ADA website compliance: what the law asks and how lawsuits start

ADA website compliance means that people with disabilities can use your website: a blind customer with a screen reader, someone who navigates by keyboard only, a visitor who zooms to 200 percent. For businesses open to the public, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires it, and courts and settlements measure it against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG 2.1 Level AA. For state and local governments a federal rule now makes that standard binding, with deadlines in April 2027 and April 2028.

The ADA was signed on July 26, 1990, before most businesses had a website. It does not mention the internet. Title III prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation, such as stores, restaurants, hotels and banks, and the Justice Department has said since the 1990s that this reaches their websites. Title II covers state and local governments. What changed in the last decade is enforcement: private lawsuits turned an old principle into a daily business risk.

This guide covers who must comply and by when, why lawsuits keep coming and where they are filed, what WCAG 2.1 AA asks of a typical business site, why an overlay widget does not solve it, and what a company outside the US that sells to Americans should do.

Who must comply, and by when

The Title II deadlines were first April 24, 2026 and April 26, 2027. On April 20, 2026 the Justice Department published an interim final rule that moved both by a year, pointing to the resources public entities needed and the limits of automated and AI-based remediation. The technical standard did not change, and the rule states that the obligation to make online services accessible applies regardless of the compliance dates.

For private businesses there is no such rule. The Justice Department withdrew a planned Title III web rulemaking in 2017 and, in guidance of March 18, 2022, said businesses open to the public must make their websites accessible while leaving them flexibility in how. In practice the flexibility points to one place: every settlement and most court orders name WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

How ADA website lawsuits start

Most cases begin with a demand letter or a complaint filed in federal court by a plaintiff who could not complete a purchase or booking with a screen reader. The ADA does not award damages under Title III, only injunctions and attorney's fees, so a quick settlement with a remediation plan and a fee payment is the usual outcome. State laws add damages: California's Unruh Civil Rights Act allows a minimum of 4,000 dollars per violation, which is why so many California cases are filed in state court instead of federal court.

The numbers, from the federal filings Seyfarth Shaw tracks every year:

Website cases made up about 36 percent of all 8,667 federal ADA Title III lawsuits in 2025. Counting state courts in New York and California as well, the accessibility vendor UsableNet put the 2025 total above 5,000, with e-commerce sites taking close to 70 percent. The full series, with the method and a download of the data, is in our research on ADA website lawsuits.

Three patterns matter for a business deciding what to do:

• Online stores are the main targetProduct filters, image galleries without text alternatives and checkouts that a keyboard cannot complete generate the most complaints.
• Repeat defendants are commonA settlement that fixes one barrier does not protect against the next plaintiff who finds another one; sued sites are often sued again.
• Size is no protectionSmall and mid-sized businesses are sued as often as large ones, because the claim rests on a barrier, not on the size of the company.

What WCAG 2.1 AA asks of a business website

WCAG is organized under four principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Level AA has 50 success criteria in version 2.1. For a typical business site or store, these are the checks that catch most real barriers:

WCAG 2.2, published in 2023, adds nine criteria, mostly about focus visibility, target sizes and authentication. Building to 2.2 now costs little extra and covers you when standards move.

Why overlays and widgets do not make a site compliant

Accessibility overlays are scripts that add a toolbar and promise automatic compliance. They do not change the underlying code that screen readers depend on, and plaintiffs sue sites that use them. In January 2025 the Federal Trade Commission ordered the overlay vendor accessiBe to pay 1 million dollars over claims that its AI tool could make any website compliant with WCAG; the order became final in April 2025. The Justice Department, in its April 2026 rule, also named the limits of AI-based remediation as one reason public entities needed more time.

An overlay can sit on top of an accessible site without harm. It cannot replace the work in the templates.

What to fix first

A practical order for a site that is already live, from most to least exposure:

1. The path to money. Search, product page, cart, checkout or booking: test them with a keyboard and a screen reader, and fix what blocks completion.
2. Forms. Contact, quote and account forms: labels, error messages, no CAPTCHA a blind user cannot solve.
3. Templates, not pages. Most barriers live in a header, a product card or a modal that appears on hundreds of pages. Fix the template once.
4. Content. Alt text for images, captions for video, headings in the right order. This is ongoing work for whoever publishes.
5. An accessibility statement. Say which standard you aim for, what you know still falls short, and how people can reach you for help. Our accessibility statement template has a US version.

Automated scanners find roughly a third of WCAG issues; keyboard and screen reader testing by a person finds the rest. Budget for both, and for re-testing after every redesign.

Selling to the US from abroad

A company in Europe or elsewhere that sells to US consumers can be sued in a US court like any other online store. If you also sell in the EU, you already face the European Accessibility Act, in force since June 28, 2025, which points to the same WCAG criteria through the European standard EN 301 549. If you sell in the UK, the Equality Act applies; see UK website accessibility law. One build to WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA serves all three markets. For a US company working with a European team, the wider picture is in outsourcing to Europe from the US.