ADA Title II and Your WordPress Website
The Department of Justice has established a technical accessibility standard for web content and mobile applications provided or made available by state and local government entities. For covered web content, the standard is WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Two dates, decided by the population served
ADA Title II
April 26, 2027
Public entities with a population of 50,000 or more
About 8 months from today.
ADA Title II
April 26, 2028
Public entities with a population under 50,000, and special district governments
About 20 months from today.
The calculation is not always the obvious one
The deadline calculation is not always based on the number of people who use a particular department or service. A department may instead use the population of the larger government entity of which it is a part — so a small office inside a large city does not automatically get the later date.
Organizations should review current DOJ guidance, or obtain appropriate legal advice, for questions about how the rule applies to their specific situation.
Where these dates come from. Verify current guidance before relying on any date for planning — both rules have already moved once.
- U.S. Department of Justice — ADA Title II web rule: ada.gov/resources/web-rule-first-steps
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — Section 504 deadline extension: hhs.gov press release
MakeWPCompliant provides technical accessibility services, not legal advice. How a rule applies to a specific organization is a question for current federal guidance and, where appropriate, qualified legal counsel.
What does this mean for WordPress?
If WordPress provides or makes available your public web content, the implementation may need accessibility work across:
- Themes
- Navigation
- Mobile menus
- Page-builder layouts
- Forms
- Content
- Images
- Documents
- Plugins
- Calendars
- Search
- Interactive controls
- Third-party integrations
Accessibility is a property of the finished experience, not of the WordPress version number.
- Installing the latest WordPress release Does not make a site accessible
- Using an “accessible” theme Does not cover every plugin, page and interaction
- Adding an accessibility widget Does not remove the need to evaluate the actual site
WCAG testing is not just a scan
Automated tools can identify many important failures, but they cannot determine conformance with every WCAG success criterion. A meaningful review combines automation with interaction testing, keyboard testing, human judgment and — where the engagement requires it — appropriate assistive-technology testing.
MakeWPCompliant focuses on finding the technical and content problems we can actually remediate in WordPress, and documenting the work clearly enough that someone else could check it.
Sources and legal questions
MakeWPCompliant provides technical accessibility services, not legal advice. For legal requirements and current deadlines, rely on official Department of Justice guidance and qualified legal counsel where appropriate.
All four dates, in full
| Compliance date | Rule | Who it applies to |
|---|---|---|
| April 26, 2027 | ADA Title II | Public entities with a population of 50,000 or more |
| April 26, 2028 | ADA Title II | Public entities with a population under 50,000, and special district governments |
| May 11, 2027 | HHS Section 504 | Recipients of HHS federal financial assistance with 15 or more employees |
| May 10, 2028 | HHS Section 504 | Recipients of HHS federal financial assistance with fewer than 15 employees |
April 2027 is a deadline, not a starting date
If your public-sector WordPress site needs to meet the Title II technical requirements, start identifying the real remediation work now.