The U.S. Department of Justice’s new rules for web accessibility requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, will begin applying to some cities in April.
The final rule published by the department in 2024 updated the regulations for how state and local governments must keep their web content and mobile app content compliant with Title II of the ADA. Cities and towns with a population of 50,000 or more must reach compliance by April 24, 2026. Those municipalities with a population of fewer than 50,000 have until April 26, 2027, to reach compliance.
Dating to 1990, the ADA prohibits discrimination against those with disabilities among many aspects of public life, including many physical public spaces as well as private spaces open to the public. These protections extend into the telecommunications and digital realm as well, including websites and apps.
Website accessibility refers to the process of designing websites so that the material does not create any barriers for people with disabilities as they receive the information. Website elements that provide accessibility include such things as keyboard-accessible navigation, a site design that works with screen reader programs, or text that is large enough and provides enough contrast that it remains readable to those with limited vision. Documents in Adobe’s Portable Document Format, or PDF, can require special attention to their formatting in order to provide accessibility.
Although accessibility requirements under the ADA are now undergoing updates, they are nothing new, and noncompliance can lead to lawsuits. A recent study by the digital legal compliance company Clym found that the first half of 2025 saw more than 2,000 website accessibility lawsuits filed, a 37% increase from the same period in 2024.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s final rule established that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, Version 2.1, Level AA, sets the technical standard for web and mobile content, which municipalities must meet in most cases. These guidelines, available online to address a huge number of topics for web and mobile app content, ranging from providing text alternatives for content that is not text-based, text legibility, alternatives for audio and website navigation assistance.
The final rule notes that some exceptions to the guidelines are allowable to help governments prioritize their most important content, like current or commonly used information, for accessibility. Exceptions include these:
- Archived web content that is outdated, not needed or repeated elsewhere — for example, water quality reports from years past.
- Preexisting, conventional electronic documents, such as old PDF files.
- Content posted by a third party, so long as the third party is not posting something on behalf of the government, such as the case of a contractor hired to design or manage a website.
- Individualized documents that are password-protected, like a water or tax bill.
- Preexisting social media posts.
The U.S. Department of Justice maintains a website for ADA issues at www.ada.gov. It details the steps that governments should take to begin complying with the accessibility rule, ranging from determining who on staff should be working on compliance, staff training, content review, changes needed to make the content ADA-compliant and policy development.