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AODA Website Compliance in Ontario: What Your Business Needs to Know (2026)

By October 18, 2026October 19th, 2026No Comments

If your organization operates in Ontario, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) may require your website to be accessible to people with disabilities. Many business owners are not sure whether it applies to them, what "accessible" actually means, or what happens next. This guide explains it in plain language.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your specific obligations with the Government of Ontario or a lawyer.

What the AODA requires for websites

Website requirements come from the AODA's Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation. The technical standard it references is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

  • Private and non-profit organizations with 50 or more employees in Ontario must make their public websites and web content conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA, with limited exceptions. The deadline for this was January 1, 2021.
  • Designated public sector organizations have their own requirements under the same regulation, with earlier deadlines.
  • Organizations with fewer than 50 employees are not currently required to meet the WCAG website standard, but they still have other AODA obligations, such as accessible customer service.

The December 31, 2026 compliance report

Private and non-profit organizations with 20 or more employees in Ontario must file an accessibility compliance report with the province. The next report is due December 31, 2026. The report asks you to confirm whether you are meeting your AODA requirements, so if your website falls under the WCAG requirement, now is the time to check it.

WCAG 2.0 vs. WCAG 2.1: which should you aim for?

WCAG 2.1 builds on 2.0 and adds success criteria for mobile devices, low vision and cognitive accessibility. Everything in WCAG 2.0 AA is included in 2.1 AA, so meeting 2.1 AA also meets the AODA standard. That is why we design and test every website to WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

The most common accessibility problems we find

When we audit Ontario business websites, the same issues come up again and again:

  1. Low colour contrast. Light grey text on white, or white text on bright colours, that many people cannot read.
  2. Missing or meaningless image descriptions. Images with no alt text, or alt text like "image1.jpg".
  3. Form fields without labels. Screen reader users cannot tell what a field is for.
  4. Keyboard traps and invisible focus. People who cannot use a mouse get stuck, or cannot see where they are on the page.
  5. Broken heading structure. Headings chosen for their size rather than their meaning, which makes pages hard to navigate.
  6. Vague links. "Click here" and "read more" links that make no sense out of context.
  7. Disabled zoom on mobile. Sites that stop people from pinching to zoom.
  8. Auto-playing or moving content with no way to pause it.

Do accessibility overlays or widgets make you compliant?

No. Toolbar overlays that promise one-click compliance cannot fix problems in your site's underlying code, such as unlabelled forms or keyboard traps. Many accessibility specialists and disabled users report that they can make websites harder to use. Real compliance means fixing the website itself.

A practical path to compliance

  1. Audit. Test key pages and templates with automated tools and manual testing: keyboard only and with a screen reader. Automated tools alone miss a large share of issues.
  2. Prioritize. Fix the barriers that block people first: forms, navigation, checkout and contact pages.
  3. Remediate. Fix the code, content and design issues. On WordPress, many fixes are theme and content changes rather than full rebuilds.
  4. Publish an accessibility statement with a way for visitors to report problems and request alternative formats.
  5. Keep it accessible. Every new page, image and plugin can introduce new barriers, so build accessibility checks into your regular website maintenance.

How we can help

We offer AODA accessibility audits and remediation for existing websites, build new WordPress websites that meet WCAG 2.1 AA from day one, and include accessibility checks in our maintenance plans.

Need a hand?

TheWebsiteMakers.ca is a Toronto-based team with 19+ years of WordPress experience. We build accessible WordPress websites, host them on servers we manage ourselves, and keep them maintained. Get a free, no-obligation estimate.

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