. Unfair personalisation and profiling
The initiative explicitly targets “unfair personalisation practices”, such as:
Opaque profiling that shapes what consumers see (offers, recommendations, prices)
Personalised pricing or offers that take advantage of a person’s vulnerability (e.g. financial distress)
Design that makes it practically impossible to use a service without being extensively tracked
The DFA will need to fit carefully alongside the GDPR. The idea is not to reopen EU data protection law, but to clarify the consumer-law angle: when does the way profiling is used to influence choices become an unfair commercial practice, regardless of whether the data processing is lawful from a pure privacy perspective?
4. Misleading influencer marketing
The Commission and several Member States have repeatedly raised concerns about influencer marketing, especially on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Key issues include:
Commercial posts that look like “authentic” recommendations
Vague labels (“collab”, “#partner”) instead of clear “advertising” disclosures
Promotion of harmful products (e.g. scam investments, risky health products)
Particular exposure of children and teenagers to hidden ads
The DFA is expected to codify stricter disclosure standards and possibly introduce harm-based restrictions on the types of products that can be promoted to minors.
5. Unfair pricing tactics and “junk fees”
The initiative also covers “unfair practices related to the marketing of the price”, such as:
Drip pricing: adding mandatory fees late in the checkout flow
Misleading “discount” claims based on artificial reference prices
Scarcity and urgency claims that are factually wrong (“last seat”, “only today”)
Some of these practices already fall under existing rules and coordinated enforcement (for example, against certain travel and accommodation platforms), but the Fitness Check suggests clearer, more harmonised black-list style prohibitions could make enforcement easier.
6. Digital contracts, subscriptions and cancellation traps
Finally, the DFA will look at recurring issues in digital contracts and subscriptions:
Extremely easy one-click sign-up, but complicated multi-step cancellation
Automatic renewal without clear, timely reminders
Free trials that silently convert into paid subscriptions
The Commission is considering simplification and symmetry rules here: sign-up and cancellation should be similarly straightforward, information obligations should be rationalised, and recurring charges should not rely on consumer confusion.
How will the DFA fit into the wider EU digital rulebook?
One common question is whether the Digital Fairness Act is “just another EU tech law”. In reality, it plays a specific role in a much broader framework:
GDPR: governs personal data processing (consent, legal bases, rights, etc.)
DSA: regulates online intermediaries and platforms, including rules on content moderation, transparency and some dark patterns (Article 25)
DMA: imposes competition-style obligations on gatekeeper platforms
AI Act: sets risk-based rules for AI systems
By contrast, the DFA is squarely about consumer-facing commercial practices: how traders design interfaces, personalise offers, structure subscriptions and advertise to consumers.
On the Commission’s own description, the DFA will build on and possibly amend the UCPD, CRD and UCTD to make them fully fit for digital markets and to ensure coherence with the rest of the EU’s “digital rulebook”, rather than duplicating those instruments.
Who will the Digital Fairness Act apply to?
The precise scope will only be clear once the proposal is published. However, based on the Commission’s documentation and impact-assessment work, the DFA is expected to apply broadly to:
Any business (trader) offering goods or services to EU consumers online, regardless of whether it is established in the EU or outside
Online platforms and marketplaces that intermediate between traders and consumers
App and game developers, especially where monetisation relies on microtransactions or in-game currencies
Subscription-based digital services (streaming, cloud, SaaS, news, fitness, etc.)
Influencers and content creators, when they act as traders or advertise on behalf of traders
Small and medium-sized companies are not automatically exempt: consumer law in the EU is generally horizontal. However, the Commission and commentators have emphasised the need for simplified, clear rules that reduce compliance complexity rather than add layers of overlapping obligations.
DFA Timeline: where are we in the process?
We have a dedicated page detailing the DFA’s timeline, but here are some key milestones for the Digital Fairness Act so far:
13 Nov 2020 – New Consumer Agenda flags need to assess online fairness.
17 May 2022 – Commission launches Digital Fairness Fitness Check.
12 Dec 2023 – Parliament adopts resolution on addictive design of online services (2023/2043(INI)).
3 Oct 2024 – Commission publishes conclusion of Digital Fairness Fitness Check (SWD(2024) 230).
17 Jul - 24 Oct 2025 – Digital Fairness Act public consultation + call for evidence.
19 Nov 2025 – 2030 Consumer Agenda confirms a DFA proposal planned for late 2026.
26 Nov 2025 – Parliament adopts “Protection of minors online” (2025/2060(INI)) report.
Looking ahead, the current indicative planning is:
Q2 2026 (expected) – Final impact assessment & consultation summary.
Q4 2026 (expected) – Commission tables Digital Fairness Act proposal.
2026-2027 (speculative) – Parliament & Council negotiations; possible adoption late 2027.
2028-2030 (speculative) – Entry into force and staggered application of the DFA rules.
These future dates are indicative and may change; they reflect the most up-to-date planning publicly referenced in late 2025, not a binding schedule.
Is the DFA really “a new law” or just better enforcement?
One of the main debates around the DFA is whether the EU needs a new legislative act at all.
Industry groups such as DIGITALEUROPE tend to argue that existing rules (UCPD, CRD, DSA, GDPR, etc.) are already sufficient and that the priority should be better enforcement and guidance, not another layer of legislation.
Consumer organisations, many academics and think-tanks, by contrast, view the DFA as an opportunity to give clear, enforceable definitions of manipulative design and unfair personalisation, and to close gaps where current law is too abstract or fragmented.
The European Policy Centre, for example, has argued that the DFA will need “teeth” to be effective against large platforms and sophisticated design strategies, suggesting that soft guidance alone is unlikely to change entrenched business models.
Frequently asked questions about the Digital Fairness Act
Is the Digital Fairness Act already in force?
No. As of December 2025, the DFA is an initiative under preparation. The Commission has not yet published a draft legal text.
Will the DFA be a regulation or a directive?
Most commentary – and some official communications in other languages – treat the DFA as a future EU regulation, following the pattern of other recent “Acts” (DSA, DMA, AI Act).
However, the final legal form will only be confirmed in the formal proposal. It may involve a stand-alone regulation, amendments to existing directives, or a combination of both.
Will the DFA replace the DSA, GDPR or national consumer laws?
No. The DFA is expected to complement, not replace:
It will focus on how digital markets are designed and commercialised from a consumer fairness perspective.
Who will enforce the Digital Fairness Act?
Although the details are not yet fixed, enforcement will likely rely on:
National consumer protection authorities (the CPC network), possibly with
an enhanced role for the European Commission in cross-border or systemic cases.
This mirrors the current enforcement setup for UCPD, CRD and the DSA.
Does the DFA affect non-EU companies?
Yes, in principle. Like most EU consumer law, the DFA will apply to any trader targeting EU consumers, regardless of where the company is established, provided the service or product is offered into the EU market.