WCAG 2.2 AA: All 55 Requirements Explained in Plain English

Last updated: October 13, 2026

WCAG 2.2 AA is the accessibility standard most courts, regulators, and enterprise contracts point to by name: 55 of the specification's 87 numbered success criteria — 31 Level A, 24 Level AA — define what "accessible" means in practice. This page explains every one of those 55 requirements in plain language, what changed since WCAG 2.1, and how each rule plays out on a real ecommerce store.

Key numbers: WCAG 2.2 numbers 87 success criteria; one, 4.1.1 Parsing, is obsolete, leaving 86 in force and 55 at Levels A and AA combined (W3C). WCAG 2.2 added nine new success criteria, six at Level A or AA — the first substantive addition since 2.1 (W3C, What's New in WCAG 2.2). In 2026, 95.9% of the top one million home pages carried a detectable WCAG failure, averaging 56.1 errors per page (WebAIM Million 2026). Ecommerce sites are named in 69–77% of digital accessibility lawsuits (Seyfarth Shaw). As of August 2026, TestParty has remediated more than 35 million accessibility issues, with automated detection covering roughly 60–70% of them.

What Is WCAG 2.2 Level AA?

WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the current version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at the level most laws, courts, and contracts reference — 55 specific, testable rules a website must satisfy to be considered accessible.

The full specification numbers 87 success criteria, but 4.1.1 Parsing was made obsolete in the 2.2 release, leaving 86 in force. Of those, 55 sit at Level A or AA (31 and 24); the rest are Level AAA, a stricter tier the W3C does not recommend as blanket policy for whole sites, since some AAA criteria can't be met by every content type. The 55 A and AA criteria organize under four principles — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust, or POUR. WCAG is maintained by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative and has moved through 2.0 (2008), 2.1 (2018), and 2.2 (October 2023); each version is backward-compatible, so meeting 2.2 AA also satisfies 2.1 AA and 2.0 AA.

What Changed From WCAG 2.1 to WCAG 2.2?

WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023, adding nine new success criteria and formally retiring one — 4.1.1 Parsing — while leaving every WCAG 2.1 criterion otherwise intact.

Six of the nine land at Level A or AA and count toward standard conformance work; the other three sit at Level AAA.

4.1.1 Parsing tested whether HTML was well-formed — no duplicate IDs, properly closed tags. The W3C retired it because modern browsers and assistive technology no longer break over the malformed markup it targeted in 2008; overlapping problems now surface, if at all, under 4.1.2 instead. It stays numbered for citation continuity — hence "87 numbered, 86 in force."

What Are All 55 WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA Requirements?

The 55 Level A and AA success criteria organize under four principles — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust — each covering a different category of barrier, from "can a user detect this" to "does it work with their assistive technology."

The tables below list every one, in plain language, with how it typically shows up on an ecommerce site.

Perceivable (20 criteria)

Operable (20 criteria)

Understandable (13 criteria)

3.2.3 Consistent Navigation (Level AA). If the header reads Home, Shop, Sale, Contact on the homepage, it can't reorder to Shop, Home, Contact, Sale on a collection page — repeated navigation keeps the same relative order on every template, footer and utility icons included. This is the criterion behind TestParty's former standalone guide to 3.2.3; the requirement hasn't changed, only where it's explained.

3.2.4 Consistent Identification (Level AA). Components with the same function need the same name and icon everywhere — a search icon labeled "Search" on one page can't become "Find" on another, and the rule applies equally to a repeated "Add to cart" button or wishlist icon. This is the criterion behind TestParty's former standalone guide to 3.2.4: identical controls should announce identical names, every time.

3.1.2 Language of Parts (Level AA). A passage in a different language than the page's default needs its own `lang` attribute so assistive technology switches pronunciation rules. This is the criterion behind TestParty's former standalone guide to 3.1.2, and it matters most for multilingual catalogs and quoted reviews — a phrase like "crème de la crème" inside English copy should carry `lang="fr"`, or it reads as English-pronunciation noise.

Robust (2 criteria)

Clearing all 55 is what a conformance claim requires — there's no partial-credit version of Level AA. For the dozen criteria that account for most ecommerce failures, ranked by how often they block a purchase, see our WCAG for ecommerce breakdown.

Which WCAG 2.2 AA Failures Drive Lawsuits?

Four failure types recur across nearly every demand letter: missing or meaningless alt text, insufficient contrast, unlabeled forms, and keyboard-inaccessible controls.

WebAIM's 2026 crawl found low-contrast text on 83.9% of the top one million home pages, missing alt text on 53.1%, and missing form labels on 51.0% — easy to document with a screenshot, which is why demand letters name them constantly. Keyboard failures like focus traps don't show up in that crawl at all, but they're overrepresented in complaints because they block the one action — completing a purchase — that gives a plaintiff standing. Ecommerce is named in 69–77% of digital accessibility lawsuits (Seyfarth Shaw), out of proportion to its web share, because a broken checkout is concrete, provable harm.

