ADA Website Compliance Deadline - April 24, 2026

The ADA’s Web and Mobile compliance deadline is April 24, 2026, and we’ve had a number of clients asking how this might impact them. In case this isn’t already on your radar, we’ve put together a quick FAQ.

What are the new accessibility rules? 

Starting at the end of April, the government is formally instituting a policy that says certain websites and mobile apps must be ADA compliant. If you’re not in compliance with the standards that apply to your website, you can be fined up to $75,000 for your first violation, and $150,000 for violations after that. 

Who do these rules apply to?

If services of yours are procured with public funds, you may be required to be compliant. 

Initially, the focus is on state and local governments, but it can also apply to subscriptions, services, education, healthcare, and memberships paid for with government funds. If you have members, clients, or partners who are funded by the government and who use your website as a resource, they may be required to look elsewhere if your site isn’t in compliance.

We’ve included a quick checklist at the bottom of this newsletter that might help you determine if this applies to you.

What will happen if I don’t meet compliance standards in time?

In the past, the government itself hasn’t typically been quick to track down violations, though that’s no guarantee for the future. 

However, private parties and bad actors are likely to come out of the woodwork, sending you emails about noncompliance and threatening legal action, often with a hidden motive of getting you to settle out of court. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s always a hassle.

How do I know if my website is compliant?

The first step is usually to perform an accessibility audit of your site. Even if your site met compliance standards when it was launched, content additions and software updates mean that may no longer be the case. 

We perform these (and other compliance and accessibility services), as do others. There are also automated online tools that can help, but they aren’t entirely reliable, and typically only catch about 30-40% of the issues present. They’re useful to get a general sense of what’s going on, but are probably not great to rely on. 

How do I bring my website into compliance? 

Once you’ve completed an accessibility audit and you know what’s wrong, it’s often fairly straightforward to fix. We’ve completed full and partial accessibility remediation for multiple clients over the past few months. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, and the scope of the repair depends largely on the number of violations. 

How do I know if I need to be compliant? 

The best answer here is to ask your lawyers. However, this checklist can help get you started:

• Are you a state or local government entity?
• Do you receive federal funding or administer federal programs?

If you can say yes to either of the options above, these new deadlines likely apply directly to you, and it’s important to take action sooner rather than later. 

If you answered no, move onto these questions:

• Do you provide healthcare services to the public?
• Do you provide services, education, or transactions through your website?
• Do you serve the public or a broad professional audience online?

If you can say yes to any of these scenarios, the upcoming deadline may not impact you directly, but you should be aware of the changing rules, and start preparing your site in the coming months. It’s possible you will have current or upcoming requirements or responsibilities under Title III.

Some Closing Thoughts

The reality is that the government has been far from great at providing leadership or clarity on this front. The ADA has been promising their own requirements for website and mobile apps for decades, and after failing to do so, they simply adopted a set of existing standards, with minimal clarity on who they do or don’t apply to.

Since the Supreme Court enabled a case against Domino’s to go to trial, there have been thousands of web/digital accessibility lawsuits. However, due to the aforementioned lack of clarity, most of these suits settle out of court. 

The American Bar Association recently shared information on this as far as recent developments and risk mitigation. (Very much worth reading – they provide suggested next steps, and also recommend against the “quick fix” widgets increasingly popping up online.)

Our take is that it’s better to be on top of this than for it to sneak up and surprise you, which can turn into an expensive headache. And, legal standards aside, having a website that is accessible to all people is always a good thing. 

We hope this helps!

Mahalo,
Chris & the Yoko Co team

PS – It’s hard to believe we’ve been talking about this for almost a decade now…

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What’s Good?

For us, it’s our friends at the Andes Amazon Fund successfully conserving over 50 million acres of Andes and Amazon Rainforest, our friends at Whisker Labs expanding their partnership to help prevent electrical fires in another 500,000 homes, and our friends at the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation who received a $100k donation from Petco’s Love Stories program! 

(We love good news, so if you have some, please contact us and use the form to share it with me!)