ADA Website Compliance Requirements: What Business Owners Need to Know in 2025

Does the ADA Apply to Websites?

Yes. While the Americans with Disabilities Act was written in 1990 — before the commercial internet existed — federal courts have consistently ruled that websites qualify as “places of public accommodation” under Title III of the ADA. This means businesses that operate websites accessible to the public are expected to make them usable by people with disabilities.

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice published its final rule under Title II, specifically requiring state and local government websites to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. While Title II applies to government entities, this rule has signaled to courts and plaintiff attorneys that WCAG 2.1 AA is the recognized technical standard for web accessibility in the United States.

Private businesses operating websites — including e-commerce stores, service providers, restaurants, healthcare practices, and SaaS companies — are increasingly being held to this same standard in ADA lawsuits.

How Many ADA Website Lawsuits Are There?

ADA web accessibility lawsuits have grown significantly over the past decade. According to data from UsableNet, over 4,600 ADA web accessibility lawsuits were filed in U.S. federal courts in 2023 alone. That number has remained consistently above 4,000 filings per year since 2021.

The majority of these lawsuits target small and mid-sized businesses — not just large corporations. E-commerce websites, restaurant sites, healthcare providers, and professional service firms are among the most frequently targeted categories.

Most ADA web accessibility cases settle out of court for amounts ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, plus the cost of remediation and legal fees. The financial exposure is real, even for small businesses.

What Is WCAG 2.1 AA?

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It is the internationally recognized technical standard for web accessibility, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Version 2.1, Level AA is the conformance level most widely referenced in U.S. law and regulatory guidance.

WCAG 2.1 AA includes 50 success criteria organized around four principles: content must be perceivable (users can see or hear it), operable (users can navigate and interact with it), understandable (users can comprehend the content and interface), and robust (content works with assistive technologies like screen readers).

For a more detailed breakdown, see our complete WCAG 2.1 AA guide.

What Are the Most Common Accessibility Failures?

According to the WebAIM Million study (2024), 97% of the top one million websites have detectable WCAG failures. The most common issues found across websites include missing alternative text on images, low color contrast between text and backgrounds, empty or unlabeled links and buttons, missing form field labels, empty heading elements, and missing document language declarations.

Many of these failures are straightforward to fix once identified. The challenge is that automated scanning tools only detect approximately 30–40% of total WCAG failures. The remaining 60–70% require manual testing with assistive technologies such as screen readers and keyboard-only navigation.

What Should You Do to Protect Your Business?

The most practical approach is to start with a preliminary accessibility assessment to understand your current risk level. From there, a structured manual audit against WCAG 2.1 AA criteria will identify the full scope of barriers on your website. Finally, systematic remediation — fixing the identified issues with documented evidence — is the strongest technical defense available.

It is important to understand that no consultant can “guarantee” ADA compliance. Compliance is a legal determination made by courts, not technical consultants. What a qualified accessibility firm can do is identify and document technical barriers against a recognized standard, support your team through remediation, and provide a formal Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) as evidence that your organization has taken concrete steps to address accessibility.