The April 24, 2026 compliance deadline for ADA Title II web accessibility is approaching fast. If your public entity serves a population of 50,000 or more and you’re just now beginning your accessibility efforts, you’re not alone—but you need to act immediately.
The reality is straightforward: with less than 6 months left, reaching full WCAG 2.1 AA conformance across all digital assets may not be possible. But you can still get a lot done. The key is starting now, prioritizing strategically, and making demonstrable progress toward compliance.
What the Rule Requires
The Department of Justice’s new ADA Title II web accessibility rule mandates that state and local governments make their websites, web content, mobile apps, and documents conform to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. This applies to everything accessible through a web browser: webpages, video, audio, social media content, PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Public entities with populations of 50,000 or more face the April 24, 2026 deadline. Smaller entities and special district governments have until April 26, 2027.
Start ASAP
A single website typically takes two to four months to reach full WCAG 2.1 AA conformance through professional audit and remediation services. Mobile apps follow similar timelines. Document remediation varies widely depending on volume and complexity.
If your entity manages multiple websites, dozens of PDFs, active social media channels, and mobile applications, you’re looking at a project that could easily extend beyond eight months. Service providers are also experiencing increased demand as deadlines approach, which means longer queues the longer you wait.
Prioritize Primary Assets
The reality is some digital assets won’t be compliant in time. The great news is you can still get to the assets that matter most. Focus your resources on what users actually access—the digital touchpoints that serve the most critical public functions.
These typically include your main website and its most-visited pages, online forms for essential services like permit applications, benefit enrollment, and payment portals, high-traffic PDFs such as meeting agendas, public notices, and application forms, and any mobile apps used for transit, utilities, or emergency services.
Start by analyzing your website traffic data. Which pages do people actually visit? Which documents get downloaded most frequently? These are your priorities.
Documents Deserve Special Attention
PDFs and other documents often represent the largest volume of inaccessible content for public entities. Council meeting minutes, budget documents, forms, reports, and public notices accumulate over years and rarely receive accessibility attention.
The good news is that the rule provides exceptions for preexisting documents that were available before your compliance date. However, this exception only applies to documents posted before the deadline—anything you post after April 24, 2026 must be accessible.
Going forward, establish processes to ensure every new document is created accessibly from the start. For existing documents, prioritize remediation of frequently accessed files and those essential to public services.
Build Internal Capacity
Relying entirely on outside vendors isn’t sustainable. Your team needs to understand WCAG 2.1 AA well enough to create accessible content, evaluate vendor work, and maintain compliance over time.
Training your digital team on accessibility fundamentals should happen early in your compliance timeline. This enables better decision-making about procurement, helps staff create accessible content as part of their regular workflow, and reduces long-term dependence on external services.
Get Organized
Form a digital accessibility committee with representatives from IT, legal, communications, and finance. Appoint an accessibility coordinator to lead the effort. This cross-functional approach ensures buy-in across departments and helps identify all the digital assets that need attention.
Take a complete inventory of your digital presence: websites, subdomains, microsites, mobile apps, social media accounts, document repositories, and third-party platforms. You can’t fix what you haven’t identified.
Understand the Exceptions
The rule includes five exceptions that may reduce your compliance burden. Archived web content held only for reference or recordkeeping purposes, stored in a dedicated archive section, and unchanged since archiving doesn’t require remediation. Preexisting documents available before your compliance deadline are excepted, as is content posted by non-affiliated third parties like public comments on social media. Password-protected documents specific to individual accounts, such as old utility bills, fall outside the requirement, and social media posts made before your compliance date are also excepted.
Review your content against these exceptions. You may have less to remediate than you initially thought.
What to Do This Week
Take these immediate steps to build momentum. Review the DOJ’s fact sheet and this guide thoroughly so your team understands the requirements. Identify your top ten most-visited web pages and begin assessing their accessibility. Pull traffic data on your most-downloaded PDFs and flag them for remediation. Research accessibility service providers and begin conversations about audit services. Draft an initial timeline working backward from your deadline.
Moving Forward
Perfect compliance by the deadline may not be achievable if you’re starting late with extensive digital assets. But visible, documented progress toward accessibility demonstrates good faith effort and serves the fundamental purpose of the rule: ensuring people with disabilities can access your services.
Start with your primary assets. Build accessibility into your workflows. Train your staff. Document everything.
Do you need a platform to stay organized and track progress?
Accessibility Tracker is our platform that keeps everything simple and makes it easy to track WCAG 2.1 AA. There’s also AI to help your team with fixes.
We can also help with audit and PDF remediation. Contact us to get your project started.
