The DOJ web accessibility rule is a federal regulation, finalized on April 24, 2024, that requires state and local governments to make their websites and mobile apps conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. It was issued under Title II of the ADA, so it directly covers government entities — not private businesses. In April 2026 the DOJ extended the compliance deadlines: governments serving 50,000 or more people now have until April 26, 2027, and smaller entities and special districts until April 26, 2028. The rule still matters to every business with a website, because it is the clearest statement yet of the technical standard the DOJ — and the courts that follow its lead — expect a website to meet.
What does the DOJ web accessibility rule actually require?
The rule adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the W3C — as the binding standard for government web content and mobile apps. WCAG has three conformance levels: A is the minimum, AA is the level regulators and courts consistently reference, and AAA is aspirational. If you have ever wondered which version of accessibility actually counts, the rule settled it: WCAG Level AA is the benchmark.
One wrinkle: the rule cites WCAG 2.1, but the standard has since moved on. WCAG 2.2 became the current W3C Recommendation on October 5, 2023, adding nine success criteria that cover focus visibility, minimum target sizes, and accessible authentication, among others. Remediating to WCAG 2.2 AA covers the 2.1 AA baseline and future-proofs the work — which is why we audit against WCAG 2.2 AA.
Does the rule apply to private business websites?
Not directly. Title II covers state and local government; private businesses fall under Title III. And here is the uncomfortable part: there is still no formal federal regulation spelling out a web standard for Title III businesses.
That gap has not slowed anyone down. The DOJ's longstanding position — stated for years on ADA.gov — is that the ADA covers business websites, and most courts agree. In Robles v. Domino's Pizza (9th Cir. 2019), the court held that the ADA applies to a website and app connected to physical locations, and the Supreme Court declined to review the decision. One appeals court briefly went the other way in Gil v. Winn-Dixie (11th Cir. 2021), but that ruling was later vacated. The circuit split remains technically unresolved; the practical trend does not.
In practice, WCAG is the de facto benchmark cited in Title III lawsuits, settlements, and demand letters. The Title II rule did not create that reality — it confirmed it in the Federal Register.
Why should private businesses care about the DOJ web accessibility rule?
It ends the argument over which standard applies
For years, a business could plausibly say that nobody had defined what an accessible website is. That defense is gone. When the federal government writes WCAG AA into binding regulation for the public sector, plaintiff's attorneys, judges, and settlement negotiators treat it as the reference point for everyone. Arguing that no official standard exists now means arguing against the DOJ's own rulebook.
Litigation is not waiting for a Title III rule
In 2025, 8,667 ADA Title III lawsuits were filed — among the highest years on record — and more than 5,000 of them targeted websites and apps, up roughly 20% over 2024. E-commerce takes the biggest share at roughly 70% of web suits, with food service around 18%. Most cases settle for between $10,000 and $75,000 plus a remediation commitment; the average settlement runs $30,000 or more before attorney fees. The full picture is in our review of ADA website lawsuit trends for 2026.
State laws multiply the exposure
California's Unruh Act sets minimum statutory damages of $4,000 per violation plus attorney's fees, and a 1992 amendment makes any ADA violation automatically an Unruh violation — the engine behind the steady flow of California website demand letters. New York layers state and city human-rights laws on top of the ADA and leads the nation in state-court web-accessibility filings, while Florida is the most active state for federal filings. A federal web regulation for private businesses may never arrive; the state-law exposure is already here.
What should a business do now?
The fix list is well defined, because most sites fail in the same few places. WebAIM's 2025 analysis found detectable WCAG failures on 94.8% of the top one million homepages — overwhelmingly low-contrast text, missing image alt text, missing form labels, and empty links or buttons. And with over 1 in 4 U.S. adults living with a disability, those failures turn away real customers, not just invite lawsuits.
- Get a real audit. Automated scanning can detect only about a third of WCAG success criteria; keyboard flow, screen-reader behavior, and focus order need human testing. A clean automated-scan grade is a good start, not a finish line. Request a free accessibility audit to see exactly where your site stands against WCAG 2.2 AA.
- Fix issues at the code level. Contrast, alt text, form labels, and empty controls are usually fast wins. Deeper problems — custom widgets, inaccessible checkout flows, document downloads — take engineering time, so sequence them by user impact and legal exposure.
- Skip the overlay shortcut. A compliance overlay is a third-party script sold on the claim that it makes a broken site compliant. That claim has collapsed: the FTC fined accessiBe $1 million in an action announced in January 2025 over deceptive compliance claims, the National Federation of the Blind formally opposes overlay products as harmful, and UsableNet repeatedly finds hundreds of companies sued each year already had a widget or overlay installed. Note the distinction: a user-facing preference widget — contrast and text-size controls on a site that is already accessible at the code level, making no compliance claims — is a legitimate convenience, and our own site runs one. The problem is the compliance claim, never the preference button. We break this down in why overlay widgets fail.
- Monitor, because sites drift. Every new template, plugin, or campaign page can introduce regressions. Ongoing scans plus periodic human retesting keep remediation from decaying.
The DOJ has told governments exactly what standard to meet and given them until 2027 and 2028 to meet it. Private businesses get no deadline — because for them the enforcement mechanism is a lawsuit, and lawsuits arrive on a plaintiff's schedule, not a regulator's. Get a free WCAG 2.2 audit of your site and find out what a plaintiff's firm would find before they do.
Frequently asked questions
When are the deadlines for the DOJ web accessibility rule?
After the April 2026 extension, state and local governments serving 50,000 or more people must comply by April 26, 2027; smaller entities and special districts have until April 26, 2028. The underlying rule was finalized on April 24, 2024, and adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA for government websites and mobile apps.
Does the DOJ rule require WCAG 2.1 or WCAG 2.2?
The rule formally adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA. WCAG 2.2, published as a W3C Recommendation in October 2023, adds nine success criteria on top of 2.1, including minimum target sizes and accessible authentication. Because 2.2 builds on 2.1, remediating to WCAG 2.2 AA covers the rule's baseline while matching where courts and auditors are heading. WCAG 3.0 exists only as an early draft and is years from being a requirement anywhere.
What if my company sells software or websites to government agencies?
Title II entities remain responsible for the accessibility of web content they offer the public, including content built or hosted by vendors — so expect state and local procurement teams to demand evidence of WCAG 2.1 AA conformance well before the 2027 deadline. Federal procurement is further along: Section 508 already requires accessibility in federal purchases, and agencies typically ask vendors for a completed VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template), which serves as an Accessibility Conformance Report documenting how a product measures up against WCAG, Section 508, or EN 301 549.