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The DOJ Title II web rule (April 2024) for SMBs: what it means and what to do

If you operate a website that serves the public in the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a rule in April 2024 that may apply to you. This is a plain-English explainer: who is covered, what conformance means, when the deadlines hit, and what a small business should actually do about it.

What the rule actually says

On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice published a final rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The rule sets a specific technical standard for the websites and mobile apps of state and local government entities: WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The official rule is at ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule; the regulatory text is in 28 CFR Part 35.

Two things to notice in that sentence:

  1. Title II applies specifically to state and local government entities. Not directly to private businesses (Title III is the section that applies to private "places of public accommodation").
  2. The standard is WCAG 2.1 Level AA, not WCAG 2.2 and not Level AAA. This is the same standard most accessibility audit tools test against by default.

Does this apply to my SMB?

Three categories cover most readers:

If you are a state or local government, school district, or public library

Yes, directly. The rule applies to your public-facing website and any mobile apps you offer. There are deadlines (next section).

If you are a contractor selling to state or local government

Indirectly but practically: your government customers will increasingly require WCAG 2.1 AA conformance as a procurement clause. If you sell software-as-a-service, mobile apps, or web-content services to a city, county, school district, or state agency, expect contracts in 2025-2026 to include accessibility-conformance language. The rule is a forcing function on government procurement.

If you are a private business with a website that serves the public

The April 2024 Title II rule does not apply directly to you. However, ADA Title III lawsuits over website accessibility have been steadily increasing for a decade. The DOJ has consistently cited WCAG 2.1 AA as a reasonable standard in Title III settlement agreements. A private business with a public-facing website that fails WCAG 2.1 AA today is at higher risk of an ADA Title III complaint or demand letter than one that conforms. The April 2024 rule does not change this directly, but it does cement WCAG 2.1 AA as the default standard courts and the DOJ both refer to.

Deadlines

The rule's compliance deadlines are tiered by entity size:

  • Public entities serving 50,000 or more people: April 24, 2026 (two years from publication).
  • Public entities serving fewer than 50,000 people, and special districts: April 26, 2027 (three years from publication).
  • New content posted after the deadline: must conform on the day it is posted.
  • Existing content: must be brought into conformance by the deadline.

The 2027 deadline is the relevant one for the typical small-municipality website. As of 2026 most cities and counties under 50,000 are mid-remediation or just starting.

What "WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance" actually means

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is a list of 50 success criteria (30 at Level A plus 20 more at Level AA). Each criterion has a pass/fail definition. To "conform," every page in scope must pass every applicable criterion. Some criteria can be tested automatically (color contrast, alt text presence, ARIA validity). Others require manual judgment (whether alt text is meaningful, whether keyboard focus order makes sense, whether headings reflect actual structure). A typical site has about 40-60% of its issues catchable by automated tools; the rest require human review.

The full plain-English glossary of all 50 criteria, with notes on what an automated tool can detect, is on the Learn primer page.

Exceptions in the rule

A few categories of content are explicitly exempted under the April 2024 rule:

  • Archived web content not used to apply for, gain access to, or use the entity's services.
  • Pre-existing electronic documents (PDFs, Word, etc.) created before the deadline that are not currently used.
  • Third-party content posted by users (e.g. a parent posting a comment on a school's website).
  • Conventional electronic documents uploaded by entities that bid on contracts but are not part of the entity's core offerings.
  • Password-protected content for individual users, like personalized portal data.
  • Pre-existing social media posts created before the deadline.

Read the official rule text for the precise exemption language. These exceptions narrow the scope; they do not eliminate the public-facing-website obligation.

What to do, in order

  1. Audit your current state. You cannot remediate what you have not measured. An automated audit is the cheapest first step. Site Brace audits cost $149 for up to 25 pages; we test against WCAG 2.1 AA, the same standard the DOJ rule cites.
  2. Prioritize critical and serious findings. WCAG criteria are not all equal in user impact. Color contrast that's slightly under threshold is far less impactful than a form that screen-reader users cannot complete. The audit report ranks findings by axe-core's impact buckets (critical, serious, moderate, minor); start with critical and serious.
  3. Fix the underlying code, not the symptoms. An overlay tool that injects ARIA at runtime does not actually conform; courts have not accepted overlays as a substitute for code-level fixes. See our comparison page for the overlay-tool situation in detail.
  4. Re-scan after each remediation cycle. Verify the fix actually worked and did not break something else. Site Brace audits include 12 re-scans you can run anytime within the 12-month retention window.
  5. Document your conformance posture. Maintain a public accessibility statement that lists the standard you conform to, your most-recent audit date, and a contact email for accessibility issues.

This page is a plain-English summary of public guidance. It is not legal advice, and Site Brace is not a law firm. If your situation is high-stakes (you have received a demand letter, you are a regulated entity, you face procurement contract language you do not understand), consult an ADA-experienced attorney. The official rule, the DOJ's regulatory analysis, and 28 CFR Part 35 are the authoritative sources.

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