Most likely yes. The Justice Department says the ADA covers businesses open to the public, and that it covers what those businesses offer on the web. What does not exist is a federal rule telling a private company exactly what its website has to do.
The ADA covers your business, and small does not get you out of it
The Justice Department publishes a page called “Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA”, dated March 18, 2022. It says Title III of the ADA “prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by businesses open to the public.” It also says the Department “has consistently taken the position that the ADA’s requirements apply to all the goods, services, privileges, or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web.”
Being a two truck shop does not switch that off. DOJ’s “ADA Update: A Primer for Small Business”, last updated February 28, 2020, says nearly all types of businesses that serve the public fall into the ADA’s 12 categories of public accommodation, “regardless of the size of the business or the age of their buildings.”
None of this is legal advice. DOJ guidance is the Department’s position, not a court ruling in your state. If a letter shows up, that is a question for an attorney licensed where you work, not for your web guy.
While you have the site open, check the other things it is supposed to carry. In a lot of states your license number belongs on the page, and that one is enforced by your own state board.
The 2024 federal web rule is about city hall, not your shop
You have probably heard that the government finally set a web standard. It did. It does not apply to you.
The page on ada.gov about that rule, dated April 8, 2024, says the rule “applies to all state and local governments (which includes any agencies or departments of state or local governments) as well as special purpose districts, Amtrak, and other commuter authorities.” That is Title II of the ADA. Private businesses sit under Title III. This rule does not reach them.
The same page says those governments “must make sure that their web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA within three or four years of when the rule was published on April 24, 2024, depending on their population.” Governments serving 50,000 people or more are on the shorter clock, with a deadline of April 26, 2027. Smaller ones, and special district governments, have until April 26, 2028.
If you bid city, county, or school district work, read the contract anyway. A public entity that has to meet this may push terms down to the people it hires. That would come from the contract you sign, not from the ADA.
Why nobody can hand you the official checklist
DOJ started writing one for private business and stopped. On December 26, 2017, at 82 Federal Register 60932, the Department withdrew four planned rulemakings. One of them, RIN 1190-AA61, was the web accessibility rule for public accommodations. The notice said the Department was “evaluating whether promulgating regulations about the accessibility of Web information and services is necessary and appropriate,” and that pulling the rulemaking was not an interpretation of existing law.
So the law applies and the manual does not exist. The 2022 guidance says it plainly. The Department “does not have a regulation setting out detailed standards, but the Department’s longstanding interpretation of the general nondiscrimination and effective communication provisions applies to web accessibility.” The same page says businesses “have flexibility in how they comply.”
That page points at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the Section 508 Standards as “helpful guidance.” Helpful guidance, not a rule aimed at you.
WCAG is written by the W3C, not by the government. The version people mean is WCAG 2.1, and the copy on w3.org carries a W3C Recommendation date of May 6, 2025. It has three levels: A, AA, and AAA. AA is the one everybody quotes. That page lists 17 success criteria that are new since WCAG 2.0.
Ten checks you can run on your own site this week
The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative publishes “Easy Checks”, a first review written for people who are not experts. That page was last updated August 9, 2023. It walks through ten things:
- Page title
- Image text alternatives, the alt text
- Headings
- Contrast ratio
- Resize text
- Keyboard access and visual focus
- Forms, labels, and errors
- Moving, flashing, or blinking content
- Multimedia alternatives
- Basic structure check
Three of those tend to matter most on a trade site. Alt text on your job photos. A phone number written as real text instead of a picture of one. Labels on every field in your quote form, however few fields you decided to keep.
WAI is blunt about the limit of its own list. A web page “could seem to pass these checks, yet still have significant accessibility barriers.” Ten checks are a start, not a clean bill of health.
What not to buy, and what the IRS may help pay for
Nobody can sell you immunity. DOJ’s guidance sets no standard for private business and names no product. So a vendor who says their widget makes you ADA compliant is quoting a standard the government never wrote.
Be careful with the one line overlay scripts that promise compliance for a monthly fee. That is a claim by a company, and you are the one holding the risk if it turns out to be wrong.
None of the monthly plans on this site include an accessibility audit, and the pricing page does not pretend otherwise. A clean, hand built page with real text and real headings starts out easier to fix than a template stacked with plugins. That is a head start, not a certificate. If any builder tells you their work is ADA compliant out of the box, ask them which standard, which level, and who tested it.
If you do spend money on this, ask your accountant about two federal items. The IRS page “Tax benefits for businesses who have employees with disabilities”, last reviewed June 30, 2026, says an eligible small business for the Disabled Access Credit is “one that earned $1 million or less or had no more than 30 full time employees in the previous year.” The same page says businesses “may claim a deduction of up to $15,000 a year for qualified expenses” for removing barriers. This is not tax advice. Your accountant decides what qualifies on your federal return, and your state may treat it differently.
What to do next
Work in this order. It takes an evening, not a project.
- Open the WAI Easy Checks page and run the ten checks on your home page and your quote form. Write down what fails.
- Fix the cheap ones first. Add alt text to job photos. Turn any phone number that is an image into real text. Put a label on every form field.
- Ask whoever runs your site, in writing, whether they can make those edits and what it costs. Keep the reply.
- If they cannot, or will not, and the contract renews itself every year, that is a separate problem. Here is how to get out of a self renewing website contract.
- If a demand letter arrives, call an attorney in your state before you call anybody selling a fix.
You do not need to buy anything to run those ten checks. Do them first, then decide whether you have a real problem or a sales pitch.