ADA website compliance: what the law requires and how to meet it
Who has to make their website accessible, to which standard and by when, how often businesses get sued over it, and the practical route from a first check to a site you can stand behind.
Short answer: if your business is open to the public, the Department of Justice's position is that the ADA covers your website, and the obligation applies now. There is no ADA regulation with a technical standard for businesses, so in practice the bar is WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the current version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
State and local governments have a specific DOJ rule, WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027 (50,000 people or more) or April 26, 2028 (smaller ones and special districts). In 2025, 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits were filed in federal court alone.
Web accessibility means people with disabilities can use your site: someone who is blind and uses a screen reader, someone who can't use a mouse, someone with low vision who zooms the page, someone who is deaf and needs captions. The barriers the DOJ lists are ordinary ones: poor colour contrast, using colour alone to convey information, images without text alternatives, videos without captions, inaccessible online forms, and navigation that needs a mouse (ADA.gov: guidance on web accessibility and the ADA).
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Who has to make their website accessible?
| Who | Law | Standard | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Businesses open to the public (shops, restaurants, clinics, offices, online stores) | ADA Title III | No technical rule; DOJ points to WCAG as guidance | None set; applies now |
| State and local governments serving 50,000 people or more | ADA Title II, 2024 DOJ rule | WCAG 2.1 Level AA | April 26, 2027 |
| Smaller state and local governments, special district governments | ADA Title II, 2024 DOJ rule | WCAG 2.1 Level AA | April 26, 2028 |
| Recipients of HHS funding (hospitals, clinics, health and human services providers) | Section 504, 2024 HHS rule | WCAG 2.1 Level AA | May 2027 (15 or more employees), May 2028 (fewer) |
| Federal agencies | Section 508 | WCAG 2.0 Level AA, by reference | In force |
Businesses: ADA Title III
Title III covers "public accommodations", which is most businesses that serve the public. The DOJ's position is that the ADA's requirements apply to all the goods, services, privileges and activities those businesses offer, including on the web. It has no regulation setting out detailed standards: it describes WCAG and the federal Section 508 standards as helpful guidance and says businesses can choose how to meet their obligations (ADA.gov, March 2022).
That flexibility is not a safe harbour. Lawsuits, demand letters and settlements are measured against WCAG Level AA, so it's the practical target. Choose the current version, WCAG 2.2, rather than an older one.
State and local governments: ADA Title II
The DOJ's 2024 rule requires state and local governments, including their agencies, special purpose districts and contractors providing services for them, to make web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA (ADA.gov: fact sheet on the web and mobile app rule). An interim final rule published on April 20, 2026 pushed the compliance dates back by a year:
- April 26, 2027 for entities serving a population of 50,000 or more.
- April 26, 2028 for those serving fewer than 50,000, and for special district governments.
The rule has five narrow exceptions: archived content that meets all four archive conditions, documents posted before the compliance date that aren't used to apply for or access services, content posted by the public, individual password-protected documents, and social media posts made before the compliance date. Even where an exception applies, the ADA's effective-communication duties still do.
Healthcare and human services: Section 504
Organizations that receive funding from the Department of Health and Human Services have a parallel rule under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, also at WCAG 2.1 Level AA. An interim final rule in May 2026 moved its dates to May 2027 for recipients with 15 or more employees and May 2028 for smaller ones (Reed Smith).
What WCAG 2.2 Level AA means
WCAG is published by the W3C. Version 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on October 5, 2023 (W3C WAI). Its success criteria sit under four principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Each criterion has a level: A (the minimum), AA (the usual legal target) and AAA (the highest, rarely required for a whole site).
WCAG 2.2 keeps everything in 2.1 except one criterion it removed, 4.1.1 Parsing. That's why meeting 2.2 Level AA also meets the 2.1 Level AA in the government rules. The new criteria at levels A and AA are:
| Criterion | Level | In plain English |
|---|---|---|
| 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) | AA | When you tab to something, a sticky header, cookie banner or chat bubble mustn't hide it completely. |
| 2.5.7 Dragging Movements | AA | Anything done by dragging, like a slider or a map, also works with simple clicks or taps. |
| 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) | AA | Buttons and links are at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, or spaced so a 24-pixel circle around each doesn't overlap another. |
| 3.2.6 Consistent Help | A | Contact details or a help link appear in the same place on every page that has them. |
| 3.3.7 Redundant Entry | A | Don't make people type the same information twice in one process; fill it in or let them pick it. |
| 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) | AA | Logging in doesn't depend on a memory or puzzle test unless there's an alternative, such as allowing password managers and paste. |
The full list, with techniques for each criterion, is in the WCAG 2.2 specification.
