A good accessibility statement example has five things in it: the standard and level you tested against, a conformance status that is scoped rather than absolute, the specific barriers you already know about, who tested and when, and a route to a person who can help. Three statements published right now do all five in different ways. GOV.UK says it is "partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard" and then names the failures. The European Commission names the exact standard version, EN 301 549 v3.2.1, and says an IAAP-qualified expert reviewed a sample of pages. Sanofi, a private company working without a mandated template, lists which of its own dropdowns break under a keyboard. Most statements that get a business into trouble are not lying. They claim something unscoped, with no test behind it, and no date. That is the difference this guide is about, with the real wording from each of the three.
What makes an accessibility statement honest?
Five elements, and the order matters less than whether each one is actually there.
- The standard and the version. "WCAG 2.1 Level AA" tells a reader something. "Accessible" does not.
- A scoped status. Which site, which content, as of when. A status without a scope is a slogan.
- Named barriers. The parts that fail today, described so a user can recognise them.
- The testing behind it. Who tested, with what, and on what date. Self-assessment is fine if you say it is self-assessment.
- A way to reach a person, ideally with a response window.
The W3C's own guidance is blunt about the limit of the genre: accessibility statements "are not technical assessments or declarations of conformity" (W3C WAI, March 2021). They are a public record of where you stand and what you are doing about it. Read that way, "partially compliant" stops looking like an admission of failure and starts looking like the only status most sites can honestly publish.
What does GOV.UK's accessibility statement get right?
GOV.UK opens with the status sentence and immediately hands it off to the evidence: "This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below" (GOV.UK). Then it lists them, individually, in language a user rather than an auditor would use. "Some tables do not have table row or column headers." "Some pages include videos without captions."
The provenance is there too. The statement was prepared on 23 September 2019 and last reviewed on 29 January 2026, and the site was tested in March 2025 against WCAG 2.2 AA by the Digital Accessibility Centre. Complaints route to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with the Equality Advisory and Support Service named for users who want help first.
Two things here are worth copying regardless of which law binds you. The status sentence points at a list instead of standing alone, and the list is written in plain barriers instead of success-criterion numbers. A user who cannot read a table of numbers can still tell whether their problem is a known one.
What does the European Commission's statement add?
The Commission's statement says the site "is partially compliant with technical standard EN 301 549 v.3.2.1 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA" (European Commission). That version number is doing real work. EN 301 549 has more than one version in circulation, and the one carrying a presumption of conformity is not always the newest draft, so a statement that names only "EN 301 549" leaves a reader guessing which requirements were in play. Our EN 301 549 guide covers which version applies when.
The method is stated rather than implied: a review of a representative sample of web pages by an IAAP-qualified accessibility expert, using a combination of manual and automated testing. It was last reviewed on 28 July 2026, and the feedback route commits to a reply within 15 business days. The named barriers are specific enough to be checkable, including video player keyboard navigation, captions without speaker identification, graphs that rely on colour, and animations that cannot be paused.
Where it falls short of its own sector's model is the grouping. The public-sector template in Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523 asks providers to sort non-accessible content by reason, separating plain non-compliance from disproportionate burden and from content outside the law's scope. The Commission's list does not split them, which makes it harder to tell which gaps are scheduled for a fix and which are being claimed as exempt.
How does a private company write one without a template?
Private providers under the European Accessibility Act get no mandatory form, so the private-sector examples show what people do when nobody hands them a structure. Sanofi's statement says the site "and its regional variants are partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA" (Sanofi, December 2025).
What makes it usable is the testing section. It names the tool, Deque's axe Monitor, alongside manual WCAG 2.2 A and AA testing done primarily in Chrome with VoiceOver, on desktop and mobile viewports. That combination is the honest one, and saying so publicly is unusual. The barriers are named at a level someone can verify: missing skip links, focus order and visibility problems across viewports, keyboard inaccessibility in the careers modal and some dropdowns, contrast and naming problems in the global menu. There is a real feedback address rather than a generic contact form.
The gap is workarounds. The statement tells a keyboard user that a dropdown does not work and stops there, with no alternative route to the same task. That is the single cheapest improvement most statements could make, and almost nobody makes it. If a barrier has a workaround, the statement is where the user will look for it.
Can you honestly claim full conformance?
Yes, if you scope the claim tightly enough to be falsifiable. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative does exactly that for its own site: "WAI website content posted since May 2018 fully conforms to WCAG 2.1 Level AA" (W3C WAI, July 2025). Look at what that sentence puts on the record. It fixes a date boundary and names the version and level, and it labels the method plainly as self-evaluation. Content published before May 2018 is described separately as conforming to older versions and mostly archived without updates. Even with the claim made, the statement still names limitations, including videos hosted on YouTube with MP4 alternatives on W3C servers.
Compare that with the unscoped version, which has a price attached. In April 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission approved a final order requiring the overlay vendor accessiBe to pay $1 million over representations that its widget could make any website WCAG-compliant, and the order bars that claim unless the company has evidence to support it (FTC, 22 April 2025). The finding was not about the code. It was about a compliance claim with nothing behind it, which is precisely the shape of a bad statement.
