AODA compliance for Ontario online stores

What Ontario's accessibility law asks of your website, who has to file the AODA compliance report due December 31, 2026, and the issues that most often hold an online store back.

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This page is general information, not legal advice. Check the official sources linked below, and talk to a lawyer about your own obligations.

The short answer

  • Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees in Ontario, and designated public sector organizations, must make their public website and web content conform with WCAG 2.0 Level AA. By January 1, 2021, their websites and web content published after 2012 had to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, with two exceptions (details below).
  • Separately, businesses and non-profits with 20 or more employees must file an accessibility compliance report with the province. The next one is due December 31, 2026.
  • Smaller stores are not covered by the website rule, but the same fixes help every shopper, including customers who use a screen reader or a keyboard.

Who the AODA website rule applies to

The website rule is section 14 of the Integrated Accessibility Standards regulation (O. Reg. 191/11), made under the AODA. It says that “designated public sector organizations and large organizations shall make their internet websites and web content conform with the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, initially at Level A and increasing to Level AA.”

The same regulation defines a large organization as one “with 50 or more employees in Ontario” (other than the Government of Ontario, the Legislative Assembly or a designated public sector organization). An organization with at least one but fewer than 50 employees in Ontario is a small organization, and section 14 does not list small organizations.

For large organizations and the public sector, section 14 set two dates:

  • By January 1, 2014, new websites and their web content had to conform with WCAG 2.0 Level A.
  • By January 1, 2021, all websites and web content had to conform with WCAG 2.0 Level AA, other than two success criteria: 1.2.4 Captions (Live) and 1.2.5 Audio Descriptions (Pre-recorded).

The rule covers websites and web content, “including web-based applications,” that an organization controls directly or through a contract that allows it to modify the product, and web content published after January 1, 2012. It also applies “except where meeting the requirement is not practicable.” For a Shopify or WooCommerce store, this likely covers your theme, your product and collection pages, and the content you publish on them; parts you cannot modify, such as a hosted checkout, may be treated differently.

The AODA compliance report: due December 31, 2026

The accessibility compliance report is a different obligation from the website rule. According to Ontario's guide to completing your accessibility compliance report, businesses and non-profit organizations with 20 or more employees must file one every three years, and “the deadline for the report is December 31, 2026.” Designated public sector organizations file every two years. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business gives the same date and the same 20-employee threshold.

You file the report online through the Accessibility Compliance Reporting Portal (our step-by-step filing guide walks through it). Ontario says that if you do not complete it, “you could face enforcement measures which can include financial penalties.” The AODA lets a director order an organization to comply and to pay an administrative penalty set by regulation. Separately, section 37 of the Act makes it an offence to give false or misleading information in an accessibility report or to ignore a director's order. On conviction, the maximum fine is $50,000 a day for an individual and $100,000 a day for a corporation.

The compliance report is something you file with the province. An accessibility report from a testing tool, including a FixRamp report, does not file it for you. It can help you find and fix website issues before you answer the questions about your website. An automated scan alone is not enough to confirm that your website meets WCAG 2.0 Level AA when you answer those questions.

What WCAG 2.0 Level AA means for a Shopify or WooCommerce store

WCAG 2.0 is a set of testable success criteria for making web content usable by people with disabilities. Level AA includes every Level A and Level AA criterion. On an online store, the same few problems come up again and again, usually in the theme templates, so one fix often repairs hundreds of pages. Here are four that FixRamp scans flag often, with the issue names used in our reports.

Images are missing text alternatives

A product photo with no alt attribute is announced as “image” or a file name, so a shopper using a screen reader cannot tell what it shows. This fails 1.1.1 Non-text Content.

<img src="overshirt-blue.jpg" alt="Blue linen overshirt, front view">

In Shopify, you add the text in the product's media settings: see how to fix missing alt text on Shopify.

Icon links, such as a cart, account or social media icon, often contain only an image or SVG with no text. A screen reader then announces just “link”. This fails 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.

<a href="/cart" aria-label="Cart">
  <svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false">…</svg>
</a>

More detail: how to fix links with no text in Shopify.

Buttons have no name

Quantity steppers, close buttons on pop-ups and “add to cart” icons are often buttons with an icon and nothing else. A screen reader says only “button”. This also fails 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.

<button type="button" aria-label="Increase quantity for Linen overshirt">
  <svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false">…</svg>
</button>

More detail: how to fix buttons with no name in Shopify.

Text has insufficient color contrast

Light grey prices, pale sale badges and white text on bright photos are hard to read for people with low vision, and for anyone on a phone in sunlight. 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.

/* #999999 on white is about 2.85:1 */
.price { color: #595959; } /* about 7:1 on white */

In most themes you can change this in the theme editor's color settings: see how to fix low color contrast in a Shopify theme.

How to check your store

  1. Run an automated scan of your home page and key product pages. FixRamp's free scan checks one page and shows up to 5 of the most serious issue types it finds.
  2. Test with a keyboard. Press Tab through the page: you should always see where you are, and reach the menu, the product options, the cart and the checkout.
  3. Try a screen reader on one product page, such as VoiceOver on a Mac or iPhone, or NVDA on Windows.
  4. Fix the templates first, then check again after theme updates or new apps, which can bring issues back.

Automated tools find only a portion of accessibility issues. Some WCAG criteria, such as whether alt text is accurate or whether a keyboard user can complete checkout, need a person to test them.

What a FixRamp report is, and what it is not

A FixRamp report is an automated diagnostic of the pages your customers see. It lists the issues found, grouped by template, with the failing code and corrected code for most issues, and Shopify and WooCommerce notes where they apply. It is emailed within 24 hours of your order. See a full sample report.

  • Spot check, USD 99: 2 pages, your home page and one product page.
  • Starter, USD 249: up to 25 pages.
  • Pro, USD 599: up to 150 pages, including the cart.

If a Spot check, Starter or Pro report finds fewer than 5 issue instances, we refund you in full. Details are in our refund policy.

What it is not: it is not a certificate, an audit by a person, or a legal opinion, and it does not make your store AODA compliant on its own. Automated scans do not catch everything. We also do not install anything on your store: no overlay, no widget, no script.

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