Is My Website WCAG 2.2 AA Compliant? How to Check

Short answer: you can't know for certain without testing — and no single tool can tell you for sure. WCAG 2.2 AA has dozens of success criteria, and only some of them can be checked automatically. The good news is that a structured approach gets you a clear, honest picture fast. Here's how to do it.

What "WCAG 2.2 AA compliant" actually means

WCAG (the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the standard most accessibility laws point to, including the EU Accessibility Act and many ADA-related expectations. Level AA is the common target — it includes Level A plus the additional AA criteria. Version 2.2 is the current release and builds on 2.0 and 2.1. "Compliant" means every page meets every applicable Level A and AA success criterion — not just most of them.

Step 1 — Run an automated scan first

Automated testing is the right first move because it's fast and catches the high-volume, machine-detectable failures. A scanner reliably finds things like:

Images with no text alternative
Insufficient colour contrast
Form inputs without labels
Empty links and buttons
Missing page language or document title
Broken heading and landmark structure
Duplicate or invalid ARIA attributes

Free scanner (coming soon) with WCAGwise — it runs the axe-core engine entirely in your browser and lists issues worst-first with the exact WCAG criterion and a "how to fix" pointer for each. Nothing is uploaded; the scan happens on your device.

Step 2 — Understand what automation can't catch

This is the part most "instant compliance" claims gloss over. Independent analyses generally agree that automated tools detect only a portion of WCAG issues — the rest require human judgement. You'll see specific percentages quoted for this, but they vary widely by methodology and site, so treat any single number with caution. What's not in dispute is the direction: a clean automated scan is necessary but not sufficient.

Things a machine generally can't judge for you:

Whether alt text is meaningful — a tool sees that alt exists, not whether it describes the image correctly.
Whether reading and focus order make sense to a screen-reader user.
Whether keyboard interaction actually works end to end (custom widgets, modals, menus).
Whether link text is descriptive out of context ("click here" passes a contrast check but fails users).
Whether captions and transcripts are accurate, not just present.
Whether error messages are clear and genuinely help someone recover.

Step 3 — Do the manual checks

After the automated pass, run these by hand on your key pages and flows (homepage, a product page, checkout or sign-up, contact form):

Keyboard only: unplug the mouse. Can you Tab to and operate every control, with a visible focus indicator and no traps?
Screen reader: turn on VoiceOver (Mac), NVDA (Windows), or your browser's built-in reader and listen to a full page.
Zoom to 200% and reflow: does content stay readable and usable without horizontal scrolling?
Headings outline: does the heading structure form a logical outline with no skipped levels?
Forms: are labels, instructions, and errors clear and announced?
Media: captions on video, transcripts for audio.

Step 4 — Test more than one page

Compliance is per page, not per site. A clean homepage tells you little about your checkout. Test a representative sample of templates and critical user journeys — that's where the costly failures usually hide.

Step 5 — Fix, document, and re-test

Prioritise issues worst-first by severity and user impact, fix the blockers, then re-scan to confirm. Keep a record of what you tested and fixed — it supports an accessibility statement and shows good-faith effort if your compliance is ever questioned. For the legal context, see our EAA deadline and penalties guide.

So — is your site compliant?

You'll have a confident answer once you've combined an automated scan with the manual checks above across your important pages. Be wary of any product or widget that promises instant, guaranteed compliance from a single line of code — see why accessibility overlays don't equal compliance.

Start checking now

Free scanner (coming soon) with WCAGwise to find the machine-detectable issues in seconds, then work through the manual checklist. When you need to evidence the work, export an EAA-mapped report — see the Pro report option. WCAGwise is an audit aid, not a legal guarantee of compliance.

Is my website WCAG 2.2 AA compliant? How to check