ADA Title II website rule for towns, cities and counties

The ADA Title II web rule covers towns, cities, counties, school districts, libraries and other public bodies. The deadline was extended in April 2026: April 26, 2027 if your population is 50,000 or more, and April 26, 2028 if it's smaller or you're a special district. Here's what it says, in plain English.

The short version

The rule

The Department of Justice's 2024 rule under Title II of the ADA, for state and local governments.

The standard

WCAG 2.1, level AA, for your website and mobile apps. WCAG explained.

Population 50,000 or more

April 26, 2027.

Under 50,000, and special districts

April 26, 2028.

Population means

Your government's population in the 2020 Census.

These dates are a year later than first set: the Department moved them in April 2026. The Department said it may propose changes to the rule during the extra year, and that if it doesn't, it expects to keep to the new dates. Check the Department's fact sheet for the current dates. The ADA itself already applies, so people can complain about an inaccessible site now; the dates are when this specific standard has to be met.

If you read April 2026 somewhere

That was the first date. The 2024 rule set April 24, 2026 for places with 50,000 people or more and April 26, 2027 for smaller ones. On April 20, 2026 the Department published an interim final rule moving both a year later, to the dates above. Some websites, including some vendors', still show the old dates. The standard itself, WCAG 2.1 AA, didn't change.

Recent settlements with counties and other public bodies, in plain words: Accessibility in the news.

Who it covers

State and local governments and their departments and agencies, special districts (such as water or fire districts), and public transit. It also covers what you provide through contractors, such as an online payment or permit system from a vendor: you need to make sure they meet it too.

Guides for some of them: library websites and school district websites.

Special districts: water, sewer, fire, parks and transit

A special district government has until April 26, 2028, however many people it serves. The Census Bureau doesn't count a population for special districts, so the rule gives them all the later date.

ADA.gov describes a special district as a public body, other than a county, city, town, township or independent school district, that state law allows to do one job, or a few, with enough independence to be a separate government. Its examples:

• a mosquito abatement district
• a utility district
• a transit authority
• a water and sewer board
• a zoning district

A fire, park or library district set up the same way under your state's law fits that description. If you're not sure whether yours is a separate government or a department of a city or county, ask your attorney: a department takes the city's or county's date. A school district is never a special district; it goes by the population of the city or county it belongs to, or its own Census estimate if it's independent.

A district's website is often small, but the parts people use matter most:

• paying a water or sewer bill
• outage and boil-water notices, and outage maps
• board agendas, packets and minutes (see PDFs, agendas and minutes)
• rate notices and forms to start or stop service

Bill-pay pages and outage maps usually come from a vendor. They still count as yours, so ask the vendor the questions in the message below.

The exceptions, briefly

Each has conditions; the fact sheet spells them out. For documents, see PDFs, agendas and minutes under Title II.

• Archived content

  Made before your date, kept only for reference in an area marked as an archive, and not changed since.

• Older documents

  PDFs, Word, slides and spreadsheets posted before your date, unless people still use them to apply for or use a service (like a permit form).

• Posts by the public

  Comments and posts from members of the public, but not what you post yourself.

• One person's documents

  Password-protected documents about one person, property or account, like a tax bill.

• Older social media posts

  Posts made before your date.

Where to start

1. Run Full Check on your home page and your busiest pages (trash pickup, pay a bill, meetings). Fix what it finds, worst first.
2. Fix the template. Problems in the menu, header and footer repeat on every page, so one fix there goes a long way.
3. List your forms and PDFs that people still use to apply for things. Those aren't exempt: turn them into web pages, or make the PDFs accessible.
4. Ask each vendor (payments, permits, agendas, video) in writing whether their product meets WCAG 2.1 AA, and for their accessibility report.
5. Caption your meeting videos. YouTube can draft captions for you to correct.
6. Add an accessibility page with a named contact, so people can tell you when something doesn't work. Our accessibility statement template shows what to put on it.
7. Check pages one by one with Accessibility Check, and try them with only the keyboard.

Got a report from your website company's scanner? What the findings mean, and who fixes each one.

Thinking of an accessibility widget instead? Read what overlays and widgets can and can't fix first.

PageKiwi finds many common problems, not all of them. For a bigger site, ask an accessibility specialist to test it with real assistive technology (screen readers, voice control, switches).