“We don’t have a storefront, so the ADA doesn’t apply to our website, right?” Owners ask some version of that all the time, usually right after a competitor gets a letter, and it is a fair question. The answers sit in one part of the law: Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the way courts have applied it to websites.
This post explains ADA Title III website accessibility in plain terms: which businesses Title III reaches, how websites got pulled into it, what lawyers mean when they argue about a “nexus,” and why online-only businesses are the unsettled part. It is general information, not legal advice. Whether Title III applies to your business, and how a court near you reads it, is a question for your own attorney.
What Title III covers in the first place
Title III is the part of the ADA written for the private sector. Its key term is “public accommodation,” and rather than define it in the abstract, the law lists categories of places. The categories are wide. In everyday terms it includes:
- Hotels, inns and other places to stay.
- Restaurants, bars and other places that serve food or drink.
- Movie theaters, concert halls, stadiums and other places of entertainment.
- Stores, shopping centers and other sales or rental businesses.
- Service businesses: banks, law and accounting offices, doctors and dentists, pharmacies, dry cleaners, salons, insurance offices.
- Museums, libraries and galleries run privately, private schools, day care centers, gyms, golf courses and similar places.
Notice what the list is built on: the kind of business, not its headcount. A corner cafe sits in the same category as a national chain. How size plays out in practice is covered in our post on what the ADA means for a small business website.
Title III does not cover everything. State and local governments fall under Title II, which now has its own web rule; cities, counties and school districts should read our ADA Title II website compliance page instead. Federal agencies work under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, explained on our Section 508 website compliance page. And employment questions fall under a different part of the ADA altogether.
ADA Title III website accessibility: how websites came into it
The ADA predates the commercial web. Its list of public accommodations describes physical places, and the text says nothing about websites.
As more of daily life moved online, people with disabilities ran into a new kind of barrier: the restaurant was wheelchair accessible, but its online ordering form could not be used with a screen reader. The bank branch had a ramp, but the account login trapped keyboard users. Claims followed, and courts had to work out how a law written about places applies to pages.
The federal agency in charge of enforcement, the DOJ, took the position long ago that Title III reaches what public accommodations put on the web. In March 2022 it put that in writing in a guidance document on web accessibility. Our explainer on what the DOJ’s web guidance says walks through it. There is still no Title III regulation naming a technical test for business sites. Audits and demand letters fill that gap with WCAG, usually its AA level (2.1 or the newer 2.2); see how the ADA and WCAG relate if that distinction is new to you.
The DOJ’s own explanations are on ADA.gov, which is the right place to check for anything that has changed.
What a “nexus” argument means in plain terms
Here is where courts started to differ. One approach says a website is covered when it is connected closely enough to a physical place of public accommodation. Lawyers call that connection a nexus.
Under that kind of reasoning, the question is not “is this a website?” but “does this website help people use the goods and services of the physical business?” Some examples make it concrete:
| What the website does | How closely it ties to the physical business |
|---|---|
| Online ordering for pickup or delivery from a restaurant | Closely: the site is a way into the restaurant’s service |
| Booking an appointment at a clinic, salon or office | Closely: the site schedules a visit to the place |
| Store locator, hours, in-store coupons | Directly: the site helps people find and use the store |
| Refilling a prescription for pickup at a pharmacy | Closely: the site handles part of the service |
| A blog with general articles, unrelated to any service | Loosely, and more open to argument |
These rows illustrate the reasoning; they are not predictions of how any court would rule. For public accommodation websites tied to a physical location, this approach usually means the parts of the site customers rely on to reach the business are in scope. That is most of what a small business site does.
Online-only businesses and the court split
The harder case is a business with no physical place open to the public at all: an online store shipping from a warehouse, a subscription service, a web-based tool.
Courts have not agreed. Some have read “place of public accommodation” as tied to a physical location, so a business with no such place falls outside Title III, or at least needs that connection for its website to be covered. Others have read the law more broadly and found that a business can be a public accommodation even if it operates only online. Because federal appeals courts have taken different views from region to region, the same website could face different arguments depending on where a claim is filed.
We are not going to tell you which view wins, because it is not settled and we are not lawyers. If your business is online-only and you want a view on your exposure, that is a direct question for an attorney who knows the courts where you do business.
Why coverage matters less than it seems
Owners understandably want the coverage question answered first. But think about what each answer leads to.
If Title III clearly covers you, the sensible move is a WCAG 2.2 AA review of your site, repairs to whatever stops people, and upkeep afterward. If coverage is uncertain, the sensible move is exactly the same, because the uncertainty itself is a risk, and because a claim can arrive even when a business believes it has a good argument. If you are confident you are outside Title III, your customers with disabilities still cannot use an inaccessible checkout, and a competitor’s site that works will win their business.
That is the odd thing about ADA Title III website accessibility: the legal question shapes your risk, but it barely changes the work. The work is the same set of barriers on the same kinds of templates: menus, forms, product or service pages, booking and checkout, images, video and documents.
A practical order for a Title III business
- Write down the tasks customers come to your site to do: book, order, call, find hours, pay, apply.
- Try each of those tasks without a mouse and with a screen reader running, not only with a scanner.
- Fix blockers in the theme, plugins and forms first, then content.
- Check the third-party tools you embed, since they are part of the experience.
- Record what you fixed and when, and publish a way for visitors to report problems.
For the wider view, including how this part of the law sits next to the government and federal rules, our guide to what the ADA expects of business websites pulls it together, and our hub of website accessibility services explains how audit, fixes and monitoring fit.
Frequently asked questions
Does Title III apply to my website if my business has a physical location?
If your business is a public accommodation, such as a store, restaurant, clinic or professional office, the DOJ’s position is that Title III reaches its web content. The nexus reasoning applies most clearly to sites that help people book, order or visit the physical business. Ask a lawyer how this applies to your situation.
Why do lawyers keep mentioning where a claim is filed?
Because federal courts in different regions have read Title III differently when it comes to websites, especially for businesses with no physical location. The court where a claim is filed can therefore affect which arguments are available. Only an attorney who knows those courts can say what that means for you.
Are any private organizations left out of Title III?
The statute exempts private clubs and religious organizations. Separately, state and local governments fall under Title II, and federal agencies have their own rules such as Section 508. Whether an exemption fits a particular organization is a legal question, so check with a lawyer before relying on one.
What does a court look at when deciding whether a website has a nexus?
In general terms, courts using that approach ask how closely the website is tied to the goods and services of a physical place: ordering, booking, finding a location or using a service. The specific tests differ between courts. Treat this as background only; your lawyer can say how it applies to you.
We handle the technical part: checking your key tasks with WCAG 2.2 AA as the yardstick, repairing what fails, and writing down each change. Our page on ADA website compliance for Title III businesses explains the process. Legal questions stay with your lawyer.
Next in this series: DOJ Website Accessibility Guidance in Plain Words