How often businesses get sued
Seyfarth Shaw, which tracks ADA litigation, counted 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in federal court in 2025, 27% more than the 2,452 in 2024 and 36% of all ADA Title III federal suits that year. New York (1,021) and Florida (961) led, followed by Illinois (585), Minnesota (162) and Pennsylvania (137) (Seyfarth Shaw, March 2026).
Those numbers leave out state courts, where many California cases are filed under state law, and they don't count demand letters that settle before a suit. The practical point: suits target ordinary businesses in every industry, and the usual allegation is a concrete barrier, such as a product page a screen reader can't use or a booking form that can't be completed with a keyboard.
Do accessibility overlays and widgets work?
An overlay is a script that adds a toolbar or tries to repair a site as it loads. It doesn't change the site's underlying code, so the missing labels, broken heading structure and keyboard traps are still there for the screen readers and other assistive technology people already use.
In April 2025 the Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring accessiBe, a widely marketed overlay, to pay $1 million and barring it from claiming that its automated product can make any website WCAG-compliant without evidence to support that (FTC, April 22, 2025). Fixing the site itself is the route that holds up.
How to make your website ADA compliant
- Run an automated check. Our free website accessibility checker runs Google Lighthouse's tests and lists what fails in plain English. It's quick, but automated tools find only part of the problems: in a UK Government Digital Service test, 13 tools together found 71% of 143 deliberate barriers (GDS, 2017).
- Test by hand. Use the site with only a keyboard (Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Space, Escape), turn on a screen reader (VoiceOver on Mac and iPhone, NVDA on Windows, TalkBack on Android), zoom to 200%, and complete your key journeys: contact, booking, checkout.
- Fix in priority order. Start with anything that blocks a task completely (a form that can't be submitted, a menu that can't be opened), then contrast, labels, alt text and headings, then the rest.
- Cover documents and media. PDFs, videos and audio need accessible versions or captions too.
- Publish an accessibility statement. Say what standard you aim for, what you know isn't there yet, and how visitors can report a problem or get the information another way.
- Keep it up. Every new page, plugin and redesign can reintroduce problems, so check after changes and re-audit at least once a year.
Sources
- ADA.gov: Guidance on web accessibility and the ADA (March 18, 2022)
- ADA.gov: Fact sheet on the new rule on web and mobile app accessibility
- Reed Smith: OCR extends digital accessibility compliance dates under Section 504 (May 22, 2026)
- U.S. Access Board: Revised Section 508 Standards
- W3C: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 and its publication announcement
- Seyfarth Shaw: Federal court website accessibility lawsuit filings bounce back in 2025
- FTC: final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million
- UK Government Digital Service: what we found when we tested tools on the world's least-accessible webpage
Common questions
Is ADA website compliance required for private businesses?
The Department of Justice's position is that the ADA covers the goods and services that businesses open to the public offer on the web. There is no DOJ regulation with a detailed technical standard for businesses; DOJ points to WCAG as helpful guidance, and WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA is the standard courts, settlements and audits generally use.
What is the ADA website compliance deadline?
There is no deadline for private businesses; the obligation applies now. State and local governments have a DOJ rule: WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027 if they serve 50,000 people or more, and by April 26, 2028 for smaller ones and special district governments, after a one-year extension published in April 2026.
Should my website meet WCAG 2.1 or WCAG 2.2?
Aim for WCAG 2.2 Level AA. It's the current version, the W3C recommends it, and it includes everything in 2.1 AA except one removed criterion (4.1.1 Parsing), so meeting 2.2 AA also meets the 2.1 AA that the government rules name.
How many ADA website lawsuits are filed each year?
Seyfarth Shaw counted 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in federal court in 2025, up 27% from 2,452 in 2024, with New York (1,021) and Florida (961) leading. Those figures exclude state courts, so the true total is higher.
Will an accessibility overlay or widget make my site compliant?
An overlay doesn't fix the underlying code: missing labels, poor structure and keyboard traps are still there for the assistive technology people already use. Treat any tool that promises instant compliance with caution, and fix the site itself.
Is there an ADA compliance certificate for websites?
No. There is no official ADA certification for websites. What you can have is an audit report against WCAG 2.2 AA, a record of the fixes made, and an accessibility statement that tells visitors how to report a problem.
How do I check if my website is ADA compliant?
Start with an automated check such as our free website accessibility checker, then test by hand: use the site with only a keyboard, try a screen reader, and check forms and key journeys. Automated tools find only part of the problems, so a manual audit is what tells you where you stand.
Want to know where your site stands? We audit websites against WCAG 2.2 Level AA by hand and with tools, give you a written report you can keep on file, and fix what we find, for one site or several. See accessibility audits, book a free discovery call or call (914) 222-3310.