What to put in an accessibility statement

A page that says where you stand

An accessibility statement is a page that tells a visitor three things: which standard you work to, how far you are from it today, and how to reach you when something is in the way.

Picture a shopper using a screen reader who gets to your size filter and finds it reads as a row of unlabelled buttons. With a statement, they have a route: an email address that answers, a note that the filter is a known problem, and a date for the fix. Without one, they have the back button.

That is the whole job. The W3C, which maintains the guidelines most statements cite, says statements are not technical assessments or declarations of conformity.^* A statement is a plain account of where you stand, written for the person who needs it, and it is only as good as it is true.

What goes in one

The W3C's guidance lists three things every statement needs: a commitment to accessibility for people with disabilities, the standard you apply, and contact information for when someone runs into a problem.^* It advises five more: known limitations, the measures you have taken, any technical prerequisites, the browsers and assistive technologies you tested with, and the laws that apply.^*

Its generator fills out the shape with the parts that make a statement checkable: a conformance status, the date it was published, and how you assessed the site.^* The status has three honest values: fully conformant, partially conformant, and non-conformant. Partially conformant means some parts of the content do not fully conform to the standard,^* and it is the status almost every working store should pick.

Name the standard by version and level. WCAG 2.2 is the current recommendation, published in October 2023 and updated in December 2024, and it does not retire 2.1.^* Level AA means a page meets every Level A and Level AA criterion; conformance is claimed for whole pages, and a page with one failing criterion does not conform.^* That is why "partially conformant" with a list of known problems is more credible than a clean claim.

What the EU asks of a shop

Two European laws come up, and they ask for different things.

The Web Accessibility Directive applies to public sector bodies: the state, regional and local authorities, and bodies governed by public law.^* It requires them to publish and regularly update a detailed accessibility statement that lists the content that is not accessible and why, links to a feedback mechanism, and links to an enforcement procedure.^* The Commission's model statement sets the structure: a compliance status (fully, partially or not compliant), the non-accessible content, the date the statement was prepared and the method used, feedback and contact details, and the enforcement route.^* It also says the statement must rest on an evaluation, either a self-assessment or a third-party assessment, and that its accuracy is reviewed at least once a year.^* A shop sits outside the directive, but the model is the clearest published template for what a statement looks like, and the UK's sample statement follows the same shape.^*

The European Accessibility Act is the one that reaches shops. It has applied since 28 June 2025 and covers e-commerce services provided to consumers,^* meaning services offered at a distance through websites and apps with a view to concluding a consumer contract.^* It covers any provider offering such a service to consumers in the Union, wherever the business sits.^* Microenterprises, with fewer than ten people and under two million euros of turnover or balance sheet, are exempt from the service requirements.^*

The Act does not use the words "accessibility statement" anywhere. What it asks for, in Annex V, is information published in your general terms and conditions or an equivalent document: a general description of the service in accessible formats, the explanations needed to understand how it works, and a description of how the accessibility requirements are met.^* Article 13 adds that the information is kept for as long as the service runs, that you keep procedures in place to stay in conformity, and that you take corrective measures and inform the national authority when the service falls short.^* The requirements themselves are tied to the European standard EN 301 549, whose web clause says that meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA satisfies it.^* The 2026 edition of the standard moves that reference to WCAG 2.2 AA.^*

So for a Shopify store that sells into the EU, one page can do both jobs: a statement in the W3C shape that also carries the Annex V description, linked from the terms and conditions. The Act in full, including who enforces it and the fines, is a separate post.

In the United States

No federal law or rule requires a private business to publish an accessibility statement. The Department of Justice's 2022 guidance says it has no regulation setting out detailed standards for business websites, points to WCAG as helpful guidance, and leaves businesses flexibility in how they comply.^* Its 2024 rule for state and local governments sets WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard,^* with compliance dates pushed to April 2027 for larger entities and April 2028 for smaller ones.^* Neither mentions a statement.

What a statement does in the United States is show good faith. A dated page that names the standard, lists what is open, and gives a working contact is the kind of thing that changes the character of a demand letter, because it shows the problems were known and being worked, with dates.

Keep it true

The UK government monitors public sector statements, and its 2022 to 2024 report found that 85% of the sites it checked had one, that only a small share were fully compliant when first tested, and that statements often referred to future fixes whose dates had already passed.^* WebAIM's 2026 survey of a million home pages found detected WCAG failures on 95.9% of them.^* A statement that claims full conformance on a site like that does more harm than an empty footer.

Four habits keep a statement honest. Pick "partially conformant" when that is the truth. List the known problems in plain words, with the page they are on. Date the statement and the last test. Review it at least once a year; the UK's digital service says yearly, and asks that the review date be noted.^*

A skeleton to copy

Write it in your own voice and keep each part short.

• Commitment: "[Store] wants everyone to be able to shop here, including people who use a screen reader, a keyboard, or magnification."
• Standard: "We work to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA."
• Status: "This site is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 AA. The known problems are listed below."
• Known problems: one line each, with the page and the plan. "Product filters cannot be operated with a keyboard on collection pages. Fix planned for November 2026."
• What we have done: the measures, in a sentence or two. Scans, fixes applied, alt text added, staff trained.
• Contact: an email address or form that a person answers, and how long a reply takes.
• For EU customers: a short description of how the shop meets the accessibility requirements of the European Accessibility Act, and where the full information sits in the terms.
• Dates: "This statement was prepared on [date], based on a self-assessment, and last reviewed on [date]."

Where it lives

The EU model asks for the link to be placed prominently on the home page or on every page,^* and the footer does that. In Shopify, add the statement as a page under Online Store, add it to the footer menu next to the privacy policy, and link to it from the terms if you sell into the EU.

In short

A statement is a dated page that names the standard, says how far you are from it, lists what is open, and gives a way to reach you. The shopper at the size filter gets a route, and the letter writer gets a record. SiteRemora keeps the list of known problems current, scanning the store and recording each fix with its date, which is the part of a statement that goes stale first.