Website accessibility for business owners: ADA and WCAG

The short version

• DOJ says the ADA covers the goods and services a business open to the public offers online. There’s no detailed federal web rule for private businesses.
• The dated rule is for state and local governments: WCAG 2.1 AA by April 26, 2027 or April 26, 2028, after an April 2026 extension.
• Aim for WCAG 2.2 Level AA. It covers the older versions too.
• Test with a keyboard, a screen reader and a contrast checker, not only an automated scan.
• Fix the site itself, publish an accessibility statement, and recheck after every change. This isn’t legal advice.

This guide sticks to what four official sources say, with dates: the Justice Department (ada.gov), the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative, the U.S. Access Board and the Federal Trade Commission. Where the law is unsettled, we say so rather than guess. For your own situation, talk to a lawyer.

What does the law actually say about websites?

Three federal sources matter for a small business, and they say different things.

Businesses open to the public (ADA Title III)

The Justice Department’s guidance on web accessibility, dated March 18, 2022, says businesses open to the public must give people with disabilities full and equal enjoyment of their goods and services, and that this includes what they offer on the web. It also says DOJ has no regulation setting detailed web standards for businesses, so they “have flexibility in how they comply.” It points to WCAG and the federal Section 508 standards as helpful guidance.

That’s the whole federal picture for a shop, a clinic or a contractor’s site: a duty, but no checklist in a regulation and no deadline. We checked ada.gov on October 31, 2026, and the 2022 guidance is still posted with no notice that it was withdrawn.

State and local governments (ADA Title II)

In April 2024, DOJ published a rule that does set a technical standard: WCAG 2.1 Level AA, for the websites and mobile apps of state and local governments. On April 20, 2026, an interim final rule moved its compliance dates back. According to ada.gov’s page on the rule, the dates are now April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller ones and special districts.

That rule doesn’t cover private businesses, with one exception worth knowing: governments must make sure contractors who provide services for them follow Title II. If you build, host or run anything public-facing for a town, school district or county, read our guide to the Title II web rule and its dates.

Diagram: the federal dates behind website accessibility, from DOJ’s 2022 guidance to the 2026 extension of the Title II rule. Dates from ada.gov, checked October 31, 2026.

Federal agencies (Section 508)

The U.S. Access Board’s Revised 508 Standards apply to technology federal agencies build, buy or use. They require electronic content, including documents, to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA. Most small businesses aren’t covered, but if you sell to federal agencies, your documents and web tools may need to meet them.

Our short answer on whether your small business site needs to be ADA accessible covers this in a few paragraphs. This pillar goes further.

What standard should my site meet?

WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, is published by the W3C. Its WCAG overview, updated September 17, 2026, says WCAG 2.2 was published on October 5, 2023, with an update on December 12, 2024. The W3C encourages using the latest version. It also notes WCAG 2.2 is now an ISO standard, ISO/IEC 40500:2025. WCAG 3 is still an early draft, so don’t plan around it yet.

Each rule in WCAG, called a success criterion, has a level:

• Level A: the minimum. Missing these blocks people outright.
• Level AA: all of A, plus more. This is the target the Title II rule and Section 508 name, and the one most businesses use.
• Level AAA: all of A and AA, plus more. The W3C says AAA isn’t recommended as a policy for whole sites, because some content can’t meet it.

Diagram: how WCAG’s three levels stack. Each level includes the one below it. Based on the W3C’s WCAG 2.2 conformance rules.

Two conformance rules surprise people. A page only conforms if the whole page does, not just the main column. And if a page is part of a process, such as booking or checkout, every step of that process has to conform. Our guide to WCAG levels A, AA and AAA explains this, and our guide to what WCAG 2.2 changed covers the six newer rules at A and AA.

How do I find the problems on my site?

You need three kinds of checks. Each catches things the others miss.

1. An automated scan. Free tools like WAVE, Lighthouse and axe find missing alt text, low contrast and unlabeled fields in seconds. Our guide to free accessibility checkers shows how to run each one. DOJ’s guidance warns that a clean report “does not necessarily mean everything is accessible.”
2. A keyboard test. Put the mouse away and use Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter and Space. Can you reach and use every link, menu and form, and can you always see where you are?
3. A screen reader test. Turn on VoiceOver on a Mac or iPhone, or install the free NVDA on Windows, and listen to your home and contact pages.

Our guide to testing with a keyboard and a screen reader walks through the second and third checks step by step, with the exact keys. If you want a quick first pass across many basics, our article on where to start with website accessibility includes the W3C’s 30-minute Easy Checks.

What should I fix first?

