For private organizations
No federal deadline. A lawsuit does not need one.
For businesses and nonprofits open to the public, from shops and banks to clinics, private schools, and museums, there is no federal requirement that a website meet a specific standard.
Claims are filed in federal court every week, and a claim arrives without warning.
Claims are being filed now.
3,117
Federal lawsuits filed in 2025 claiming that a website could not be used by people with impairments, up 27% on the year before. The count covers federal court only. Demand letters and suits in state court sit outside it.
A claim asks what was known, and when. A dated record answers it.
$6,000,000
Shoppers who are blind could not use Target.com. In 2006, the court ruled that the ADA covered the website where it connected customers to the stores. In the settlement the court approved in March 2009, Target paid $6,000,000 to a class of California shoppers, and agreed to make the site usable with software that reads the screen aloud, tested every year by people who are blind. The court then awarded $3,738,864.96 in legal fees and costs.
The damages were only part of the bill.
Size is no protection. A small family blueberry farm in Michigan received a demand letter over its online store, from a law firm in California.
Not every barrier is equal.
Barriers on a page of text may make a page harder to read. A barrier in checkout, booking, a donation form, or an account login stops someone from finishing. Behind each of those is a person who came to buy, book, or give, and could not finish. That not only costs you a gift or a sale, it can also become a complaint or a claim. Claims under the ADA treat shutting someone out because of an impairment as discrimination, and that is what makes a barrier like this grounds for one.
These are the places where a barrier turns someone away, so they are where to look first.
| Page/Function | Blocks | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout | Paying for what is in the cart | Critical |
| Booking | Reserving a table, a room, or an appointment | Critical |
| Account login | Getting into an account at all | Critical |
| Donating or registering | Giving to a cause, or signing up for a program or event | Critical |
| A page of text | Reading about a product or service | Lower |
Your site has changed since the audit.
An audit describes your site on the day it ran. Sites keep changing after that, even when no one on your side touches them. New pages and documents go up. A form or a checkout step is updated. The technology under the hood is updated by vendors or internal team members.
Any of these can bring back a barrier you already paid to fix, or add a new one. That is why your website should be checked again as it changes.
A vendor cannot objectively grade its own work. The company that built or runs your site is reporting on its own work. An independent check comes from someone with nothing at stake in the answer.
A product that promises to make your website compliant on its own is making the claim a federal regulator has already challenged.
Start the record before the letter.
When a demand letter arrives, a record of what was found, and what was put first, cannot be written after the fact. What changes your position is a dated, independent record that already exists: begun before the letter, and kept as the site changed.
The record can start today.
What the Department of Justice says, and federal funds.
For private organizations, the Department of Justice "does not have a regulation setting out detailed standards." It has "consistently taken the position" that the ADA applies to what businesses offer, "including those offered on the web." It calls existing technical standards, WCAG among them, "helpful guidance." Its own settlements with private businesses have required WCAG 2.1 at Level AA.
Private organizations that receive federal financial assistance, as many clinics, private schools, and nonprofits do, also answer to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, on the funding agency's terms. The requirements that apply depend on the agency and the program.
One group does have a federal date. Organizations that receive funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, as many clinics, hospitals, and health nonprofits do, must bring their websites and mobile apps to WCAG 2.1 Level AA under a 2024 rule: from May 11, 2027 with fifteen or more employees, and from May 10, 2028 with fewer.
The record should exist before the claim.
Thirty minutes. Your situation, and where to begin.