Real-time text is a conversation in text where what you type reaches the other person as you type it, rather than when you press enter. The standards define it by how it feels rather than by the wire. The European Accessibility Act's own words are that the text is sent so the communication is perceived as continuous on a character-by-character basis. The European technical standard puts a number on that. Half a second from a composed unit of text being ready to it leaving for the network. It is what lets a text conversation run at speaking pace, with interruption and turn-taking, for people who are deaf or have a speech disability. It is the replacement for TTY, and WCAG has nothing to say about it at all.
In practice
Ordinary chat sends a whole message at once. Real-time text sends the smallest unit you have reliably composed. That is a character while you are typing, and a whole word when you are using word prediction or dictation, so both conform without transmitting letter by letter. The European standard says in a note that character-by-character transmission is not required, and the internet standard underneath it recommends 300 milliseconds of buffering as the point where the flow still feels live.
The scope is narrower than the phrase suggests. The European requirement applies where a product provides a means of two-way voice communication, so a video meeting product carrying audio is inside it and a text-only support chat is not. Beside it sits the requirement that makes real-time text different from a chat box bolted onto a call. Voice and text have to run at the same time over a single connection, so a hearing participant can talk while a deaf participant types. The display rules follow from that. Sent and received text have to be told apart visually, and the direction has to be exposed in code so a screen reader can announce which is which.
In the United States the answer is that Section 508 does not require it. The Access Board reserved the real-time text provision while the telecoms regulator was writing its own rules, and it still reads Reserved. So the obligation lives in telecoms regulation rather than in the procurement standard. Europe runs the other way. The Accessibility Act names real-time text for electronic communications services, and names it again for calls to 112. There, voice, text and, where video is offered, video have to be answered together as total conversation.
Why it matters
It is the clearest example of European accessibility requirements reaching past WCAG entirely. Nothing in WCAG mentions real-time text. A team that has read only WCAG has never met the requirement, and will meet it for the first time in a procurement questionnaire. The reason it exists is worth holding on to. Waiting for a whole message costs time in any conversation and costs more than time in an emergency call, which is why the law names the emergency case separately.
The requirement nobody expects
A product that carries two-way voice as well as real-time text also has to show a live visual indicator of audio activity. Without one, somebody who cannot hear has no way of knowing when the other person is talking. They cannot tell a pause from a silence, so they answer over the top of somebody mid-sentence.
Where this shows up on the site
Related terms
- EN 301 549EN 301 549 is the European standard for accessible information and communication technology, written first for public procurement and now the document European accessibility law reaches for when it needs a technical answer.
- European Accessibility ActThe European Accessibility Act is the EU law that has required certain consumer products and services to be accessible since 28 June 2025, and the word to hold onto is certain.
- Assistive technologyAssistive technology is hardware or software that gives a person with a disability more than a mainstream browser offers on its own.
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