Field notes
ADA website compliance when your company is in Ontario and your customers are not
You meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA because Ontario put a version number in a regulation. Nothing in American law puts one in front of your business, which is why the two positions are not interchangeable and why the American one is harder to close out.
· 9 min read · Guide · By Mike Koval
# ADA website compliance when your company is in Ontario and your customers are not
A vendor questionnaire came back from your American customer with one line nobody in the building could answer: does the website conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA? Your Ontario answer does not fit that box, and no amount of Ontario evidence closes it. Send the form back with the line blank and procurement reads the blank as a no, which is the meeting where a renewal moves to whoever filled it in.
I fetched the text of the Americans with Disabilities Act published at ada.gov (opens in a new window) on 12 September 2026 and searched it. The statute contains no instance of website, web site, internet, web page or online. Six hits for "website" are the government banner at the top of the page and the exit notice at the bottom. The law your customer is invoking has never mentioned the thing they are asking about.
Ontario names a version in a regulation. American law names one for governments, and nothing for you
Web coverage under the ADA comes from how the Department of Justice reads the general prohibition. Its guidance page says the ADA's requirements apply to "all the goods, services, privileges, or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web" (ada.gov, Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA (opens in a new window), read 12 September 2026). The same page says, in the same breath, that the Department "does not have a regulation setting out detailed standards" for it.
Ontario wrote the opposite kind of law. O. Reg. 191/11 section 14 is headed Accessible websites and web content, and subsection (2) requires designated public sector organizations and large organizations to make their internet websites and web content "conform with the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, initially at Level A and increasing to Level AA" (e-Laws, consolidation current to 9 September 2026, read 12 September 2026).
One regime tells you the version. The other leaves the version to whoever is asking, and the person asking is your customer's procurement team.
The version gap is twelve success criteria, and one of them was live on my own site
WCAG 2.1 is additive — it keeps every 2.0 criterion and adds more. Against w3.org (opens in a new window), read 12 September 2026, the additions at the two levels that matter are five at Level A and seven at Level AA. Reflow at 400% zoom. Non-text contrast. Text spacing. Content on hover or focus. Orientation. Identify input purpose. Status messages.
So a clean WCAG 2.0 Level AA record does not sit slightly below a 2.1 one. Twelve questions were never asked.
Here is one of them, measured. The focus ring on koval.dev was a two-pixel outline three pixels outside each control. Against the light page it came back at 5.98:1. On the dark footer and the dark call-to-action bands, that three-pixel offset painted the ring on the background instead of the control, at 1.88:1 against the 3:1 that SC 1.4.11 asks for — roughly twenty of the forty-four focus stops on a page, including the whole footer navigation, across twenty-three pages. WCAG 2.0 asks only that the focus indicator be visible. It has no number. The number is a 2.1 criterion, and until I measured against 2.1 the site had nothing wrong with it.
That one was cheap to close once it had a name. Most of the twelve are. The finding is the work, which is why a version number in a questionnaire is a bigger ask than it looks — and why the free afternoon of checks is worth running before you answer one.
Title II got a deadline in April. Title III did not, and your business is Title III
The Department of Justice did adopt a technical standard, and it adopted it for state and local governments. 28 CFR 35.200(b) requires web content and mobile apps to "comply with Level A and Level AA success criteria and conformance requirements specified in WCAG 2.1", beginning April 26 2027 for a public entity with a total population of 50,000 or more, and April 26 2028 for one below that and for special district governments (eCFR, read 12 September 2026).
Those dates moved. The 2024 rule set April 24 2026 and April 26 2027; an interim final rule published on 20 April 2026 at 91 FR 20902 pushed each back a year (Federal Register document 2026-07663 (opens in a new window), read 12 September 2026). Two things follow. Anything you read about an April 2026 American deadline was written before that and has not been updated — check the date on the page. And the deadline is not yours in either version, because it belongs to governments.
Title III, the part that covers a business serving the public, has no compliance date and never has had one. What it has instead is coverage without a threshold: "Almost all types of businesses that serve the public, regardless of their size or the age of their buildings, must follow the ADA" (ada.gov, Title III (opens in a new window), read 12 September 2026). There is no employee count to sit under. Ontario has one — fifty — and if you have been reading your obligations off the Ontario threshold, that instinct does not transfer.
The lawsuit number everyone quotes has a sentence attached that nobody quotes
Seyfarth Shaw counts federal filings each year. In the count published on 25 March 2026 by Kristina Launey and Minh Vu, "the total number of lawsuits filed in federal court alleging that plaintiffs with a disability could not use websites because they were not designed to be accessible and/or work with assistive technologies in 2025 was 3,117" — 665 more than 2024's 2,452, a 27% increase. New York led with 1,021, Florida 961, Illinois 585 (adatitleiii.com (opens in a new window), read 12 September 2026).
The same post says the firm still sees "a significant number of demand letters and lawsuits filed in state courts, which are not included in our federal lawsuit numbers". Every vendor page that repeats the 3,117 drops that line. It matters because the demand letter is the thing most likely to reach a mid-sized Canadian supplier, and it is the one category the number explicitly excludes.
I do not know how many demand letters land on Canadian companies each year. I could not find anyone who publishes it, and I am not going to estimate it for you.
