Website accessibility requirements in the United States come from the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and a Department of Justice rule for state and local governments, and all three point to the same technical benchmark: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at version 2.1, Level AA. If your site serves the public, that is the standard you need to meet. Falling short exposes private businesses to lawsuits that commonly settle north of $25,000 and to federal civil penalties that now exceed $118,000 for a first violation.
Which Law Applies to Your Website
Private Businesses: Title III of the ADA
Title III bars discrimination by private businesses that qualify as “places of public accommodation,” a category the statute defines through twelve broad groups including hotels, restaurants, retail stores, banks, and places of recreation.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC Chapter 126 Subchapter III – Public Accommodations and Services Operated by Private Entities The statute itself never mentions websites. Courts and the DOJ have applied it to the web anyway, treating a covered business’s digital channels as an extension of its physical services. The DOJ has not issued a final rule fixing a specific technical standard for private business sites, but its 2022 guidance reaffirmed that interpretation and pointed to WCAG as the benchmark.
When the DOJ brings a Title III enforcement action, a court can order injunctive relief and civil penalties. The statute originally set those at $50,000 for a first violation and $100,000 for subsequent violations,2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 12188 – Enforcement and inflation adjustments have pushed them to $118,225 and $236,451 respectively.3eCFR. 28 CFR Part 85 – Civil Monetary Penalties Inflation Adjustment
Federal Agencies and Contractors: Section 508
Section 508 applies to federal agencies and any electronic technology they develop, buy, or maintain, and it requires that federal employees and members of the public get access to digital information comparable to what non-disabled users receive.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 794d – Electronic and Information Technology The 2017 refresh incorporated WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the binding technical standard for both web and non-web federal content.5Section508.gov. Applicability and Conformance Requirements Organizations that receive federal funding or build digital products for government use fall inside this obligation, and non-compliance can cost federal contracts.
State and Local Governments: The DOJ’s 2024 Title II Rule
In April 2024, the DOJ finalized a rule that does something it hasn’t yet done for private businesses: it sets an explicit, regulation-backed technical standard. Under 28 CFR Part 35, Subpart H, every state and local government entity must make its websites and mobile apps conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA.6Federal Register. Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities That covers electronic ballots, tax portals, park reservation systems, transit apps, and any contractor delivering public services on the government’s behalf.7ADA.gov. Fact Sheet: New Rule on the Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps Provided by State and Local Governments
The DOJ extended the original deadlines in April 2026. The current schedule:
- April 26, 2027 for state and local entities serving 50,000 or more people.
- April 26, 2028 for entities serving fewer than 50,000 people, and for all special district governments.
What WCAG 2.1 Level AA Actually Requires
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium and are the technical backbone behind nearly every legal accessibility requirement in the country.9World Wide Web Consortium. WCAG 2 Overview Compliance is measured at three levels. Level A is the minimum floor. Level AA is what courts, regulators, and settlement agreements consistently require, and it is the practical target for almost every legal purpose. Level AAA is the highest standard and is rarely expected across an entire site.
Level AA involves dozens of specific success criteria. The ones below drive most audit failures and most litigation.
Text Alternatives and Multimedia
Every non-text element (images, icons, charts, infographics) needs a text alternative that conveys the same information to a screen reader user. Purely decorative images should be marked so screen readers skip them. Videos and audio clips need synchronized captions, and pre-recorded multimedia should include a text transcript.
Keyboard Access
Every interactive element must work with a keyboard alone: menus, forms, links, dropdowns, modal dialogs. A common failure is the “keyboard trap,” where a user tabs into a widget and can’t tab back out. Sites also need a way to bypass repetitive content, like a “skip to main content” link, so keyboard users don’t have to tab through the entire navigation on every page.
Color Contrast
Standard text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background. Large text (at least 18 point, or 14 point bold) can drop to 3:1. Logos and purely decorative text are exempt.10World Wide Web Consortium. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 – Success Criterion 1.4.3 This is one of the easiest requirements to test automatically and one of the most commonly failed, particularly in designs that use light gray text on white backgrounds.
Flashing Content
Nothing on a page can flash more than three times in any one-second period unless the flash falls below both the general flash and red flash thresholds.11W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Understanding SC 2.3.1 Three Flashes or Below Threshold The rule protects users with photosensitive epilepsy. Animated ads, video backgrounds, and auto-playing media are the usual culprits.
Forms and Error Handling
Every form field needs a visible label and a programmatic association so screen readers can announce what it is for. When a user makes an error, the site has to identify the problem and suggest a fix. Forms that trigger financial or legal commitments must let users review, correct, or reverse a submission.
Predictable Navigation
Navigation and search should sit in the same place on every page. Elements that look the same should behave the same. Context changes, like opening a new window or auto-submitting a form when the last field is filled, shouldn’t happen without warning.
What WCAG 2.2 Adds
WCAG 2.2 was published in late 2023. The DOJ’s Title II rule adopts 2.1, and Section 508 still references 2.0, but W3C encourages using the latest version, and any site being built or redesigned now should target 2.2 to stay ahead of regulatory updates.
