What Belongs in an Accessibility Statement (and What Gets You in Trouble)

A plaintiff tester opens your accessibility statement and reads: we are fully ADA compliant. Then they run a keyboard through your checkout and find a trap on the date picker. Your statement just became an exhibit, because it claimed something your site does not do.

The five things a statement must carry

The W3C guide Developing an Accessibility Statement lists three essentials: a commitment to accessibility, the standard you apply, and contact details for people who run into problems. Around those, a usable statement adds known limitations in plain language, the measures you take, and the date it was last reviewed. The standard must be named with its version: WCAG 2.2 Level AA, not WCAG, not the ADA, not best practices. The version matters because 2.1 and 2.2 are different standards, and a statement that does not name one is not a claim about anything.

Conformance status has four honest options in the W3C generator: fully conformant, partially conformant, non conformant, and not assessed. Most real sites are partially conformant, and that is the right answer for a site with known failures and a remediation plan. Fully conformant means every requirement is met, and almost no real-world site qualifies. Not assessed is the honest status when nobody has tested the site at all, and it is far better than a false claim of full conformance.

The partially conformant status is the one most honest statements end up using, and it is also the one teams misuse most. The W3C guide is clear that a partially conformant claim has to name the parts of the site that do not conform, and the standard they fail, rather than gesturing at ongoing work. A statement that says partially conformant and then lists three specific pages and their failures is more credible than one that says fully conformant while the checkout still traps keyboard focus. The claim is a promise, and a regulator or a plaintiff will test it against the site, not against the intention.

The three claims that hurt you

First, fully compliant with nothing behind it. A conformance claim is a claim about every requirement of the standard, tested. If the statement says fully conformant and the site has an unlabelled button, the statement is false, and a false accessibility claim is worse than no statement, because it shows the company knew the standard and claimed it anyway.

Second, limitations written in criterion numbers instead of plain words. The W3C guide is explicit: say videos do not have captions, not Success Criterion 1.2.2 was not met. The statement is mainly read by people who hit a problem, and they need to know what does not work and what to do instead, in everyday words, with a date on each limitation.

Third, a contact that nobody monitors. The statement must give a way to report a barrier and a response timeframe, and the channel has to be actively monitored. A form that sends mail to an unmonitored inbox, or an email address that bounces, is a promise the company breaks on first contact. The EU Web Accessibility Directive requires public-sector bodies to publish a statement in a specific format with a complaints mechanism, and the European Accessibility Act extends the expectation to private-sector products in scope since 2025.

How to write yours this week

Start from test results, not hopes. Run the keyboard pass and the scan, list what fails, and write the statement from that list. Name the standard and version, state partially conformant if that is what the testing supports, list the known limitations in plain words with dates and workarounds, name the contact and the response time, and date the statement. The W3C publishes a free generator that builds the page from a form and stores nothing outside the browser.

Then keep it current. The generator suggests a statement older than about a year looks unmaintained, so review it on a schedule and update the date when you do. A statement that lists a limitation you fixed six months ago is stale in the other direction: it undersells the site. Either way, the fix is a review date and a habit. For the overlay context that makes statements matter, see Guarding Against Overlay Settlements: What the FTC Did in 2025.

Frequently asked questions

What must an accessibility statement include?

A commitment to accessibility, the standard and version you test against, your conformance status, known limitations in plain language with dates, the measures you take, and contact details for reporting barriers.

What are the four conformance statuses?

Fully conformant, partially conformant, non conformant, and not assessed. Most real sites are partially conformant. Fully conformant means every requirement is met, and almost no site qualifies.

Can I write 'fully ADA compliant' in my statement?

Only if testing supports it, which for most sites it does not. A false claim of full conformance is worse than no statement, because it shows the company knew the standard and claimed it anyway.

How often should an accessibility statement be reviewed?

At least annually. A statement older than about a year looks unmaintained, and one listing limitations you fixed months ago undersells the site. Date every review.