My own view, after reading a lot of these: a scoped "partially conformant" with the barriers named one by one is a stronger document than a clean bill of health, and buyers who read statements for a living already know it. The statement that worries a procurement reviewer is the one with no dates in it.
What does the EAA require you to write?
The European Accessibility Act sets out content, not form. Annex V of Directive (EU) 2019/882 requires a general description of the service in accessible formats, the explanations needed to understand how it operates, and a description of how the service meets each applicable accessibility requirement in Annex I. Article 13 is the duty to prepare that information, keep it for as long as the service runs, and make it public. The EAA overview works through which parts of Annex I apply to which sectors.
That third element is the honest one, and it is where the examples above earn their keep. EN 301 549 Annex C gives you a per-requirement structure: go through each applicable clause and mark it met, partially met, or not met, with a note. Filling that in truthfully needs both layers of testing. Deque's analysis of more than 2,000 audits covering nearly 300,000 issues found automated testing identified about 57% of issues by volume, and estimates counting the share of WCAG success criteria a tool can evaluate at all land nearer 30% (Deque, March 2021). The remainder is human work with a keyboard and a screen reader. Our WCAG checklist covers the manual criteria a scanner cannot settle, and the accessibility statement guide covers the document itself in more detail.
Which phrases quietly over-claim?
These are the four patterns I see most, with what each one is missing.
| What people publish | What is missing | A version that survives review |
|---|---|---|
| "This site is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant." | Scope, date, method | "Tested against WCAG 2.1 AA in June 2026 by an external auditor; partially conformant, with the exceptions listed below." |
| "We are committed to accessibility for all users." | A status of any kind | Keep the commitment, then state where the site stands today. |
| "Accessibility powered by [widget]." | Evidence, and a claim the vendor can stand behind | Describe what you tested and fixed in your own code. |
| "If you have trouble, contact us." | A named route and a response time | "Email accessibility@example.com and we will reply within 10 working days." |
You can draft a structured version with our accessibility statement generator, which produces the per-requirement layout rather than a paragraph of intent. It cannot decide your status for you, and that part is the point.
Frequently asked questions
What does a good accessibility statement example look like?
It names the standard and level, gives a scoped conformance status, lists the barriers that exist today, says who tested and when, and offers a contact route. GOV.UK, the European Commission and Sanofi all publish statements with those elements, each phrased differently.
Should my statement say "partially compliant"?
If your testing shows gaps, yes. Partial conformance is the normal published status for large sites, including the European Commission's own, and it is stronger than an unscoped compliance claim because a reader can check it against the list of exceptions underneath.
Can an accessibility statement claim full conformance?
Only if the claim is scoped and evidenced. W3C WAI states that its content posted since May 2018 fully conforms to WCAG 2.1 Level AA, under self-evaluation, and still lists limitations. A claim with no date boundary, version or method behind it is the kind the FTC's April 2025 accessiBe order targets.
Does the EAA give me a template for the statement?
No. Annex V of the EAA specifies three content elements but no mandatory form for private service providers. The prescriptive five-section template belongs to the public-sector Web Accessibility Directive, and private businesses may borrow its structure without being bound by it.
Can a scan tell me my conformance status?
Not on its own. Automated testing finds roughly 57% of issues by volume and can evaluate around 30% of WCAG success criteria, so a scan gives you the machine-detectable part of the picture and human review supplies the rest.
Write the statement from real results
A statement is only as good as the testing underneath it, which means the testing comes first. Run a free scan on the pages that matter, work the manual checklist over what a scanner cannot judge, then write down what you found. You will end up with named barriers and a date, which is what every statement in this post has and what the weak ones do not.
Pavel Charkasau, founder, wcagc.com. Last updated 14 September 2026.
Sources
- Developing an Accessibility Statement, W3C WAI — recommended elements; statements are not technical assessments or declarations of conformity. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Accessibility statement for GOV.UK — partial-compliance wording, named failures, Digital Accessibility Centre testing in March 2025, EHRC enforcement route. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Accessibility statement, European Commission — EN 301 549 v3.2.1 and WCAG 2.1 AA status, IAAP-qualified expert sample review, 15-business-day feedback window. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Accessibility statement: partial compliance, Sanofi — private-sector partial-conformance wording, axe Monitor plus manual VoiceOver testing, December 2025 preparation date. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Web Accessibility Initiative website accessibility statement, W3C WAI — date-scoped full-conformance claim under self-evaluation, with named limitations. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Directive (EU) 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act), EUR-Lex — Annex V information elements; Article 13 duty to prepare, keep and publish. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523, EUR-Lex — model public-sector statement: grouping non-accessible content by non-compliance, disproportionate burden or content outside scope. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- FTC approves final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million, Federal Trade Commission — order of 22 April 2025 barring unsubstantiated WCAG-compliance claims. Accessed 14 September 2026.
- Automated testing identifies 57% of accessibility issues, Deque — 2,000+ audits, ~300,000 issues, March 2021. Accessed 14 September 2026.