ADA Website Compliance Statistics
whatisADA.com's statistics tracker holds every sourced, dated number we cite about ADA web accessibility — lawsuit volume, WCAG failure rates, settlement costs, and compliance deadlines — in one place. Every statistic links to its primary source and carries its own verification date. Nothing here is estimated.
Last verified: 2026-08-06Download raw data (JSON)
Lawsuit volume & trends (2025)
Federal ADA website accessibility litigation kept climbing in 2025, and early 2026 data shows no reversal.
8,667Federal ADA Title III lawsuits filed in 2025 (all categories)Source: Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III Lawsuit Tracker (March 2026)· Verified 2026-05-11
3,117Federal website accessibility lawsuits filed in 2025 (36% of all Title III filings)Source: Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III Lawsuit Tracker (March 2026)· Verified 2026-05-11
+27%Year-over-year increase in federal website lawsuits (2024: 2,452 → 2025: 3,117)Source: Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III Lawsuit Tracker (March 2026)· Verified 2026-05-11
+37%H1 2025 vs H1 2024 increase in digital accessibility lawsuitsSource: EcomBack 2025 Mid-Year Lawsuit Report· Verified 2026-05-11
~95%Of sued companies settle rather than litigateSource: UsableNet Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Reports· Verified 2026-05-11
Lawsuits by state (2025)
Federal website accessibility filings concentrate heavily in a handful of states.
1,021Federal website accessibility lawsuits filed in New York in 2025 (#1 state)Source: Accessibility.build lawsuit tracker; Seyfarth Shaw 2025 data· Verified 2026-05-11
961Federal website accessibility lawsuits filed in Florida in 2025 (#2 state)Source: Accessibility.build lawsuit tracker; Seyfarth Shaw 2025 data· Verified 2026-05-11
585Federal website accessibility lawsuits filed in Illinois in 2025 (#3 state; +746% H1 YoY)Source: Accessibility.build lawsuit tracker; Seyfarth Shaw 2025 data· Verified 2026-05-11
WebAIM Million 2026 — accessibility error data
WebAIM's annual scan of the top 1,000,000 home pages is the largest public dataset on real-world WCAG conformance.
95.9%Of the top 1,000,000 home pages have detectable WCAG 2.2 A/AA failures (2026, up from 94.8% in 2025 — a six-year improvement trend reversed)Source: WebAIM Million 2026 (released late March 2026)· Verified 2026-05-11
56,114,377Total accessibility errors detected across the top 1M home pagesSource: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
56.1Average detectable accessibility errors per home page (up 10.1% YoY)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
1,437Average elements per home page (up 22.5% YoY; nearly doubled since 2019)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
3.9%Of all home page elements contain a detected accessibility error (1 in every 26)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
83.9%Of top 1M home pages have low contrast text failures (WCAG 1.4.3) — up from 79.1%Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
53.1%Of top 1M home pages have missing alternative text failures (WCAG 1.1.1)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
51%Of top 1M home pages have missing form input labels (WCAG 1.3.1, 3.3.2, 4.1.2)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
46.3%Of top 1M home pages have empty links (WCAG 2.4.4)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
13.5%Of top 1M home pages have missing document language (WCAG 3.1.1)Source: WebAIM Million 2026· Verified 2026-05-11
Cost of non-compliance
What ADA website lawsuits and settlements actually cost, from demand letters to class actions.
$1,000–$25,000Typical demand-letter settlement rangeSource: Accessibility.build cost analysis; UsableNet reports· Verified 2026-05-11
~$25,000Average out-of-court settlement (up to $100,000)Source: Accessibility.build cost analysis· Verified 2026-05-11
~$75,000Average court judgment in ADA web casesSource: Accessibility.build cost analysis· Verified 2026-05-11
$4,000California Unruh Civil Rights Act statutory damages per violation (no proof of actual damages required)Source: Cal. Civ. Code § 51· Verified 2026-05-11
$5.15MFashion Nova class-action settlement (California, 2025) for website + app accessibilitySource: UsableNet September 2025 legal update· Verified 2026-05-11
$6MNFB v. Target class-action settlement (2008) — landmark website caseSource: National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp., N.D. Cal.· Verified 2026-05-11
$1,000,000FTC civil penalty levied against accessiBe for falsely claiming its overlay made sites WCAG-compliantSource: FTC final consent order, April 21, 2025; 5–0 vote (File No. 222-3156, Docket No. C-4817)· Verified 2026-08-06
Compliance deadlines
Every active U.S. and EU web accessibility deadline that carries legal weight today.
April 26, 2027Extended Title II web compliance deadline for entities serving 50,000+ population (per April 2026 IFR)Source: DOJ Interim Final Rule, 91 Fed. Reg. 20902 (April 20, 2026)· Verified 2026-05-11
April 26, 2028Extended Title II web compliance deadline for entities serving under 50,000 and special district governments (per April 2026 IFR)Source: DOJ Interim Final Rule, 91 Fed. Reg. 20902 (April 20, 2026)· Verified 2026-05-11
May 11, 2026HHS Section 504 web/mobile accessibility deadline for recipients with 15+ employees — NOT extended by DOJ IFRSource: Jackson Lewis client alert, April 2026; HHS rule (May 2024)· Verified 2026-05-11
May 10, 2027HHS Section 504 web/mobile accessibility deadline for recipients with under 15 employeesSource: HHS rule (May 2024)· Verified 2026-05-11
June 28, 2025European Accessibility Act effective date (Directive 2019/882) — enforcement active across all 27 EU member statesSource: Directive (EU) 2019/882· Verified 2026-05-11
Scale & context
Why web accessibility is a mainstream business concern, not a niche compliance issue.
$13 trillionCollective global spending power of people with disabilitiesSource: Return on Disability· Verified 2026-05-11
50Success criteria in WCAG 2.1 Level AA (30 Level A + 20 Level AA)Source: W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, June 2018· Verified 2026-05-11
FAQ
- How often is this data updated?
- Monthly at minimum, and immediately when a cited primary source (Seyfarth Shaw, WebAIM, EcomBack, UsableNet, DOJ, FTC) publishes a new report. Each statistic carries its own "Verified" date — check that date, not just the page's.
- Can I cite these statistics?
- Yes. Each statistic links directly to its primary source — cite the source, and feel free to reference whatisADA.com's tracker as a secondary aggregator. Every number here traces to a named, dated, linkable source; we do not publish unsourced statistics.
- Where does this data come from?
- Primary sources only: Seyfarth Shaw's ADA Title III Lawsuit Tracker, WebAIM's annual Million report, EcomBack's digital accessibility lawsuit reports, UsableNet's year-end reports, the DOJ's Federal Register filings, and the FTC's public enforcement actions. No statistic on this page is estimated or invented.