Accessibility lawsuits could pass 6,000 this year. A widget will not keep you out of one.

UsableNet, a company that tracks US digital accessibility lawsuits, published its mid-year figures in July. Based on filings up to 14 June, it expects 6,176 lawsuits over websites and apps in 2026. That is nearly 20% more than in 2025, when it counted more than 5,000.

The rest of its numbers are more useful to an owner deciding whether this is their problem:

• 79 to 80% of the lawsuits target ecommerce.
• 68% of the companies sued had annual revenue under $50 million.
• About 20% of them had an accessibility overlay or widget installed when they were sued.
• The ten busiest law firms filed about 84% of the cases, and demand letters that never reach court are estimated at two to three times the number of lawsuits.

In September alone UsableNet logged 360 new lawsuits. 91 of those companies had a widget on their site, and 78 had been sued before.

Why a widget does not stop accessibility lawsuits

Overlay widgets add a button to your site that lets visitors change text size, contrast and the like, and many are sold with the promise of making a site compliant with one line of code. The lawsuits keep coming anyway, because the problems they point to are in the site’s own code: a button a screen reader cannot name, a form field with no label, a checkout step that cannot be finished with a keyboard. A layer on top does not change that code.

The US Federal Trade Commission took a view on the marketing, too. In April 2025 it finalised an order requiring accessiBe, one of the best-known widget makers, to pay $1 million and stop claiming that its automated tool can make any site meet the WCAG standard without evidence.

What the scanners find

Every year WebAIM tests the home pages of the top one million websites. Its 2026 report, published on 30 March, found detectable errors on 95.9% of them, with an average of 56.1 errors per page, up 10% on the year before.

The same four errors top the list every year, and they are the cheapest to fix:

1. Low-contrast text, on 83.9% of home pages. Light grey on white, white on a pale photo.
2. Images without alt text, on 53.1%. Product photos, logos and icons that say nothing to a screen reader.
3. Form fields without labels, on 51%. Newsletter boxes and search bars that rely on placeholder text.
4. Empty links, on 46.3%. Icon links, such as a basket or social icons, with no text behind them.

These are also the errors automated tools catch easily, which is how many of the lawsuits start.

Europe has started too

The European Accessibility Act has applied to most online shops selling to EU consumers since 28 June 2025. We have not found a confirmed fine under it yet. Courts are moving first.

On 4 June 2026 a court in Caen, France, ordered Carrefour to make carrefour.fr and its app accessible within six months, under a daily penalty, in a case brought by two disability associations. Carrefour argued that being 71% compliant was enough. The court disagreed: the duty is to reach the standard, not to get close. A month earlier a court in Lille had turned down a similar case against Auchan’s online business, on the question of whether its turnover put it inside the law. Expect more of these, and expect the threshold questions to be argued case by case.

In the US, the Department of Justice gave state and local governments one more year to meet its web rule: the deadline for larger ones is now 26 April 2027. That rule does not cover private businesses, whose risk comes from the lawsuits above.

Where to start

You do not need to fix everything before you fix something. In order:

1. Run a free checker such as WAVE or Lighthouse on your home page, a product or service page, and checkout. Fix contrast, alt text, labels and empty links first.
2. Put the mouse away. Use only the Tab, Enter and arrow keys to choose a product, add it to the basket and reach payment. Wherever you get stuck, a keyboard or screen reader user does too.
3. Test the parts apps add. Pop-ups, size pickers, review widgets and chat bubbles are often the worst offenders, and they come from third parties.
4. Publish an accessibility statement with a contact address, and answer what comes in.
5. Keep a fix log with dates. It shows good faith if you are ever asked.
6. Check again after every theme or app change. Accessibility breaks the same way it was fixed: one release at a time.

The target is WCAG 2.2 at level AA, which is what US settlements and the EU rules point to. A proper audit by a person, with a screen reader, finds what the tools miss. The free checks above will show you how much work there is first.

Our accessibility service audits your site against WCAG 2.2 and fixes what the scanners and accessibility lawsuits point to.