Most states do not have their own web accessibility law for private businesses — and it doesn’t matter, because the federal ADA already applies to your website in all 50 states. What state laws do is raise the stakes: Colorado now fines violators $3,500 per violation, New York requires WCAG 2.2 from state contractors, and California’s Unruh Act awards plaintiffs a minimum of $4,000 per violation — including against out-of-state businesses. Here’s the 2026 map, verified against the actual statutes.
One warning before the list. Ranking pages on this topic are mostly written by overlay vendors, and many still describe bills that died or deadlines that moved. Everything below links to the bill text, the state’s own guidance, or a dated legal analysis.
Do you need a state law to get sued? No.
The ADA is a federal law, so a plaintiff doesn’t need any state statute to sue over an inaccessible website. Plaintiffs filed 2,019 digital accessibility lawsuits in the first half of 2025 alone, on pace for roughly 4,975 for the year, according to UsableNet’s mid-year report. New York accounted for about 1,450 of those cases; Florida saw roughly 486 federal filings; California, 104.
Notice what that list is not: a list of states with special web accessibility statutes. Florida has no web-specific law and is still a top filing venue. The litigation map and the legislation map are different maps — we track the first one on our ADA lawsuits by state hub, with breakdowns for all 26 high-activity states. This page covers the second: where legislatures have added their own requirements on top of the ADA.
Which states have their own web accessibility laws in 2026?
Almost every state has some digital accessibility policy for its own government websites — Section508.gov keeps a state-by-state directory. But only a handful of laws change life for businesses. These are the ones worth knowing:
| State | Law | Who it binds | Standard | Why a business should care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | HB21-1110 (2021) | State agencies + local governments | WCAG 2.1 AA | $3,500 per violation, per plaintiff; liability flows to vendors |
| Colorado | HB 25-1152 (2025) | Vendors selling IT to public schools | Accessibility warranty in contracts | Vendors carry the liability directly |
| New York | S3114A (2023) | State agency websites | Most current WCAG (2.2) | Sets the bar your public-sector clients must meet |
| New York | A8453A / Exec. Law §170-f (2022) | State contractors, vendors, consultants | Most current WCAG (2.2) | Your company website, if you hold a state contract |
| California | Unruh Civil Rights Act | All businesses serving Californians | Courts look to WCAG | $4,000 minimum per violation + attorney’s fees |
| California | AB 434 (2017) | State agency websites | WCAG 2.0 AA + posted certification | Procurement bar for vendors |
| Virginia | HB 2541 (2025) | Vendors selling IT to the state | VPAT/ACR required | No conformance report, no contract |
Two 2025 bills that ranking articles still describe as live: New Mexico’s HB 120, which would have created a state Office of Accessibility, passed both chambers but was vetoed in April 2025, and Virginia’s HB 2541 was signed March 24, 2025, per Converge Accessibility’s legal update.
Colorado: HB21-1110 made inaccessibility a civil rights violation
Colorado’s HB21-1110 doesn’t regulate private business websites — it covers state agencies and local governments, from counties down to public school districts. What makes it the most aggressive law in the country is the enforcement design, spelled out in the bill itself: inaccessible digital content is a violation of the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act, and an affected person can sue for a court order, actual damages, or a statutory fine of $3,500 per violation, payable to each plaintiff (Level Access analysis).
The original compliance deadline was July 1, 2024, with a good-faith grace period that ended July 1, 2025 — so enforcement is fully live as you read this. The required standard is WCAG 2.1 AA, the same benchmark we remediate to.
Here’s the part that answers the question private businesses actually search: the law reaches you through your customers. Covered entities stay responsible for the accessibility of third-party tools they buy, and HB 25-1152, signed May 24, 2025, goes further — it requires contract clauses holding vendors liable for inaccessible technology sold to public schools. If you sell software, booking systems, or web services to any Colorado public entity, their $3,500-per-violation exposure is now a line item in your sales cycle. Local litigation context lives on our Colorado ADA lawsuit page.
