WCAG 3.0 explained: what the 2026 draft changes — and why WCAG 2.2 AA still rules

WCAG 3.0 is a W3C Working Draft, most recently updated in March 2026, that rethinks how accessibility is measured: scored, outcome-based requirements instead of pass/fail success criteria, plus a new category of "assertions" about your process. It is years away from being a finished standard — and even after it's final, the W3C says WCAG 2 won't be deprecated for years more. Every accessibility law you have to satisfy today, from the European Accessibility Act to ADA Title II, points at WCAG 2.1 AA.

Here's what's actually in the draft, what's still undecided, and what it means for your roadmap.

What WCAG 3.0 is (and isn't)

The W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0 draft is the long-running "Silver" project to succeed WCAG 2. It aims to cover more user needs (especially cognitive and low-vision needs that binary tests handle poorly), more technology than web pages, and to measure accessibility in a way that rewards improvement instead of only recording failure.

What it isn't: a replacement you can adopt today. The draft itself is unambiguous — "WCAG 3 does not replace WCAG 2. WCAG 2 is used around the world and will still be required by different countries for a long time to come" (W3C).

What the March 2026 draft actually contains

The current draft, dated March 2026, restructures the guidelines around requirements (the term that replaced "outcomes" in earlier drafts) grouped under guidelines (W3C WAI). Three structural ideas matter most:

• Core vs. supplemental requirements. Core requirements are the testable, mandatory baseline; supplemental requirements capture accessibility improvements beyond it (W3C).
• Conditional applicability. Requirements carry "applies when" and "except when" clauses, so a requirement about, say, media alternatives only applies to content that has media — rather than WCAG 2's blanket success criteria plus a "not applicable" convention.
• Assertions. A genuinely new idea: documented, attributable claims that your organization followed a procedure — usability testing with assistive-technology users, for example. They acknowledge that some accessibility qualities can't be verified by inspecting a page.

Just as important is the maturity labeling. Every section of the draft is tagged Placeholder, Exploratory, Developing, Refining, or Mature — and the current draft's requirements sit at Developing, with the document itself noting several years of work remain (W3C). Nothing in it is stable enough to build a compliance program on.

Scoring instead of pass/fail — still in flux

WCAG 2 conformance is binary: a success criterion passes or fails, and a single failure at Level AA means the page doesn't conform. WCAG 3's working model is different: outcomes are rated on a scale (the project's explainer describes 0–4 ratings aggregated across functional categories), feeding overall conformance levels — proposed as Bronze, Silver, and Gold, where Bronze is the baseline, and Silver and Gold add requirements like usability and assistive-technology testing (W3C Silver explainer).

The honest caveat: the explainer itself flags the scoring and conformance model as under extensive revision, and the March 2026 draft describes multiple conformance levels without committing to final names or thresholds (W3C). Anyone selling you a "WCAG 3.0 Bronze certification" today is selling something the W3C hasn't defined — the same pattern of overpromising we've written about with accessibility overlays.

The realistic timeline

The W3C's own introduction page, updated March 2026, says WCAG 3 "is not expected to be a completed W3C standard for a few more years," with the working group planning to publish a projected timeline (W3C WAI). Before final publication it still has to pass through wide review, Candidate Recommendation (where implementations are tested), and Proposed Recommendation.

And the end of that road isn't a switch-over. The same W3C page states: "WCAG 3 will not supersede WCAG 2 and WCAG 2 will not be deprecated for at least several years after WCAG 3 is finalized." Laws and procurement rules take longer still — most regulations reference a specific WCAG version and only move after lengthy rule-making.

Why WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA remain the legal reference

Look at what current law actually cites:

• European Accessibility Act. The harmonized standard EN 301 549 incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web content, and conforming to it gives a presumption of conformity with the EAA's requirements (Deque). An update to EN 301 549 is expected in 2026, and it is an update within the WCAG 2 world — not a jump to WCAG 3 (Level Access).
• ADA Title II (US). The Department of Justice's rule for state and local government web content adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard, with compliance dates now set at April 26, 2027 and April 26, 2028 after a one-year extension (Federal Register; ADA.gov).

Meanwhile WCAG 2.2 is the current W3C Recommendation, published in 2023 as a backwards-compatible extension of 2.1. Testing against WCAG 2.2 AA therefore covers you for every 2.1 AA legal requirement while picking up the newer criteria (focus appearance, dragging alternatives, accessible authentication) that future rules are most likely to adopt.

The practical conclusion: for at least the next several years, "accessible" in a legal sense means WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA. WCAG 3.0 is where the field is going; WCAG 2 is what you'll be measured against.

What teams should do with this

• Keep your target at WCAG 2.2 AA. It satisfies today's 2.1 AA legal baselines and future-proofs against the likeliest next step. Our accessibility guides break the criteria down by failure pattern.
• Read the WCAG 3 drafts for direction, not obligation. Two ideas are worth adopting early because they'll age well: fix the issues that block whole task flows first (WCAG 3's scoring is built to punish those hardest), and document your process — assertions are a strong hint that "show your work" will be part of future conformance.
• Don't buy WCAG 3 tooling claims yet. Until requirements reach Mature status and the conformance model stabilizes, no scanner can honestly score you against WCAG 3.

One thing that doesn't change across WCAG versions: you need to know which failures exist on your real pages, get them to the right developer with enough context to fix, and prove they stayed fixed. That's the loop BugPort automates — WCAG scans mapped to success criteria, findings turned into tickets with element-level evidence, and a re-scan history that shows your remediation trend. It measures against WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA, because that's the standard that counts today. Run a free WCAG audit to see where you stand.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice.

FAQ

When will WCAG 3.0 be finished?

The W3C says WCAG 3 "is not expected to be a completed W3C standard for a few more years" (W3C WAI), and the March 2026 draft's requirements are all still at "Developing" maturity. Treat any specific year you read elsewhere as an estimate, not a commitment.

Will Bronze just equal WCAG 2.2 AA?

That's the rough intent floated in earlier drafts — Bronze as the baseline level, comparable in spirit to today's AA — but the scoring and conformance model is explicitly under revision (W3C Silver explainer). No equivalence is final.

Should we test against WCAG 3.0 now?

No — there's nothing stable to test against, and no law references it. Test against WCAG 2.2 AA, and skim the WCAG 3 drafts once or twice a year to see where the model is heading.

Will the EAA or ADA switch to WCAG 3.0?

Eventually, probably — but regulations cite specific versions and change slowly. The EAA's EN 301 549 and the ADA Title II rule both reference WCAG 2.1 AA today, and the W3C says WCAG 2 won't be deprecated for at least several years after WCAG 3 is finalized (W3C WAI).