Accessible Canada Act website requirements.

Who should read this

Federally regulated organizations, suppliers to federal clients, agencies, and national teams may need to consider federal accessibility requirements depending on organization type and context. Get qualified advice for formal obligations.

How the Accessible Canada Act fits into digital accessibility

The Accessible Canada Act sets a federal direction toward a barrier-free Canada. Website accessibility is only one part of that larger picture, but public websites, forms, documents, and digital services are often where barriers become visible to users.

How WCAG and ICT standards relate at a high level

WCAG is the technical web accessibility standard many teams use for websites and digital content. ICT accessibility standards and procurement expectations can also matter in federal contexts. A website checker can support early triage, but it does not determine legal obligations or prove conformance to any standard.

What a first-pass website checker can help with

A first-pass checker can find common machine-detectable issues: missing page titles, missing language attributes, heading problems, missing alt attributes, unlabeled form controls, empty buttons, vague links, duplicate IDs, iframe title problems, and some colour contrast failures. Use the accessibility issue library to understand common findings and fixes.

What needs qualified review

Qualified review is still needed for formal obligations, procurement responses, WCAG conformance claims, keyboard access, screen reader clarity, PDFs and documents, multimedia, authenticated flows, third-party systems, and organization-specific requirements.

Suggested workflow for federally regulated teams or suppliers

1. Identify public pages, high-value services, documents, and supplier-delivered digital assets.
2. Run a first-pass scan on representative pages and templates.
3. Fix obvious critical and major findings before deeper review.
4. Use the Canadian checklist to plan keyboard, screen reader, document, and media review.
5. Document known limitations honestly and avoid claims the evidence does not support.
6. Get qualified legal, procurement, or accessibility advice when formal obligations matter.

Plan the federal-context review

Run the checker Find obvious issues before qualified review. Open the Canadian checklist Use practical manual review steps. Read the Canada guide See how WCAG, federal context, and Canadian accessibility fit together. Read what automation misses Avoid treating scan results as proof.