Side by side: what each regime actually asks of you
| ADA (United States) | AODA (Ontario) | |
|---|---|---|
| Does the law name websites? | No. The statute text at ada.gov contains no instance of website, web site, web page, internet or online (searched 12 Sep 2026). Coverage comes from DOJ reading the general prohibition to include activities "offered on the web" (ada.gov web guidance) | Yes. O. Reg. 191/11 s. 14 is headed Accessible websites and web content (e-Laws, consolidation 9 Sep 2026) |
| Who it reaches, if you sell to the public | Title III: "Almost all types of businesses that serve the public, regardless of their size" (ada.gov, Title III). No employee count, no revenue floor | A "large organization" is "an organization with 50 or more employees in Ontario" (IASR s. 2). Below fifty, s. 14 does not apply to you |
| The standard named in the law | For governments only: "Level A and Level AA success criteria ... specified in WCAG 2.1" (28 CFR 35.200(b)). For a private business: none. DOJ "does not have a regulation setting out detailed standards" (ada.gov web guidance) | "WCAG 2.0, initially at Level A and increasing to Level AA" (IASR s. 14(2)), less SC 1.2.4 Captions (Live) and 1.2.5 Audio Descriptions (Pre-recorded) (s. 14(4) para. 2) |
| The date | Governments: 26 April 2027 at 50,000+ population, 26 April 2028 below it and for special districts (28 CFR 35.200(b), as extended 20 Apr 2026, 91 FR 20902). A private business: none, ever | 1 January 2021, in force for five years already (IASR s. 14(4) para. 2) |
| Anything to file | Nothing | An accessibility report (AODA s. 14(1)); every three years for large organizations (IASR s. 86.1(3) para. 3). The next is due 31 December 2026 |
| What arrives when it goes wrong | A demand letter or a private lawsuit. 3,117 federal website filings in 2025 (Seyfarth Shaw, 25 Mar 2026) — a figure that excludes state courts and demand letters | A director's order, and an administrative penalty determined by a director (AODA s. 21; IASR s. 83) |
| The money | Not stated here. Remedies turn on the court and on state law, and I have not read those provisions | Schedule 3 tops out at $15,000 for a corporation. Where impact and history are both major the director may treat that as a daily penalty "to a maximum of $100,000" — a cap on the total, not a daily ceiling (IASR s. 83(1) para. 5) |
| Who decides whether it applies to you | A court, case by case | The regulation, by counting your employees in Ontario (IASR s. 2) |
That last row is the difference the rest of the table is made of. Ontario answers its own scope question in one sentence — AODA s. 4: "This Act applies to every person or organization in the public and private sectors of the Province of Ontario." American law does not have an equivalent sentence for you.
What I will not tell you, and who to ask instead
Whether a United States court would take your company. Title III turns on "any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation" (ADA s. 302(a), ada.gov), and whether a website with no premises behind it is one of those has been argued in front of a lot of judges. I have not read those decisions, I have no view I would defend, and a guess published on a consultant's blog is worth nothing to you. Ask a lawyer licensed where your customers are.
If a demand letter has already arrived, that call comes before mine, and a United States firm is better placed for that half of the problem than an Ontario practice is. I will say so rather than take the work.
[GATE A — HOLE 1 · THE OCCASION, needs Mike] The first time an American accessibility question actually arrived from a Canadian client or prospect: who asked, in what document, and what was the first thing you did. Nothing here is invented in its place.
One thing neither regime recognises: an accessibility widget bolted onto the page. 28 CFR 35.200(b) asks for conformance with WCAG 2.1 and IASR s. 14 asks for conformance with WCAG 2.0. The only alternate route the American rule allows is a conforming alternate version, and only "where it is not possible to make web content directly accessible due to technical or legal limitations" (28 CFR 35.202(a)). A toolbar is not a technical limitation. I do not sell one, and if that is the purchase, we are not a fit.
[GATE A — HOLE 2 · A DECISION AND ITS COST, needs Mike] A job where the two standards had to be reconciled on one estate, what you chose to test against, and what you gave up by choosing it. Method only where the estate is the employer's.
What to do before the next questionnaire arrives
- Write down which version you can evidence, and when it was measured. "WCAG 2.0 Level AA, sampled, March 2026" is an answer. "Accessible" is not, and neither is a tool score.
- Run the twelve. Reflow at 400%, non-text contrast including the focus ring on every surface colour, text spacing, content on hover, orientation, input purpose, status messages, the four pointer criteria, and character key shortcuts. These are the ones a 2.0 pass never looked at.
- Read back what you already answered. If a questionnaire went out claiming 2.1 Level AA on the strength of a 2.0 record, that is a published claim you cannot support, and it is the first thing a complaint quotes back at you.
- Keep the Ontario filing on its own track. 31 December 2026 is a real date with a real form behind it, and it has nothing to do with your American customer.
- Name the person who owns the American answer. If that is nobody, the next questionnaire goes back with the line blank again.
Statutory text verified against ada.gov, the Code of Federal Regulations and ontario.ca e-Laws on 12 September 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Your Ontario obligation is the one with a threshold, a standard and a filing date attached, and it is the one I audit. What that involves and what it costs.