ADA (as it applies to websites)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a U.S. civil-rights law enacted in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. It predates the modern web, and its text does not mention websites, which is the root of much of the complexity around ADA website compliance. The law's application to digital services has instead developed through regulation and, especially, litigation.

Two parts of the ADA matter online. Title II covers state and local governments. In 2024 the Department of Justice issued a rule under Title II that, for the first time, adopts a specific technical standard, WCAG 2.1 Level AA, for the websites and mobile apps of state and local governments, with compliance deadlines phased by the size of the entity. Title III covers private businesses that are places of public accommodation, and for Title III there is no federal regulation specifying a technical web standard.

For private businesses under Title III, the operative rules come from the courts. Plaintiffs regularly bring cases arguing that an inaccessible website denies equal access to a business's goods and services, and courts have overwhelmingly allowed these cases to proceed. In the absence of a regulation, judges and settlements have gravitated to WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA as the reference standard, making it the de facto benchmark even though no statute names it for Title III.

The enforcement environment is active. Thousands of federal ADA website lawsuits are filed each year, and a much larger volume of pre-litigation demand letters never reaches a courtroom. Because there is no certification that makes a business immune, the realistic goal is to conform to WCAG Level AA, document your testing and remediation, and monitor continuously so that new content does not reintroduce barriers.