Reference
Accessibility statements
An accessibility statement is a public page on your own site saying how conformant your product is, what is not yet fixed, and how someone can tell you about a barrier. It is not the same document as a VPAT: the VPAT is the criterion-by-criterion table procurement reviews, while the statement is the short public commitment anyone can read. HECVAT asks for a link to one, and the European Accessibility Act requires it.
Last reviewed September 2026
What belongs in one
The W3C publishes a model statement, and both procurement reviewers and EU regulators expect roughly its sections, in roughly its order:
- 01Commitment. Who you are and what standard you are working to.
- 02Conformance status. Fully, partially or non-conformant — and with which version of WCAG.
- 03Measures you take. What you actually do: testing, training, a named owner, review at design time.
- 04Known limitations. The parts that do not conform yet, named individually. This is the section that decides whether the statement is believed.
- 05Feedback. How to report a barrier, and how quickly you will respond.
- 06Technical specifications. What the product relies on — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WAI-ARIA.
- 07Assessment approach. How you know: self-assessment, third-party audit, or both, and when.
The two mistakes that make one worthless
Claiming full conformance. “Fully conformant” means every criterion was evaluated and none failed. If some were never checked, the honest answer is partially conformant with a count of what was not examined. Overclaiming here is what the FTC fined an overlay vendor $1 million for in 2025, and it is trivially disprovable by anyone who opens the product.
Listing no limitations. A statement with an empty limitations section reads as one nobody checked. Naming the gaps, with the criterion each relates to, is what makes the rest of the document credible.
There is a third, quieter failure: letting it go stale. A statement written once describes a product that has since shipped a hundred times, and it is the first thing a reviewer checks the date on.
Where it should live
On your own domain, usually at /accessibility. A statement hosted by a vendor reads as something bought rather than something meant, and procurement forms ask for a link on your site.
Affido hosts one that rebuilds from your current conformance report on every request, and gives you three ways to put it on your own domain: an HTML fragment for server-side include, JSON to render in your own templates, or a script tag. The conformance claim is derived from the report, so the statement cannot drift from the evidence the way a hand-written one does.
Generate a statement from evidence rather than prose, and host it on your own domain. It updates itself whenever you re-scan.
Start freeRelated questions
What is the accessibility section of the HECVAT and how do I answer it?
HECVAT is the questionnaire US universities send to software vendors, and its IT Accessibility tab has 18 questions (ITAC-01 to ITAC-18) covering your conformance status, your contact for accessibility issues, whether a VPAT exists and how recent it is, and whether a third party has audited you. Affido answers them from your evidence and resolves five of them from your own records, including the link to your accessibility statement and whether your report is less than twelve months old.
Do I need an accessibility statement as well as a VPAT?
Usually yes, and they are different documents. A VPAT is the criterion-by-criterion table procurement reviews; an accessibility statement is a public page on your own site saying how conformant you are, what is not yet fixed, and how to report a problem. HECVAT asks for a link to one, and the European Accessibility Act requires it. Affido hosts one that rebuilds itself from your current report so it cannot go stale.
Will an accessibility overlay or widget protect me from a lawsuit?
No, and the evidence runs the other way. The FTC fined one overlay vendor $1 million in 2025 over claims that its product made sites compliant, and plaintiffs' firms now specifically look for overlays — over a fifth of 2025 digital accessibility lawsuits targeted sites running one. Affido does not install anything on your site; it finds the defects and tells you what to change in your own code.