We investigate spherical, isothermal and polytropic steady accretion models in the presence of the cosmological constant. Exact solutions are found for three classes of isothermal fluids, assuming the test gas approximation. The cosmological constant damps the mass accretion rate and–above a certain limit–completely stops the steady accretion onto black holes. A "homoclinic-type" accretion flow of polytropic gas has been discovered in anti–de Sitter spacetimes in the test-gas limit. These results can have cosmological connotation, through the Einstein-Straus vacuole model of embedding local structures into Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker spacetimes. In particular, one infers that steady accretion would not exist in the late phases of Penrose’s scenario of the evolution of the Universe, known as the Weyl curvature hypothesis.