Overview
This is the map page for ADA compliance: what the law is, who it covers, what it demands of websites, and how enforcement works. Each section links to a deeper page. If you read one article on this wiki, read this one. If you already know what you are looking for, jump straight to the linked pages.
The law in one minute
The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) has three main parts:
- Title I: employment. No disability discrimination in hiring and employment. Applies to employers with 15 or more employees.
- Title II: government. State and local government services, now with an explicit web rule: the DOJ’s 2024 regulation requires WCAG 2.1 AA on a phased timeline.
- Title III: public accommodations. Businesses open to the public must be accessible. This is the part that reaches your store, and courts apply it to websites. The case law is summarized in Do US online stores legally need ADA compliance?
Exemptions are nearly nonexistent for commerce: religious organizations and private clubs, and that is the whole list. No small-business carve-out, no revenue floor. Details and the myths people repeat are in who is exempt from ADA compliance.
What “compliant” means for a website
The statute names no web standard. The gap is filled by WCAG 2.1 AA: referenced by courts, adopted by the DOJ for Title II, and required in nearly every settlement. The store-owner translation of the standard is WCAG 2.1 for Shopify, and the version question is settled in WCAG 2.2 vs 2.1.
Important: there is no official certification. No agency reviews websites and no one can sell you a compliance certificate. What exists is conformance you maintain and document, which is why dated audit reports are the working currency of this field.
How enforcement works
No inspector visits. Enforcement is private litigation: 3,117 federal suits in 2025, roughly 70% against ecommerce, driven by fee-shifting and a small set of serial filing firms. The mechanics are in Shopify ADA lawsuits, the money in settlement amounts, and the stage-by-stage process in the lawsuit timeline.
State laws stack on top. California’s Unruh Act adds $4,000 minimum statutory damages per violation, and New York’s laws create similar leverage, which shapes where plaintiffs file.
What a business actually has to do
- Assess. Find your failures with the DIY check or the 10-minute self-check.
- Fix. Work risk-first: checkout, then content, then templates, following the step-by-step guide. Most stores fail the same dozen issues, so the list is shorter than it sounds.
- Verify and document. A manual audit against WCAG 2.1 AA, kept as a dated record. Skip the overlay shortcuts; the FTC fined the biggest vendor for its compliance claims.
- Maintain. Re-check after changes, re-audit on a schedule. Compliance is a property you keep, not a milestone you pass once.
Example
A furniture retailer works the four steps over one quarter. Assessment finds 27 issues. Fixes take three sprints, checkout first. An audit in month three verifies the work and documents two stragglers, fixed the same week. The total spend is less than half of what an average demand letter costs, and the store now has the paper trail that makes it a poor target.
Common mistake
Treating this as a legal-research problem instead of an engineering one. Businesses spend months on “does this apply to me,” and it does, while their checkout stays broken for real customers the whole time. The fix list is short, known, and mostly cheap. Start there, not in the case law.