WCAG 2.1 vs 2.2: which version applies to me?

Three WCAG versions are in active legal play in 2026. WCAG 2.0 (2008) remains the explicit mandate of AODA and Section 508 in the United States. WCAG 2.1 (2018) adds 17 criteria for mobile, low-vision, and cognitive disability access; it is the EAA’s de facto floor via EN 301 549. WCAG 2.2 (October 2023) adds 9 criteria around focus, drag interactions, help consistency, and authentication — but no major accessibility law has been amended to cite it yet.

The result: the standard and the law are out of sync, and the gap differs by jurisdiction. A WCAG 2.2 conformance claim is the best-practice posture and a future-proofed legal floor, but the question of which version is required is jurisdiction-specific.

Jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction map

European Union — EAA

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882, in force since 28 June 2025) does not name a WCAG version in its body. Article 15 directs implementation via harmonized standards. The current harmonized standard for ICT accessibility is EN 301 549 v3.2.1 (March 2021), which references WCAG 2.1 AA for web content.

The next EN 301 549 revision (v4) is in draft as of 2026 and is expected to track WCAG 2.2. Until v4 is published and harmonized, the EU legal floor for web content under the EAA is WCAG 2.1 AA.

United Kingdom — Equality Act 2010 + PSBAR

The Equality Act’s reasonable-adjustments duty does not name a version. Case law (the EHRC’s guidance and several county-court decisions) treats WCAG 2.1 AA as the technical benchmark a court would expect. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 (PSBAR) mandate WCAG 2.1 AA for public-sector websites and apps; private sector is judged by Equality Act reasonable-adjustments.

United States — ADA Title III

ADA Title III itself does not name WCAG. The Department of Justice’s April 2024 final rule (28 CFR §35.105) requires WCAG 2.1 AA for state and local government websites by 2026/2027. For private-sector Title III defendants, federal case law has cited both 2.0 and 2.1 AA as the technical standard. The Robles v. Domino’s line of cases works on 2.0 AA as the de facto bar; more recent cases have moved to 2.1.

Canada — AODA (Ontario)

Ontario’s Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation §14 explicitly mandates WCAG 2.0 AA for public-sector and large private-sector organizations (over 50 employees). The regulation has not been amended to track 2.1 or 2.2, so the AODA legal floor is 2.0. Practical posture: target 2.1 AA for parity with the rest of the country’s ACA (Accessible Canada Act) trajectory.

Australia — DDA + WCAG mandate

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 references WCAG via the Australian Government Information Accessibility Policy. The current mandate is WCAG 2.0 AA for government, 2.1 AA recommended for private sector. There is no statutory mandate for private-sector WCAG conformance, but case law follows the government standard.

The new criteria in WCAG 2.2

The 9 success criteria added in 2.2:

• 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) — keyboard-focused elements must not be entirely hidden behind sticky headers, cookie banners, or other overlays.
• 2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) — AAA version of the above.
• 2.4.13 Focus Appearance — focus indicators must meet minimum size and contrast (AAA, not required for AA).
• 2.5.7 Dragging Movements — any drag interaction must have a single-pointer alternative (a button, a tap).
• 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) — interactive targets must be 24×24 CSS pixels or have sufficient spacing.
• 3.2.6 Consistent Help — help mechanisms appear in the same relative order on every page.
• 3.3.7 Redundant Entry — information the user already entered must be auto-populated or available for selection on subsequent forms.
• 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) — no cognitive-function-only authentication (no “solve a CAPTCHA puzzle” without an alternative).
• 3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) — AAA version.

Most of the new AA criteria (2.4.11, 2.5.7, 2.5.8, 3.2.6, 3.3.7, 3.3.8) are cheap to satisfy on most sites. The focus-not-obscured rule is the one that catches most teams off-guard: a sticky header that overlaps a focused link is a 2.4.11 failure that did not exist under 2.1.

What Veracly tests against

Veracly scans against WCAG 2.1 AA by default, with 2.2 AA criteria marked as recommendations in the report rather than failures. The 2.1 vs 2.2 toggle is per-site under Account → Sites → [domain] → Accessibility Level; sites that want strict 2.2 enforcement flip the switch, and the new criteria move from informational to failures in the scoring.

For AODA-specific scans, the report shows a paired score (see your AODA card on any report): a strict 2.1 AA number for cross-jurisdiction parity, and a 2.0 AA legal-floor number that maps to Ontario’s actual statutory requirement. That paired display is a direct response to this version mismatch — one number is what most readers expect to see, the other is what an Ontario regulator will measure.

Planning recommendation

Target 2.2 AA. The 2.1 AA legal floor in most jurisdictions is the floor, not the ceiling, and the 2.2 work is small enough that splitting the deployment is rarely worth the engineering coordination. The exception: if your team is already at 2.1 AA and considering whether to budget for 2.2, prioritize the high-leverage 2.2 criteria (focus-not-obscured, target size, accessible authentication) over the others.

See also: WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit explained · Does my SMB need to comply with the EAA?