The blog · July 28, 2026 · 5 min read
Web accessibility lawsuits bounced back in 2025. Here is what changed
3,117 federal filings in 2025, up 27 percent from 2024, plus 1,919 state cases. The plaintiffs changed tactics, and small businesses are squarely in range.
After two quieter years, the filings came back. 3,117 federal website accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2025, a 27% percent jump over 2024 and the second-highest year on record behind 2022's 3,255.
Federal court is only part of the picture. State courts added 1,919 more cases in 2025, and across every venue, digital accessibility claims totaled 5,114. Website suits now make up 36% percent of all ADA Title III federal filings.
The repeat-defendant pattern
1,427 of 2025's defendants had already been sued at least once before. That number matters because it kills the most common assumption small businesses make: that settling once buys peace. If the website stays broken, the next filing is just a template away.
There is no size minimum and no grace period in ADA Title III. Restaurants, dental practices, boutiques, and single-location service businesses appear in the filings alongside national brands.
The regulatory clock is also running
The Department of Justice's April 2024 final rule requires WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for state and local government websites, with deadlines beginning in April 2026. Courts are applying the same technical standard to private businesses under Title III. WCAG stopped being a best practice and became the measuring stick.
What the data says to do
UsableNet's 2026 census found 95.9% percent of home pages failing WCAG, with an average of 56.1 errors per page. Most sites have real, fixable violations right now. Knowing yours is the difference between remediating on your schedule and remediating on a plaintiff firm's schedule.
See where your site stands.
Free scan against WCAG 2.2 AA. Real results in about a minute. No card, no account.