New York: WCAG 2.2, and not just for agencies
New York is the one state where a specific WCAG version is effectively written into law for private companies — if they do business with the state. Two statutes combine:
First, S3114A, signed December 22, 2023, requires each state agency to conform its websites “to the most current version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.” Since WCAG 2.2 is the current W3C recommendation, that phrase means 2.2 — and it will automatically mean whatever comes next.
Second, and less widely known: A8453A, passed unanimously in 2022, added Executive Law §170-f, which applies the same most-current-WCAG requirement to the websites of state contractors, subcontractors, vendors, and consultants. Hold a New York state contract, and your own site is covered — that’s a compliance obligation, not just lawsuit risk.
If you’re deciding which standard to build to, our WCAG 2.2 vs 2.1 comparison shows the nine added criteria. And remember the backdrop: New York courts host more website accessibility suits than any other venue in the country, law or no law — details on our New York lawsuit page.
California: forget AB 1757 — the Unruh Act is the law that bites
AB 1757, the bill that would have codified WCAG 2.1 AA for every website serving Californians, died in committee. It was held under submission on August 15, 2024, and never reached a floor vote, per the CalMatters Digital Democracy tracker. Vendor blogs that say “AB 1757 was reintroduced” are wrong — the 2025-26 session’s AB 1757 is a nuclear-power bill. The ideas came back under a new number: AB 2190, introduced February 19, 2026, would require sites serving Californians to meet WCAG 2.1 AA (moving to 2.2 AA in 2028), with defenses for businesses that document and fix barriers. As of publish time it’s still being amended in the Assembly — a bill, not a law.
None of that makes California safe, because the law that matters predates the web. The Unruh Civil Rights Act entitles a prevailing plaintiff to actual damages and no less than $4,000 per violation, plus attorney’s fees, under Civil Code section 52 — and courts have applied it to businesses with no physical presence in California whose websites serve California residents (Accessibility.Works Unruh guide). That out-of-state reach is why a bakery in Ohio can receive a California demand letter. Filing trends and defense basics are on our California lawsuit page.
For vendors: AB 434 separately requires California state agency websites to meet WCAG 2.0 AA and post a signed certification, which shapes what agencies can buy.
The DOJ Title II rule just moved — but don’t misread it
The biggest 2026 development isn’t a state law at all. The DOJ’s Title II rule requires state and local government web content to meet WCAG 2.1 AA, and on April 20, 2026, an interim final rule pushed the deadlines back a year: entities serving 50,000 or more people now have until April 26, 2027, and smaller entities and special districts until April 26, 2028 (Deque’s analysis; the interim rule is Federal Register doc. 2026-07663).
Two things that extension did not do. It didn’t pause anyone’s existing ADA obligations — governments were already required to be accessible; the rule just sets the technical standard. And it didn’t touch private businesses, whose exposure under Title III and state laws is unchanged. What it does create is pull-through demand: thousands of cities and school districts must now buy WCAG-2.1-AA-conformant tools by hard dates, and they’ll ask vendors for proof — often a VPAT or conformance report, which Virginia now demands from state IT vendors by statute. We break the rule down in plain language in our Title II explainer.
What to do, whatever state you’re in
The through-line of every law above is the same standard. Colorado wrote WCAG 2.1 AA into rule, the DOJ adopted it, New York points one version ahead of it, and California courts reference it. So the to-do list doesn’t depend on your zip code:
- Fix to WCAG 2.1 AA first. It satisfies the DOJ rule and Colorado outright, and covers most of WCAG 2.2.
- Check the states you sell into, not just where you sit. California’s Unruh Act and New York’s contractor rule both reach across state lines.
- If you sell to governments or schools, get a conformance report. Virginia requires one; Colorado and New York buyers will ask for one anyway.
- Watch the litigation map separately from the legislation map. Our by-state lawsuit hub tracks where plaintiffs actually file.
- Skip the widget. No statute above accepts an overlay as compliance, and sites running them get sued anyway.
State laws will keep moving — California’s AB 2190 is already carrying AB 1757’s ideas forward, and more states are copying Colorado’s vendor-liability approach. A site genuinely conformant to WCAG 2.1 AA is the one position that’s defensible under every version of what comes next.
Not sure where your site stands against the standard all of these laws share? Start with a free scan.