DOJ’s guidance lists the barriers it sees most on business sites: poor color contrast, color used alone to give information, missing alt text, videos without captions, inaccessible forms, and controls that only work with a mouse. Fix them in this order, because forms and contact details are where a barrier costs you a customer:

1. Contact, booking and checkout forms. Labels, clear errors and keyboard use. See our guide to making website forms accessible.
2. Contrast and focus outlines. Often a few style changes fix every page at once. See how to check and fix color contrast.
3. Images. Useful alt text on images that carry meaning, and empty alt text on decorative ones. See how to write alt text.
4. Headings and links. Real headings in a logical order, and link text that makes sense on its own.
5. Video, audio and motion. Captions, a pause button for anything that moves, and no sound that plays by itself. See what accessibility asks of video, audio and moving content.
6. Documents. Menus, forms and price lists posted as PDFs. See how to make PDFs and documents accessible.

Cookie banners and spam checks trip people up too. Our guides to accessible cookie banners and CAPTCHAs and accessibility cover those.

Do overlays or widgets solve it?

No. An overlay is a script that adds a toolbar or automatic “fixes” on top of your pages. The barriers that stop people live in the site’s own code and content, and a script can’t reliably repair them.

In January 2025, the FTC announced an order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million over claims that its AI tool could make any website WCAG-compliant. Our answer on whether overlays make a site compliant has the detail. Be wary of any product or person that promises “full compliance.”

How do I show customers I take it seriously?

Publish an accessibility statement. The W3C’s statement guidance says the minimum is three things: a commitment to accessibility, the standard you aim for (such as WCAG 2.2 Level AA), and contact details for reporting problems. It suggests linking to it from your footer. The W3C also offers a free generator. Our guide on how to write an accessibility statement gives a plain example you can adapt.

When someone reports a problem, thank them, help them get what they need another way right away, then fix the barrier. A phone number that works is the best fallback you have.

What if I get a demand letter?

Don’t ignore it, and don’t answer it by installing a widget. Note any deadline, call a lawyer, and save a dated record of what the site looked like. Then get an honest test of the pages named and a written plan to fix them. Our guide to ADA website demand letters sets out what to gather and what to avoid. It’s not legal advice either, and it can’t be: every letter and every state is different.

When is the best time to fix accessibility?

During a redesign. Choosing accessible colors, a theme that handles focus and headings well, and form tools that label fields properly costs far less at the start than after launch. Our guide on building accessibility into a new website in our website planning hub lists the checkpoints for each stage, from brief to launch. Our answer on whether to redesign or fix your site can help if you’re not sure which path you’re on.

What are the most common mistakes?

• Treating it as a one-time project. New pages, photos, PDFs and plugins bring new problems. Recheck after each round of changes.
• Trusting a score. A perfect automated score can sit on top of a form nobody can finish with a keyboard.
• Removing focus outlines because they look untidy. Keyboard users then can’t see where they are.
• Text in images, like hours or prices inside a graphic.
• Fixing only the home page. Forms, booking and checkout matter more.
• Believing a promise of full compliance, from a widget seller or anyone else.

What has changed recently?

• April 20, 2026: DOJ’s interim final rule moved the Title II web deadlines back a year, to April 26, 2027 and April 26, 2028. The standard, WCAG 2.1 AA, didn’t change.
• December 12, 2024: the W3C published an update to WCAG 2.2. WCAG 2.2 is also now ISO/IEC 40500:2025.
• January 2025: the FTC announced its order against an overlay maker over compliance claims.
• Still true: there’s no detailed DOJ web regulation for private businesses, as of October 31, 2026.

How much does it cost, and how long does it take?

The checks in this guide are free. A keyboard and screen reader test of three key pages takes an hour or two the first time. Fixes depend on how the site was built. Content fixes like alt text and link wording are quick. Problems in a theme or page builder take developer time, and an old site with many of them may be a case for a redesign. We won’t quote a general number, because it depends so much on the site.

How does E-3 handle this?

ADA and WCAG questions are a small part of E-3’s support history: about half a dozen requests since 2019 asked about compliance, testing or a lawsuit. We fix problems in the site itself rather than adding an overlay, and we publish this site’s own results on our accessibility page. Redesigns and updates are tested on a staging copy first. Ongoing checks are part of website care. No one can honestly promise legal compliance, and we don’t.

Related questions

• Does my small business website need to be ADA accessible?
• Do accessibility widgets and overlays make my site compliant?
• What is alt text, and how do I write it?
• What does WCAG mean?
• How do I add captions and transcripts to my videos?

Sources

1. Guidance on web accessibility and the ADA (U.S. Department of Justice, March 18, 2022)
2. Fact sheet: new rule on the accessibility of web content and mobile apps (ada.gov)
3. WCAG 2 overview (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative)
4. Understanding conformance (W3C WAI, WCAG 2.2)
5. Developing an accessibility statement (W3C WAI)
6. Revised Section 508 standards (U.S. Access Board)
7. FTC order requires online marketer to pay $1 million for deceptive claims that its AI product could make websites compliant (FTC, January 2025)