By the Legal Policy Generator team · Published 2026-10-30

What to Include in an Accessibility Statement (Free Template)

An accessibility statement is a public page on your website that says which accessibility standard you aim to meet, where you fall short, and how someone can report a barrier. Most small businesses in the US are not legally required to publish one, but it is a requirement for public-sector sites in the EU and a practical expectation almost everywhere else. If you need one today, the free Accessibility Statement Generator produces a complete draft in a couple of minutes, no signup needed.

Key takeaways

Required? Yes for EU public-sector sites; expected but not mandated for most private US businesses; the usual way EU-covered service providers publish accessibility information.
Six parts: commitment, the standard and level you target, known limitations, a working contact channel, how and when you assessed the site, and alternatives or escalation.
Be honest: "partially conforms" is the right label for most sites; a false "fully compliant" claim does more harm than no statement.
Publish it at a stable URL such as /accessibility, link it from every footer, and re-date it whenever the site changes.

Is an accessibility statement legally required?

The answer depends on the type of organization and where its visitors are.

Who you are	Statement required?	Legal basis
Public-sector body in the EU	Yes, a detailed statement	Directive (EU) 2016/2102; model wording in Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523
Business selling covered products or services in the EU (e-commerce, banking services, e-books and similar)	Covered service providers must make accessibility information available, and a statement page is the usual way to do it. Microenterprises providing services are exempt.	European Accessibility Act, Directive (EU) 2019/882, applying since 28 June 2025
Private business in the US	No federal rule requires a statement	The ADA governs whether people with disabilities can use your goods and services; see the DOJ's web accessibility guidance

A statement does not make an inaccessible site compliant, but it shows good faith and gives users a way to reach you before they reach a lawyer. The guide to making a website ADA and WCAG compliant covers the underlying fixes.

What an accessibility statement should contain

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative publishes guidance on developing an accessibility statement, and the EU model statement follows a similar shape. Boiled down, a useful statement has six parts.

1. Your commitment, in one or two sentences

Name the organization and say plainly that you want the site to be usable by everyone. Skip the mission-statement padding. "We want everyone to be able to use this site" does the job.

2. The standard you are measuring against

Name a specific version and level, for example WCAG 2.1 Level AA or WCAG 2.2 Level AA. WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023 and was revised on 12 December 2024 (WCAG 2.2). If you say "fully compliant," be sure that is true; "partially conforms" is the honest label for most sites.

3. Known limitations

List what does not work yet: older PDFs without tags, embedded third-party video without captions, a booking widget you do not control. Naming a limitation with a workaround is far better than silence, and it tells a screen-reader user whether to bother trying.

4. How to get help or report a problem

Give at least one working channel, ideally an email address or a form that a person actually monitors. State a response time you can keep, such as five business days. This is the part of the statement users rely on most.

5. How you assessed the site

One line is enough: self-assessment, automated scan plus manual keyboard and screen-reader testing, or third-party audit. Add the date of the last review. A statement dated three years ago reads as abandoned.

6. Alternatives and escalation

If part of the site is inaccessible, offer another route, such as phone ordering or an accessible PDF version. For EU public-sector sites the statement must also point to the national enforcement procedure.

Accessibility statement template (or use a generator)

The Accessibility Statement Generator asks for the same things the six parts above call for. You give it your organization and site address, the WCAG version and level you target, any known limitations, a contact method and response time, and your assessment method and date. It returns a finished page you can download as HTML. If you would rather write it by hand, use the template below.

Replace the bracketed parts, delete anything untrue, and keep the date current.

Accessibility statement for [Company Name]

We want everyone to be able to use [website address]. We aim to meet WCAG [2.1 or 2.2] Level AA. This site partially conforms to that standard because of the limitations listed below.

Known limitations: [for example, some older PDF documents are not fully tagged for screen readers. Contact us and we will send an accessible copy].

Feedback: if you have trouble using any part of the site, email [address]. We reply within [number] business days.

Assessment: [self-assessment / external audit], last reviewed on [date].

A worked example

Here is how the template might read for a fictional online shop, Harbor Tea Co. Note how specific the limitations are.

Accessibility statement for Harbor Tea Co.

We want everyone to be able to shop at harbortea.example. We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA, and the site partially conforms to it.

Known limitations: PDF order receipts are not yet tagged for screen readers; email help@harbortea.example and we will send a plain-text receipt the same day. Our product videos have captions, but the audio-described versions are not available yet. We plan to fix both by the end of Q1 2027.

Feedback: email help@harbortea.example or call the number in our footer. We reply within five business days.

Assessment: automated scan plus manual keyboard and screen-reader testing by our team, last reviewed on 1 October 2026.

Other limitation wordings that work:

"the date picker in the booking form cannot be used with a keyboard alone; call us to book"
"third-party chat widget has not been tested; email is the accessible alternative"
"some images in older blog posts lack descriptive alt text; we are adding them in date order"

Common mistakes

Claiming full conformance without testing. Automated scanners cannot test keyboard flow or screen-reader behaviour; those checks have to be done by hand before anyone writes "fully compliant".
Burying the page. Link it from the footer of every page so it can be found in one step.
Listing a dead contact address. If the email bounces, the statement does more harm than having none.
Treating it as a one-off. Update it whenever you redesign, change platforms or add a major feature.

Where it goes on your site

Publish it at a stable URL such as /accessibility and link it from the footer next to your privacy policy and terms. If you are building out your legal pages, the policy guide lists the other documents most sites need, and the legal pages checklist shows where an accessibility statement sits alongside them.