ADA compliance for websites, made simple.

What is ADA compliance for websites?

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 bans discrimination based on disability. For websites, that means your site has to be usable by people who navigate with screen readers, keyboards, voice control, magnification, and other assistive tools.

The law itself does not name a technical standard. So the courts settled on one. Since 2017, US federal courts have used the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)as the yardstick. WCAG 2.1 AA was the baseline through 2025. From April 2026, the Department of Justice's Title II rule formalizes WCAG 2.1 AA for state and local government websites, with most private sector cases now citing WCAG 2.2 AA.

Who has to comply

The short answer is almost everyone with a public-facing website.

The Department of Justice and federal courts have ruled that websites of “places of public accommodation” fall under ADA Title III. That covers retail, restaurants, healthcare, hospitality, finance, education, and most other commercial sectors. Title II covers state and local government websites and has a specific 2026 deadline.

• Title I: employer websites used by employees or applicants
• Title II: state and local government websites (April 2026 deadline for entities with 50,000+ residents)
• Title III: private business websites tied to public accommodation

If your business has a physical storefront, sells to consumers online, or operates in healthcare, education, or finance, your website is in scope. Period.

ADA vs WCAG, in one minute

Two terms get conflated all the time. They're different.

WCAG is organized around four principles, often called POUR: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust. Each principle has testable success criteria graded as A, AA, or AAA. AA is the practical bar for ADA compliance.

What changed in 2026: the Title II rule

In April 2024, the DOJ published a final rule under Title II of the ADA. It explicitly requires state and local government websites and mobile apps to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The compliance dates fell in 2026.

While the rule itself only binds Title II entities, courts cite it as evidence of what reasonable compliance looks like. That raises the bar for private sector defendants too.

Penalties, lawsuits, and what they actually cost

Here's the part that gets boards moving.

Most ADA web cases never see a courtroom. They start with a demand letterfrom a plaintiff's firm, citing specific WCAG failures on your site. Settlement typically lands between $25,000 and $50,000 for a first letter, plus a binding remediation commitment.

Repeat letters cost more. Class actions cost a lot more.

The DOJ can also pursue civil penalties of up to $96,384 for a first violation and $192,768 for each subsequent one. Those numbers are indexed and rise each year.

And the volume keeps climbing. ADA web filings in US federal courts crossed 4,600 in 2025. The same plaintiff firms file hundreds of cases per year, often targeting any site with obvious automated-test failures.