What Is an Accessibility Statement?
An accessibility statement is a dedicated page on your website, typically linked in the footer, that tells visitors three things:
- What you’ve done to make the site usable by people with disabilities
- What standard you’re measuring against (almost always WCAG)
- How to get help if something on the site doesn’t work for them
Think of it as the accessibility equivalent of a privacy policy. It doesn’t make your site accessible by itself, but it signals intent, gives you a documented compliance trail, and gives disabled users a direct channel to flag problems before they escalate to a complaint or lawsuit.
A good statement is honest about gaps. A bad one is generic boilerplate that claims “full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance” with zero specifics, which courts and advocacy groups now recognize as a red flag rather than a defense.
Accessibility Statement vs. Accessibility Policy
These two terms get used interchangeably, but they’re not the same document:
| Accessibility Statement | Accessibility Policy | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | Public, especially disabled users | Internal teams, legal, procurement |
| Tone | Plain language, user-facing | Formal, often legalistic |
| Content | Current status, known issues, contact method | Organizational commitments, training requirements, review cadence |
| Where it lives | Public page, linked in footer | Often in employee handbook or internal wiki |
You can have a policy without a statement (rare, and risky) or a statement without a formal policy (common for small sites). For legal defensibility, you want both, but the statement is the one your visitors and auditors will actually see.
Do You Legally Need One?
It depends on jurisdiction, but the trend across all major frameworks is toward making one effectively mandatory:
United States (ADA): The ADA itself doesn’t name “accessibility statement” as a required document, but the Department of Justice’s 2024 rule for state and local government websites (Title II) requires WCAG 2.1 AA conformance, and an accessibility statement is the standard way agencies document that. For private businesses, there’s no explicit federal statement mandate, but courts have repeatedly looked favorably on documented good-faith effort, and unfavorably on its absence, in ADA Title III web accessibility lawsuits, which numbered well over 4,000 in 2024 alone.
Section 508: Required for U.S. federal agencies and contractors; an accessibility statement (often called a “VPAT-backed” statement) is standard practice.
EU, European Accessibility Act (EAA): Became enforceable in member states as of June 28, 2025. Covers a wide range of private-sector products and services, including e-commerce. An accessibility statement is explicitly part of compliance documentation under the related EN 301 549 standard.
UK, Equality Act 2010 plus Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations: Public sector websites are legally required to publish an accessibility statement using the UK government’s specific format. Private businesses fall under the broader “reasonable adjustments” duty, where a statement is strong supporting evidence.
Canada, Accessible Canada Act (ACA): Federally regulated organizations must publish accessibility plans and progress reports, which function similarly to a statement.
Bottom line: even where it isn’t explicitly mandated by name, an accessibility statement is one of the cheapest, fastest pieces of legal risk mitigation available to you. It costs nothing to publish and can materially change how a complaint or lawsuit plays out.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you’re facing an active complaint or lawsuit, talk to a lawyer who specializes in digital accessibility law.
What WCAG Conformance Level Should You Claim?
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) has three conformance levels:
Level A: the bare minimum. Rarely sufficient on its own.
Level AA: the level virtually every law and regulation actually references. This is the target for almost every organization.
Level AAA: the highest level. Not realistic as a site-wide target even for very mature accessibility programs; mostly relevant for specific content types (e.g., sign language video alternatives).
As of 2026, WCAG 2.2 (published October 2023) is the current version, with nine new success criteria added on top of 2.1, mostly focused on mobile accessibility, cognitive accessibility, and authentication. Most legal frameworks still explicitly cite WCAG 2.1 AA as the floor, but auditors increasingly recommend testing against 2.2 since it’s a strict superset.
Never claim full conformance unless you’ve actually been audited. The safest and most accurate phrasing, and what regulators and accessibility advocates actually want to see, is a statement of partial conformance with specifics: “This website is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Partially conformant means some content does not fully conform to the accessibility standard.” Then list exactly what doesn’t.
The 6 Things Every Accessibility Statement Must Include
A legally and practically sound accessibility statement contains these elements, in roughly this order:
- Commitment statement: One or two sentences stating your organization’s commitment to digital accessibility and who it applies to (website, app, PDFs, etc.).
- Conformance standard and level: Name the exact standard (e.g., WCAG 2.2 Level AA) and your current conformance status: fully conformant, partially conformant, or non-conformant.
- Known limitations: A specific, honest list of what doesn’t yet meet the standard, ideally with the affected page or feature named and a target fix date if you have one.
- Technologies relied upon: The technologies the site depends on for accessibility (HTML, WAI-ARIA, CSS, JavaScript), so assistive technology users know what’s required on their end.
- Feedback and contact mechanism: A real, monitored email address or phone number for reporting accessibility barriers, plus an expected response time.
- Date of last review: When the statement (and ideally the underlying audit) was last updated. Statements without a date are treated as stale and carry far less legal weight.
Optional but increasingly expected: a link to your formal accessibility policy, the name of any assessment methodology used (self-evaluation, third-party audit, automated scan), and an alternative formal complaints process for jurisdictions that require one (common in EU member states under the EAA).
