ADA Title III is the part of the Americans with Disabilities Act that bars discrimination by “places of public accommodation” — businesses open to the public. The Department of Justice and most courts read it to cover business websites, so an inaccessible site can trigger a lawsuit even though the 1990 law never mentions the web.
What Title III actually says
The ADA has several “titles.” Title III covers private businesses that serve the public — what the law calls public accommodations. The statute lists twelve broad categories, including stores, restaurants, hotels, doctors’ offices, banks, law firms, and places of entertainment. If members of the public can walk in and buy something or get a service, you’re almost certainly a public accommodation.
Title III requires those businesses to give people with disabilities “full and equal enjoyment” of their goods and services. For a brick-and-mortar store that historically meant ramps, accessible restrooms, and Braille signage. The hard question for the modern web is whether “full and equal enjoyment” extends to the company’s website and app — and the DOJ has long answered yes.
For a deeper breakdown of how Title III sits alongside other rules, see our guide on ADA vs Section 508 vs WCAG. Section 508, by contrast, is a procurement law that applies to federal agencies and their vendors — not to private Title III businesses, though it borrows the same WCAG technical standard.
”Public accommodation”: is a website covered?
This is the central legal question, and the honest answer is it depends on where you’re sued. The ADA was signed in 1990, before commercial websites existed, so its text names physical places, not URLs. Courts have filled the gap in two different ways, creating a well-known circuit split.
| Approach | What it means | Where it’s common |
|---|---|---|
| Website = public accommodation | A website is itself a “place” under Title III, even with no physical store. | First, Second, and Seventh Circuits (broadly) |
| Nexus required | The website must connect to a physical place of business to be covered. | Ninth and Eleventh Circuits (broadly) |
In plain terms:
- In “nexus” circuits, a plaintiff generally has to show the site is tied to a physical location — like a restaurant’s online ordering page or a retailer’s store locator.
- In “website is a place” circuits, even an online-only business can be a public accommodation.
Because plaintiffs choose where to file, and because most businesses with any physical footprint satisfy the nexus test anyway, the practical exposure is wide. This is general information, not legal advice — which circuit governs your business is a question for an attorney.
The DOJ’s position
The Department of Justice enforces Title III, and its stance has been consistent: the ADA applies to the websites of businesses open to the public. The DOJ has reaffirmed this in guidance, in statements of interest filed in private lawsuits, and in numerous settlement agreements that require businesses to conform to WCAG.
Two things the DOJ has not done for Title III:
- Issued a regulation that formally names a technical standard for private business websites. A rulemaking was started years ago and later withdrawn.
- Set a deadline by which private sites must conform.
That regulatory gap is exactly why litigation, not regulation, drives most web-accessibility activity today. With no bright-line rule, plaintiffs and their attorneys use WCAG as the measuring stick — and so do the courts.
The 2024 Title II rule (and why it matters to you)
In April 2024 the DOJ issued a final rule under Title II — the title that covers state and local governments, not private businesses. The rule formally adopted WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the accessibility standard for government websites and mobile apps, with compliance deadlines based on population size.
If you run a private business, this rule doesn’t bind you directly. But it matters for three reasons:
- It’s the first time the DOJ has set WCAG 2.1 AA as a binding federal standard for any kind of web content, removing any doubt that WCAG is the yardstick.
- It signals where federal expectations are heading for the web overall.
- It makes WCAG 2.1 AA the only sensible target for Title III businesses that want to reduce legal risk.
For the standard itself, see WCAG 2.1 AA Explained and the W3C’s official Web Accessibility Initiative materials.
What compliance looks like in practice
Since Title III names no technical standard, businesses meet it by conforming to WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the same standard built on the four POUR principles: content must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. WCAG defines three conformance levels (A, AA, AAA); AA is the one used in virtually every settlement and consent decree.
Conformance means real users and real assistive technology can actually use your site. The recurring failures that show up in demand letters include:
- Images with missing or unhelpful alt text, so screen readers like NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver have nothing to announce.
- Insufficient color contrast, making text unreadable for low-vision users.
- Content and controls that can’t be reached by keyboard navigation alone.
- Forms without proper labels, and broken or misused ARIA roles.
- No visible focus indicator, trapping keyboard and screen-reader users.
Catching these reliably takes manual testing by people who use assistive technology, not just an automated scanner. Automated tools surface roughly a third of WCAG issues; the rest require human judgment, which is why a real accessibility audit combines both. You can document the result in an accessibility statement and, where vendors require it, a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template).
Why overlays don’t satisfy Title III
A common shortcut is an accessibility overlay — a snippet of JavaScript that promises instant compliance. It doesn’t work. Overlays sit on top of the page and can’t fix the underlying HTML, so the real WCAG failures remain. Screen-reader users frequently report that overlays interfere with the assistive tech they already use, and plaintiffs have filed Title III suits against businesses that had an overlay installed. An overlay can give a false sense of safety while leaving you just as exposed. The fix is to repair the code — see why overlays don’t ensure compliance.
How to lower your Title III risk
Real protection comes from making the site genuinely usable, then keeping it that way:
- Audit the site against WCAG 2.1 AA with both automated tools and manual, assistive-technology testing.
- Remediate the failures by fixing the actual code — alt text, contrast, keyboard access, ARIA, and forms.
- Monitor going forward, since new pages and content can reintroduce barriers.
For background on how claims escalate from a demand letter to a full lawsuit, see our ADA website lawsuits hub. And remember: this page is general information, not legal advice. If you’ve received a demand letter, talk to an attorney — then fix the underlying barriers so the claim has nothing to stand on.
Where Curbcut fits
We don’t sell overlays. Curbcut does manual, code-level accessibility remediation to bring sites into real WCAG 2.1 AA conformance — the standard Title III claims are measured against. Not sure where you stand? Run a free accessibility scan and we’ll show you the gaps in plain language.