In TestParty's remediation work across 100+ brands, the same handful of criteria — 1.1.1, 1.4.3, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 3.3.2, and 4.1.2 — account for a disproportionate share of both scan findings and demand-letter violations. Fixing those in source code first, rather than with a runtime patch, closes the gap between a scan report and reduced legal exposure fastest; our guide to WCAG remediation covers how that work gets sequenced.

Is WCAG 2.2 AA a Legal Requirement?

No U.S. or EU law names "WCAG 2.2 AA" directly as a mandatory standard for most private businesses, but regulators, courts, and settlements consistently treat it as the practical benchmark.

The Department of Justice's guidance on web accessibility states that ADA Title III entities "can currently choose how they will ensure" their sites are accessible but "still must ensure" that outcome — no named standard, but a real obligation, and WCAG 2.2 AA is what settlements overwhelmingly specify in practice. DOJ did name a standard for Title II (state and local government sites): WCAG 2.1 AA, with an April 2026 interim rule pushing compliance deadlines to April 2027 for larger public entities and April 2028 for smaller ones. In the EU, the European Accessibility Act has been enforceable since June 28, 2025, with penalties up to €500,000 in some member states; its standard, EN 301 549, currently references WCAG 2.1 AA, with a draft update moving to 2.2 AA. Building to 2.2 AA today satisfies both regimes' current text. (General information, not legal advice; consult qualified counsel about your situation.)

How Do You Test Against WCAG 2.2 AA?

Testing against WCAG 2.2 AA takes two layers: automated scanning that catches roughly 60–70% of issues, and manual keyboard and screen-reader testing that catches the rest.

The automated layer runs a rules engine — axe-core is most widely used — cross-checked against WAVE and Lighthouse. It's precise at contrast ratios, missing alt attributes, unlabeled inputs, but can't judge meaning: `alt="IMG_4471.jpg"` passes every rule while failing 1.1.1 outright. Useful thresholds: Lighthouse 90+, five or fewer WAVE errors, three or fewer axe-core violations — no proof of conformance, but a signal the automatable 60–70% is under control. Our WCAG compliance checker scans the full set as a baseline; our breakdown of what automated testing catches and misses goes deeper.

The manual layer covers what's left: keyboard-only traversal of every purchase path, screen-reader testing with NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver, and triggering real form errors. In TestParty's monthly expert audits, blocker-severity findings — keyboard traps, unlabeled controls, silent status changes — turn up almost every time here, because a rules engine can't detect them by design. For a formal evaluation, see our guide to commissioning a WCAG audit.

How Does WCAG 2.2 AA Apply to Shopify Stores?

Shopify's platform and hosted checkout are built to a genuinely accessible baseline, but a store's theme, apps, and content sit outside that guarantee and get measured against WCAG 2.2 AA independently.

Shopify's Theme Store accessibility bar maps to only 16–22% of WCAG 2.2 success criteria, by TestParty's analysis — passing Theme Store review is a floor, not evidence of AA conformance. Dawn, Shopify's own reference theme, ships with 30–100 detectable violations before customization; premium themes commonly run 100–350. Every app injecting front-end markup adds its own unaudited surface, since App Store review checks functionality and billing, not accessibility. In TestParty's audits of Shopify storefronts, failures concentrate predictably: 1.4.3 contrast on sale pricing, 4.1.2 on custom variant selectors, 2.1.1 on swatches built without keyboard support. For the full mapping of all 55 criteria to theme, app, content, and checkout, see our Shopify WCAG compliance guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does WCAG 2.2 replace WCAG 2.1? Not exactly — 2.2 is backward-compatible, so content conforming to 2.2 AA also satisfies 2.1 AA and 2.0 AA. It adds nine new success criteria and retires one (4.1.1 Parsing). Most organizations now target 2.2 AA because it's the version the W3C actively maintains and the one newer legal references increasingly name.

Do I need to meet Level AAA as well as AA? No. Level AAA adds dozens of stricter criteria the W3C itself says are "not recommended as a general policy for entire sites," since some can't be satisfied by every content type. Level AA is the level named in ADA settlements, DOJ's Title II rule, and the EAA's technical standard.

What exactly happened to 4.1.1 Parsing? The W3C made it obsolete because the malformed-HTML problems it targeted — duplicate IDs, unclosed tags — no longer meaningfully affect how modern browsers and assistive technology parse a page. It stays numbered for citation continuity, but no page fails 4.1.1 under 2.2; related issues now surface under 4.1.2 instead.

Can an automated scan confirm I meet all 55 criteria? No single scan can. Automated tools reliably catch roughly 60–70% of issues — missing alt attributes, contrast failures, empty buttons — but can't judge whether alt text is meaningful or a keyboard trap exists. The rest needs a manual pass with a keyboard and a screen reader.

How long does reaching WCAG 2.2 AA conformance typically take? It depends how many of the 55 criteria a site already meets. A typical audit runs two to six weeks, followed by roughly 14 days for an initial source-code remediation pass on the highest-severity findings, then ongoing monitoring — new content and app installs can reintroduce fixed failures.

This article was produced using TestParty's cyborg approach — AI-assisted research and drafting, validated and refined by our accessibility team. The analysis above represents TestParty's editorial opinions based on publicly available data. As a competitor in the accessibility market, we have a point of view — but we've cited our sources so you can verify every claim independently.