Free Accessibility Statement Template
Copy this into your CMS and fill in the bracketed sections. Delete any line that doesn’t apply to you.
ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT FOR [COMPANY/WEBSITE NAME]
Last updated: [DATE]
[Company Name] is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people
of all abilities. We are continually improving the user experience for
everyone and applying the relevant accessibility standards.
CONFORMANCE STATUS
This website is [fully conformant / partially conformant / not conformant]
with WCAG [2.1 / 2.2] Level [A / AA / AAA].
[If partially conformant:] "Partially conformant" means some parts of the
content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.
KNOWN LIMITATIONS
We know of the following accessibility issues. Please contact us if you
encounter a problem not listed here.
| Page/Feature | Issue | Target Fix Date |
|---|---|---|
| [e.g., Checkout page] | [e.g., Form errors not announced to screen readers] | [Q2 2026] |
| [e.g., Product gallery] | [e.g., Image carousel not keyboard-navigable] | [Q3 2026] |
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Accessibility of [website] relies on the following technologies:
- HTML
- WAI-ARIA
- CSS
- JavaScript
These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility
standards used.
ASSESSMENT APPROACH
[Company Name] assessed the accessibility of [website] by the following
approach(es):
- Self-evaluation
- External accessibility audit by [auditor/tool name]
- User testing with assistive technology users
FEEDBACK
We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of [website]. Please let us
know if you encounter accessibility barriers:
Email: [accessibility@yourcompany.com]
Phone: [phone number, optional]
Response time: We try to respond to feedback within [X business days].
FORMAL COMPLAINTS
[Include only if your jurisdiction requires a formal complaints path,
common under EU/EAA and UK public sector rules]
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact [regulatory
body name] at [contact info].
DOCUMENT STATUS
This statement was created on [date] and last reviewed on [date]. We
review this statement at least once every 12 months or whenever
significant changes are made to the website.Where to Publish It (and Why Placement Matters)
- Footer link, every page. “Accessibility” or “Accessibility Statement” should appear in the global footer, not buried in a help center article.
- Dedicated URL. Something like /accessibility or /accessibility-statement, short, memorable, easy to cite in a complaint response.
- Linked from your contact/help page, since that’s the second place people look.
- Referenced (not duplicated) in your privacy policy and terms of service, if you have separate legal pages, so there’s no conflicting information.
Avoid burying it in a PDF. PDFs are harder to keep current, harder for screen readers to parse if not tagged properly, and harder for regulators to date-check.
Common Mistakes That Get Statements Used Against Companies
- Claiming “fully accessible” with no audit behind it. This is the single most common pattern plaintiffs’ attorneys cite: a statement that overpromises becomes evidence of bad faith rather than good faith.
- No date, or a date that’s clearly years stale.
- A dead or unmonitored contact email. If someone reports a barrier and gets no response, that silence itself becomes part of a complaint.
- Copy-pasted boilerplate that references the wrong company name, wrong WCAG version, or generic placeholder text left in from a template (yes, this happens constantly, always do a final find-and-replace pass).
- Treating an overlay/widget installation as conformance. Automated remediation tools can meaningfully help, but installing one does not by itself make a site WCAG-conformant, and several widget vendors have faced lawsuits and FTC scrutiny over exactly this kind of overclaiming. Be specific about what automated tooling does and doesn’t fix in your statement.
Accessibility Statement Checklist
- Names the exact WCAG version and level you’re targeting
- States honest conformance status (not just “we comply”)
- Lists specific known issues, not vague disclaimers
- Includes a real, monitored contact method
- Has a visible last-updated date
- Is linked in the site footer on every page
- Lives at a short, dedicated URL
- Matches your actual current site, re-audit before publishing
- Scheduled for review at least annually
Have you reviewed your accessibility statement in the last 12 months? If your site has changed since you last published one, it’s worth a quick re-audit before you publish an update
FAQ
At minimum: a commitment statement, the WCAG version and conformance level you’re targeting, a specific list of known limitations, the technologies the site relies on, a working contact method for reporting issues, and the date the statement was last reviewed.
You can use a template as your structure, but the content, your actual conformance status, your actual known issues, your actual contact email, has to be specific to your site. A generic, unedited template is one of the most common mistakes and offers little to no legal protection.
It depends on where you operate. It’s explicitly required for UK public sector websites and is standard practice under the EU’s European Accessibility Act and U.S. Section 508. For most private businesses elsewhere, it isn’t named as a standalone legal requirement, but it functions as important evidence of good-faith effort in accessibility-related complaints and lawsuits.
No. Automated tools can address some issues but typically can’t fix everything, particularly complex interactive components, video captioning, or document accessibility. Your statement should describe what’s been addressed and what’s still in progress, regardless of which tools you use.
What’s the difference between an accessibility statement and an accessibility policy?
A statement is the public-facing page describing your site’s current accessibility status. A policy is the internal document describing your organization’s ongoing commitments, training, and processes. Most mature organizations have both.