The most significant Level AA additions:
- Focus Not Obscured (2.4.11). When an element receives keyboard focus, it can’t be completely hidden behind a sticky header, cookie banner, or chat widget.
- Dragging Movements (2.5.7). Any function that requires dragging (reordering a list, adjusting a slider) must also work through a single click or tap.
- Redundant Entry (3.3.7). If a user already entered information earlier in a process, the site can’t ask them to type it again. Auto-population or selection from prior data is required.
New Level A criteria require help mechanisms like contact information to appear in consistent locations (3.2.6) and prohibit login processes that depend on transcribing complex information like a password from a separate device (3.3.8).
What Non-Compliance Costs
Federal penalties get the headlines, but private lawsuits drive day-to-day enforcement. Thousands of ADA website accessibility suits are filed in state and federal courts each year: more than 4,000 in both 2023 and 2024, and over 3,100 federal filings in 2025 alone. E-commerce sites are the primary target at roughly three-quarters of cases, and about two-thirds of suits target companies with less than $25 million in annual revenue. This is not a large-corporation problem.
Most cases settle. Plaintiff attorney fees, defense counsel, a professional audit, and the actual remediation can push the total past $25,000 for even a straightforward case. Repeat lawsuits are common; roughly 40 percent of federal filings in 2024 targeted companies that had already been sued before, often because earlier fixes were incomplete or temporary.
One trap worth naming: accessibility overlay widgets, marketed as instant compliance fixes. About a quarter of 2024 lawsuits specifically named these widgets as barriers rather than solutions. Courts have generally not accepted an overlay’s presence as a defense, and the accessibility community treats them as unreliable substitutes for actual remediation.
Testing Your Site
Testing starts with automated scanners that crawl code for technical violations: missing alt text, insufficient contrast, unlabeled form fields. These tools are fast and catch a high volume of straightforward errors, but they reliably detect only about 30 to 40 percent of accessibility issues. The rest require human judgment.
Manual testing means navigating the site with a keyboard only, running screen readers, and evaluating whether content is genuinely usable rather than just technically tagged. An automated tool can confirm that an image has alt text; only a person can tell whether that alt text describes the image usefully.
The most informative step, and the one most often skipped, is testing with actual users who have disabilities. Someone who navigates with a screen reader every day will surface breakages no checklist anticipates. Documenting that you conducted this kind of testing also strengthens your legal position if a suit arises, because it demonstrates good-faith effort beyond box-checking.
Cost, Timeline, and Tax Offsets
Most accessibility projects run two to twelve months from audit through remediation and validation. A mid-sized web application with 20 to 60 screens typically takes three to five months: two to four weeks for the audit, eight to fourteen weeks for remediation, and two to three weeks for validation. Projects treated as a side task alongside regular development often stretch to six months or longer.
Professional third-party audits for small and mid-sized business sites generally run $1,500 to $5,000, scaling with the number of unique page templates and the complexity of interactive features. Remediation costs sit on top of that and depend entirely on what the audit uncovers.
Two federal tax provisions help absorb the expense. The Disabled Access Credit under IRC Section 44 gives eligible small businesses a credit equal to 50 percent of accessibility spending between $250 and $10,250 per year, for a maximum credit of $5,000. To qualify, the business must have had gross receipts of $1 million or less in the prior year, or no more than 30 full-time employees.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 44 – Expenditures to Provide Access to Disabled Individuals The Architectural Barrier Removal Deduction under IRC Section 190 lets any business deduct up to $15,000 per year for removing accessibility barriers.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 190 – Expenditures to Remove Architectural and Transportation Barriers to the Handicapped and Elderly A qualifying small business can use both: claim the Section 44 credit on the first $10,250 in spending and deduct additional costs under Section 190.
Accessibility Statements and the Undue Burden Limit
An accessibility statement is a public page describing your conformance status, known limitations, and how users can report problems. Federal agencies are required to maintain one under OMB Memorandum M-24-08, and the statement must include the WCAG standard applied, contact information for the Section 508 program manager, a feedback mechanism, and instructions for filing a formal complaint.14Section508.gov. Developing a Website Accessibility Statement Private businesses are not required to publish one, but doing so is a strong defensive move. A useful statement names the WCAG version and level you target, acknowledges known gaps with timelines for fixes, and gives users a direct way to reach someone who can resolve barriers. Vague language about a “commitment to accessibility” without specifics does little to deter litigation or help actual users.
Both Title II and Title III include a safety valve: an organization does not have to make changes that would impose an “undue burden” or fundamentally alter its services. For private businesses under Title III, that means showing the cost or difficulty of a specific modification is unreasonable given available resources. For government entities under Title II, the head of the agency must make a written determination of undue financial or administrative burden after considering all resources.
This defense is narrow. Courts evaluate it modification by modification, not as an all-or-nothing excuse for an inaccessible site. A business might reasonably argue that making one complex legacy feature accessible costs more than the feature generates, but that will not excuse missing alt text or unlabeled form fields. The cost of basic WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance for a typical website is modest enough that few organizations can credibly claim undue burden for the full set of requirements.