WCAG compliance: What it means and which parts marketing teams own

WCAG compliance means your digital content conforms to the version and level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that a law, contract or internal policy points to, most often WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA. WCAG itself isn’t a law. It’s a technical standard published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and “compliance” is the shorthand people use once a law or policy turns conformance to that standard into an obligation.

Conformance is what lets people who use screen readers, screen magnification, voice control or a keyboard instead of a mouse get through what you publish. And because so much of what a website publishes is marketing content, a large share of that work sits with marketing and content teams, not only with developers.

If you struggle to understand the differences between the European Accessibility Act (EAA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) and how each of them relates to WCAG, you’re not alone. Different international requirements and a plethora of acronyms can make it dizzying. This guide sorts it out: what WCAG compliance means, how the conformance levels work, which version the major laws point to, and which parts of WCAG your marketing team owns.

What WCAG is and how it got here

WCAG, short for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, is the international standard for making web content accessible to people with disabilities. It’s organized in layers. Four principles say content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Under those sit guidelines, and under each guideline sit success criteria: testable statements that content either meets or doesn’t. Success criteria are what conformance is measured against. For a fuller introduction to the guidelines themselves, start with what WCAG is and why it matters.

Christina Adams, Siteimprove’s digital accessibility manager, approaches WCAG as a baseline for meeting the needs of diverse users who interact with your marketing content. “WCAG is the technical standard defined by numerous international regulations to ensure equitable access to digital content,” she explains, adding that the regulations reflect how people consume information efficiently in digital environments. Following the guidelines, she says, is “an easy way to make sure your marketing content performs its best and reaches the widest audience possible.”

WCAG 1.0 arrived in 1999 and WCAG 2.0 in 2008. WCAG 2.1 added 17 new success criteria in 2018 to better support people with low vision, people with cognitive disabilities and people using mobile devices. In October 2023, WCAG 2.2 became the current W3C Recommendation. It added nine success criteria and removed one, 4.1.1 Parsing, which had become obsolete. If you need the detail, here’s what changed in WCAG 2.2.

WCAG conformance levels: A, AA and AAA

Every success criterion carries one of three conformance levels. The levels are cumulative. To conform at Level AA, a page has to meet every Level A criterion and every Level AA criterion. Level AA is the level almost every law and policy points to.

Two details trip teams up. Conformance applies to full pages, not parts of them, so one inaccessible component means the page doesn’t conform. And a process such as a checkout or a form conforms only if every page in it does. The WCAG 2.2 specification sets out these conformance requirements, and the W3C quick reference lists every success criterion with its level.

Which WCAG version and level the law points to

Laws don’t all point to the same version of WCAG, and some point to a different standard that contains it. The short version for the frameworks marketers ask about most:

• ADA Title II (US state and local governments). The Department of Justice’s 2024 rule sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for state and local government web content and mobile apps. It doesn’t cover private businesses.
• ADA Title III (US businesses open to the public). No regulation sets a technical standard for private businesses’ websites, though WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA is the benchmark organizations most often use.
• Section 508 (US federal agencies). The Revised 508 Standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA for federal agencies’ information and communication technology.
• European Accessibility Act. The EAA sets accessibility requirements for a range of consumer products and services, applying since 28 June 2025. Meeting the harmonised standard EN 301 549 gives a presumption of conformity. The version currently cited, v3.2.1, is built on WCAG 2.1 Level AA. A new version built on WCAG 2.2, v4.1.1, was published in September 2026 and becomes the reference once it’s cited in the Official Journal of the EU. Here’s more on how the EAA and WCAG relate.
• Accessible Canada Act. Canada adopted EN 301 549 as the national standard CAN/ASC-EN 301 549:2024, built on WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Standards under the ACA are voluntary until they’re incorporated into regulation, and amendments to the Accessible Canada Regulations are now doing that for federally regulated organizations.

WCAG versions build on each other. Content that conforms to WCAG 2.2 Level AA also conforms to 2.1 Level AA and 2.0 Level AA, so if the law you’re targeting names WCAG 2.1, setting your own bar at 2.2 covers it and leaves you ready for standards that move up, as EN 301 549 has.

That’s also the difference between WCAG compliance and ADA compliance. WCAG conformance is a technical status: your content meets a defined set of success criteria. ADA compliance is a legal status, and conforming to WCAG is how you show it where a rule, like Title II, names WCAG as the standard. The legal consequences of falling short depend on the law, who enforces it and where you operate, which is a question for your legal team rather than for the guidelines.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. WCAG is a technical standard; legal obligations vary by jurisdiction and context. Consult qualified counsel for legal guidance.

AAA compliance isn’t for everyone (at least not right away)

None of the laws above require Level AAA, and W3C itself advises against requiring AAA conformance as a general policy for entire sites, because some content can’t meet every AAA criterion. The AAA criteria still benefit users, and many are worth adopting where they fit.

For example, a Level AAA success criterion for re-authentication requires that a user can continue their activity without data loss after a session expires. That may not be possible with the infrastructure of your website or application, and it may not be possible to meet without re-engineering your site.

The parts of WCAG marketing owns

WCAG isn’t just within the purview of web design, despite common assumptions. From content creation to wider branding decisions, marketers have their role to play, too. When not treated as simply another buzzword, accessibility can serve as a pillar of brand integrity.

