WordPress Accessibility for State and Local Government
State and local governments now have specific federal technical requirements for web and mobile accessibility under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For covered web content, the technical standard is WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Current federal compliance dates
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.
For many organizations, WordPress is a major part of that web presence. MakeWPCompliant helps identify and remediate accessibility problems in the WordPress website itself.
More detail on the ADA Title II rule and WordPress
Who may be affected?
State and local public entities can include:
- Cities and towns
- Counties
- State agencies
- Public schools and school districts
- Public colleges and universities
- Public libraries
- Courts
- Election offices
- Police and public safety departments
- Parks and recreation departments
- Public hospitals and clinics
- Transit agencies
- Utility, water, sewer and other special districts
The exact deadline and application of the rule depend on the public entity and its circumstances.
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 |
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.
Government websites are more than homepages
A municipal or public-sector WordPress site may include:
- Public notices
- Calendars
- Agendas and minutes
- Forms and applications
- Ordinances
- Public records
- Meeting information
- Election information
- Employment information
- Utility information
- Payment links
- Parks and recreation registration
- Images and video
- Downloadable documents
- Emergency information
- Third-party services
Accessibility remediation therefore requires more than checking the homepage. We identify representative templates, important content, and critical user workflows so the work reflects how the public actually uses the site.
Third-party systems matter too
Government organizations frequently rely on outside vendors for web-based services. The DOJ has specifically advised public entities to inventory the third-party web content and services they provide or make available — payments, registration, applications, meetings, forms, and other public services.
A WordPress engagement does not automatically mean we can remediate every external vendor platform. But we can tell you clearly where the WordPress website ends and where another accessibility dependency begins — which is usually the information a procurement conversation actually needs.
PDFs and documents need their own strategy
Government sites often contain years of PDF documents. Not every old document is necessarily treated the same under the Title II rule: it includes limited exceptions for certain archived and preexisting conventional electronic documents, while current materials and documents used to participate in programs or services may still need to meet accessibility requirements.
That means the answer is usually not:
Remediate every PDF ever uploaded.
It is also not:
Ignore all the PDFs.
A sensible project inventories the documents, identifies which material is current or operationally important, and separates WordPress remediation from document remediation — which is a different discipline with a different cost.
Start with the underlying WordPress site
- Your theme has poor focus behavior Fix it once
- Your mobile navigation is inaccessible Fix the navigation
- Your form plugin generates bad labels Fix the implementation
- Editors create heading and image problems Fix the content and the workflow
The goal is to build accessibility into the site instead of trying to compensate for everything with a blanket widget.
April 2027 is a project deadline, not a project start date
Accessibility remediation can involve development, content, third-party systems, documents, procurement, and training.
For a substantial government website, that work spans budget cycles and vendor contracts as well as code. It is not something that starts a few weeks out.
What we will tell you honestly
- Which findings are ours to fix and which belong to a vendor
- Which problems are one theme change and which are hundreds of pages
- What automated testing could not decide
- Where formal assistive-technology testing should be scoped separately
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.