DOJ Delay of ADA Web Rule Undermines Equal Access

by Mark Riccobono and Eve Hill

From the Editor: The following piece appeared on the Expert Analysis page of the website Law360.com on April 23, 2026. It is written by President Riccobono and Eve Hill, general counsel to the National Federation of the Blind. The footnotes that appeared in the original have been omitted.

The bipartisan Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, has existed nearly as long as the internet. Since its enactment, which Bush touted as his greatest achievement, government entities—specifically state and local governments—have moved online. Applying for benefits, getting an education, paying taxes, accessing public records, and participating in civic life increasingly happens through websites and mobile applications. For those with disabilities, the ADA promises that those digital doors should be open to them. However, state and local governments claimed that they needed more regulatory direction. In April 2024, they got it when the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a final regulation governing the accessibility of state and local governments’ web information and services.

Then, ahead of the regulation’s April 2026 and 2027 compliance dates, the DOJ announced on April 20 that it was moving the compliance dates back a year. This delay negatively affects all involved and is not necessary.

The 2024 rule was hardly a surprise to Title II covered entities. It was published in April 2024 after fourteen years of public process and consideration, and nearly 1,000 comments from stakeholders. Notably, the rule provided a series of exceptions—for archived content, preexisting documents, individualized password-protected documents, and third-party content—that do not currently exist under the effective communication requirement of the ADA. It also provided delayed compliance dates of two and three years from its issuance, depending on entity size. So rather than burdening state and local governments, the rule actually reduced the burdens on those entities.

For disabled Americans who have waited decades for reliable access to government services online, the 2024 rule represents long-overdue progress. It also provides the exact regulatory clarity that public entities spent years requesting. For example, it spells out the precise technical standard that is to be used to determine if and when a website or mobile app is fully accessible, thus giving entities a firm benchmark to measure against and a legal defense if the resource’s accessibility is called into question. Nonetheless, the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities asked that the deadline be extended to mid-2027. The DOJ’s new interim final rule grants an extension of an additional year for entities with populations of 50,000 or more to comply and extends the deadline to 2028 for entities with smaller populations.

The DOJ is providing the public with an opportunity to comment on the interim final rule until June 22. And on top of the unjustified delay, the DOJ indicated that it might not be done undermining or eliminating the 2024 rule. Without further specification, it stated that “the Department plans to engage in future rulemaking processes related to the substantive requirements of the 2024 final rule.”

The DOJ says that its primary reason for issuing the interim final rule is cost; it cites the arguments of lobbyists and its purported internal findings that governments simply don’t have the resources to meet the regulatory requirements. But the legal obligations won’t actually change in the absence of the regulations, as the DOJ itself acknowledges. Instead, covered entities will simply have to dedicate resources toward other ways of maintaining effective communication with disabled residents. For example, in the absence of an accessible website, they will need to staff phone lines so that blind people who cannot access their services online can do so over the phone, and that will likely require hiring more employees. This won’t save money; it will likely cost even more than making websites and mobile apps accessible.

Furthermore, delaying the regulation does nothing to decrease the legal exposure of these entities, which can still be sued by private individuals or the federal government for denying access to people with disabilities, which is already required by the ADA. Finally, as the DOJ also acknowledges, disabled citizens will be forced to request that individual documents and resources that are inaccessible be made accessible during the delay. Local governments may well find themselves inundated with such requests, which means that rather than focusing on overall compliance, as the DOJ claims to hope for, they will be spending their limited staff and resources putting out accessibility fires. In short, rather than relieving costs and burdens, the delay simply imposes more.

At the same time, the cost to people with disabilities is already high, and the consequences of delay are implacable. For instance, delay is not an abstraction for a blind college student who cannot submit an assignment because a university website is inaccessible. Will the university grant an extension of the assignment deadline? Likewise, for a disabled resident who is trying to apply for benefits, pay taxes, or access public records, inaccessible websites mean exclusion from essential services. Will their tax deadline be excused because the online payment system is inaccessible or because they are waiting for the city or county to remediate the inaccessible tax bill they received?

The legal obligation is not new. The ADA’s requirement for equally effective communication has existed for more than thirty years and the 2024 rule clarified how that obligation applies to the modern digital world. The compliance delay and the very real possibility that the rule will be further undermined or eliminated ultimately benefit no one. The cost to disabled Americans is clear, but state and local governments do not benefit either, as nothing about the delay changes their legal obligations or materially diminishes the risk of costly litigation. Likewise, covered entities should not take any comfort in the idea that the DOJ may substantively change the regulation, as that process will take more time and create more uncertainty. The interim final rule should therefore be rescinded, and governments should get down to the work of collaborating with their disabled citizens to create an online environment that is accessible to everyone. If they do, the end result will be better for all concerned.