Much of what a marketing team publishes maps directly to specific success criteria:

• Images in campaigns, emails and social posts need text alternatives that convey what the image communicates, or an empty alt attribute when the image is purely decorative (1.1.1).
• Video needs captions, and prerecorded video needs audio description where the visuals carry information the audio doesn’t (1.2.2, 1.2.4, 1.2.5).
• Brand colors have to give text a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, or 3:1 for large text, and give icons and form borders at least 3:1 (1.4.3, 1.4.11).
• Link text has to make sense in context. “Click here” repeated down a page doesn’t tell a screen reader user where any of the links go (2.4.4).
• Headings and structure in CMS content have to reflect the real hierarchy of the page, and headings have to describe what follows them (1.3.1, 2.4.6).
• PDFs and other documents you publish are content too, and they need the same structure, text alternatives and reading order as a web page.

The failures that come from content work tend to be the same ones: low-contrast text, images with missing or meaningless alt text, vague link text and video without captions. They’re also among the easiest to prevent, because they’re decided by the person creating the content, not by the code.

Plain language helps, too. It’s the mechanism behind several of WCAG’s understandability criteria, and it’s covered in more depth in our guide to plain language and WCAG.

How to tell whether your site conforms

Automated testing is the fastest way to find many issues across a large site, but it can only check what a machine can measure. It can tell that an image has no alt text, but not whether the alt text it does have is accurate. It can measure contrast, but not whether a link’s purpose is clear.

That’s why conformance takes three kinds of testing together: automated scans for coverage, manual review by someone who knows the success criteria, and testing with people with disabilities who use assistive technology every day. And because content changes daily, conformance isn’t a one-time result. A page that conformed at launch can stop conforming the next time someone uploads an image or edits a headline, so checks need to run on a schedule, not only before a redesign.

How to get started

Good news if your organization has been dragging its heels: Weaving accessibility into your brand’s DNA doesn’t have to be an all-at-once operation.

Rather, it begins with education within your organization that demonstrates how accessibility principles affect each team’s business functions. This education may come from webinars, conferences, newsletters, and articles from accessibility-focused blogs.

“The digital accessibility community is one of the most collaborative out there, and there are lots of resources available that marketers can reference,” Christina notes. “I highly encourage marketers to connect with digital accessibility experts and the wider disabilities community to understand the need for creating accessible content.”

Because accessibility involves so many moving parts and requires a commitment to continuous improvement, it’s worth creating a working group or a community of practice that takes on a leadership role. When that working group includes representatives from different departments and levels of the organization, they can share the responsibility of following developments in the accessibility space and work together on education to get the rest of the organization on the same page.

Never forget that digital accessibility shouldn’t be the responsibility of one person within an organization. “It is truly cross functional work that demands buy-in from all levels and roles,” Christina notes, adding that simple adjustments in day-to-day work can make a positive impact on your users. “It all starts with awareness and understanding the ‘why’ behind the need for digital accessibility in your marketing initiatives,” she says.

Practically speaking, that means assigning roles within teams and adopting a schedule of regular checks. If you have a legal department, they should update the organization about changes in accessibility legislation in your industry. Your writers, designers and media creators need to understand the guidelines that apply to language, graphics and multimedia before they create content, and your web developers should be using semantic coding practices.

Accessibility is a big task, but if you include all the right people, there should be more than enough hands to make it less daunting.

What about WCAG 3.0?

There’s no new version of WCAG in 2026 to adopt. WCAG 3.0 is still a W3C Working Draft, it won’t be completed for a few more years, and no law references it. “When it’s ready to be the recommendation, there will be support and guidance from the community on how to best incorporate the new process,” Christina advises. Until then, WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the bar to work to. Here’s where the WCAG 3.0 draft stands.

Frequently asked questions

What is WCAG compliance?

WCAG compliance means your website and digital content conform to the version and level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that applies to you, usually WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA. The more precise term is conformance: content conforms to a WCAG version at a level when it meets every success criterion at that level and below.

What does “WCAG compliant” mean?

It’s shorthand for “conforms to WCAG 2.x Level AA,” and the useful version of the claim always names both. “WCAG compliant” with no version or level doesn’t tell anyone what was tested, and it shouldn’t be read as a certification, because W3C doesn’t certify conformance.

Is WCAG a legal requirement in the US?

WCAG isn’t a law, but some US rules adopt it. The DOJ’s Title II rule requires WCAG 2.1 Level AA for state and local governments, and Section 508 incorporates WCAG 2.0 Level AA for federal agencies. For private businesses under Title III, no regulation names a version, though WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level AA is the usual benchmark.

What’s the difference between WCAG compliance and ADA compliance?

WCAG conformance is a technical status: your content meets a defined set of success criteria. ADA compliance is a legal status under a civil rights law. Where a rule like Title II names WCAG as its technical standard, conforming to WCAG is how you meet that part of the obligation.

What’s the difference between WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2?

Each version builds on the last. WCAG 2.1 added 17 success criteria to 2.0, and WCAG 2.2 added nine and removed one. Content that conforms to 2.2 also conforms to 2.1 and 2.0 at the same level. Here’s the full comparison of WCAG 2.1 and 2.2.