Is my small business website legally required to be accessible?

In most cases, yes. The Equality Act 2010 requires businesses serving the public to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people aren't put at a disadvantage, and that covers your website. There's no routine inspection, but the duty is real and complaints can become legal claims. Building to WCAG 2.2 AA is the practical way to meet it.

What is WCAG and which version should I follow?

WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the internationally recognised standard for accessible websites. Aim for the current version, WCAG 2.2, at level AA. It covers things like colour contrast, keyboard access and clear structure, and it's the benchmark regulators and courts refer to.

How much does an accessible website cost?

Our websites are fixed-price and built to modern accessibility standards from the start: £477 for a Starter site, £1,170 for Growth and £2,370 for Complete, with care plans from £27 a month. SEO work and redesigns are quoted per project. You can see the full breakdown on our [pricing](/pricing) page, with no hourly billing and no surprises.

How long does it take to build or fix a site?

Most of our sites go live in three to six weeks, depending on how many pages you need and how quickly the content comes together. Fixing accessibility issues on an existing site is usually faster, since it's targeted work rather than a full rebuild.

Could I really be taken to court over an inaccessible website?

It's possible, though it's more common for large organisations than for corner shops. Under the Equality Act, a disabled person who can't use your site could bring a claim. Realistically, the bigger day-to-day risk for a small business is quietly losing customers who give up and go elsewhere. Either way, fixing the basics removes the worry.

Resources / Websites

Website Accessibility Law in the UK: What You Must Know

By Mohammad Javad Samadi·12 January 2026·6 min read

If you run a shop, cafe, clinic or trade business, website accessibility law in the UK can feel like something only big corporations need to worry about. It isn't. The same duties that apply to your physical premises reach your website too, and the rules are tightening, not loosening.

This is what you must know, in plain English: which laws actually apply to a small-business website, whether you're at risk, and the handful of fixes that make the biggest difference. No scare tactics, no legalese.

What website accessibility law in the UK actually says

There isn't a single 'website law' in this country. A few different rules overlap, and it helps to know which is which.

Running through all of it is one technical benchmark: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG. The current version to aim for is WCAG 2.2 at level AA. It isn't a law in itself, but it's the yardstick courts, regulators and auditors reach for. It boils down to four ideas: your content should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

→The Equality Act 2010 is the big one. It requires businesses to make 'reasonable adjustments' so disabled people aren't put at a substantial disadvantage, and that includes your website, not just your front door.

→The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to councils, the NHS and other public bodies. You're probably not covered, but they set the standard everyone now measures against: WCAG.

→The European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025. If you sell products or services to customers in the EU, such as an online shop or booking system, it may apply to you even from the UK.

Does it apply to your small business?

For most UK small businesses the honest answer is yes, through the Equality Act. If members of the public can buy from you, book with you or contact you online, you have a duty to make that reasonably possible for disabled visitors. There's no accessibility inspector doing the rounds, but the duty is real, and complaints can turn into legal claims.

The European Accessibility Act adds a second layer for anyone trading into the EU. Very small businesses may be exempt from parts of it, but the exemptions are narrower than most people hope. If you'd rather not untangle which rule bites first, the safe move is simply to build to WCAG 2.2 AA and be done with it.

The fixes that make the biggest difference

You don't need to become an accessibility expert. A large share of real-world problems trace back to a short list of basics that any decent build should get right in the first place.

Get those right and you've cleared most of the bar. Nearly all of them overlap with good website design anyway, so a site built properly from day one rarely needs an expensive retrofit later.

→Colour contrast: text needs to stand out clearly from its background. Pale grey on white might look elegant, but plenty of people simply can't read it.

→Keyboard navigation: every link, button and form should work without a mouse. Test it by pressing Tab through your own page.

→Alt text on images: short descriptions that let screen readers, and search engines, understand what a picture shows.

→Labelled forms: each field needs a clear, programmatic label, not just placeholder text that vanishes the moment you start typing.

→Readable structure: proper headings, sensible link text rather than 'click here', and captions on any video.

It's good for business, not just compliance

Here's the part that gets missed. Accessibility and search rankings pull in the same direction. The things that help a screen reader, such as clean headings, descriptive alt text and fast, well-structured pages, are the same things Google looks for. Improving accessibility often lifts your SEO as a welcome side effect.

And the audience is bigger than most owners realise. Millions of people in the UK live with a disability, whether it affects their sight, hearing, movement or memory, and far more benefit from accessible design temporarily: bright sun on a phone screen, a broken wrist, a noisy train carriage. Build for them and you build for everyone who lands on your site.

“Accessibility isn't a favour to a few visitors, it's the difference between someone buying from you or bouncing to a competitor.”

Where to start without overthinking it

If your website is a few years old, don't panic and don't tear it up. Start by understanding where you actually stand. A quick review usually surfaces the same handful of issues, such as poor contrast, unlabelled forms and missing alt text, and most are quick and cheap to put right.

Keeping a site accessible is an ongoing job rather than a one-off tick-box. Content changes, new images get uploaded and the standards themselves move on, which is exactly what a care plan is for. If you'd like to see the specific problems on your own pages before spending anything, get in touch and we'll record a short teardown that walks through them one by one.

Key takeaways

✓The Equality Act 2010 already requires most UK business websites to be usable by disabled visitors, so it isn't optional.
✓WCAG 2.2 AA is the standard to build to; hit it and you cover most legal bases.
✓The biggest wins are simple: colour contrast, keyboard access, alt text and labelled forms.
✓Accessible sites tend to rank better and reach more customers, so the work pays for itself.