ADA Title II Guide
The web accessibility deadline, in plain English.
In 2024, the Department of Justice finalized a rule under Title II of the ADA: state and local government websites and mobile apps must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, a specific technical accessibility standard. Here's who it covers, when it applies, and what the standard actually asks for.
General information, not legal advice. The rule itself lives at ada.gov.
Two deadlines, both recently pushed back a year.
In April 2026, the DOJ issued an interim final rule extending both compliance dates by one year. The standard didn't change, only the runway, so the agencies that start now are the ones that finish comfortably.
Nearer deadline
April 26, 2027
Public entities with a population of 50,000 or more. Originally April 2026, now a year later. Close enough that this budget cycle is the right one to act in.
Later deadline
April 26, 2028
Public entities under 50,000 and all special district governments, also extended by a year. Far enough out to do this calmly, but the work takes longer than most expect.
Coverage
Does this apply to us?
If your entity is covered by Title II of the ADA, the answer is almost certainly yes.
- Cities, towns, and counties
- Special districts: water, air quality, parks, transit, housing authorities
- Public schools, school districts, and community colleges
- Courts and other state and local public entities
- Web content and mobile apps, including services a vendor runs on your behalf
The standard
What WCAG 2.1 AA actually asks for.
The standard has fifty success criteria. In practice, they add up to a handful of common-sense promises to residents.
Works without a mouse
Every menu, form, and button can be reached and operated with a keyboard alone. Plenty of residents navigate that way, by necessity or by preference.
Readable contrast
Text is dark enough against its background to read in sunlight, on cheap screens, and with low vision. There's a measurable bar, and most thin gray text misses it.
Speaks screen reader
Headings, labels, and landmarks are structured so assistive technology can announce what everything is, not just read an undifferentiated mass of text.
Forms that explain themselves
Required fields, error messages, and instructions are announced to every user. A resident who can't see the red outline still finds out what went wrong.
Media with alternatives
Videos have captions, images have descriptions, and nothing important lives only inside a photo of a flyer.
Documents count too
That PDF agenda packet is web content. There are narrow exceptions for archived material, but documents residents currently need must be accessible.
How Stoa handles it
Audit, prioritize, fix, keep.
We build to this standard by default: every prototype on this site ships with zero axe-core violations plus manual keyboard and screen reader passes. Compliance work follows the same playbook.
Audit
Automated scanning plus the part tools can't do: manual keyboard passes, screen reader testing, and a review of your highest-traffic tasks and documents.
Prioritize
A remediation plan ordered by resident impact and legal exposure, not alphabetically. You see what to fix first, what can wait, and what falls under an exception.
Fix or rebuild
Some sites retrofit cleanly. Some are faster and cheaper to rebuild accessible from the ground up. We tell you which yours is and put a fixed price on each path.
Keep it that way
Staff training on accessible content authoring, plus automated checks so next month's news post doesn't quietly reintroduce the problems we just removed.
Free quick look
Want to know where your site stands?
Send us your website address. You'll get back a short, honest memo: where the site stands against WCAG 2.1 AA, what we'd fix first, and roughly what the path to your deadline looks like. No charge, no meeting, no obligation.