The ADA Title II
video rule,
in plain language.

If a state or local government posts a video, that video now has to have captions and audio description. That is the short version of the 2024 ADA Title II web rule. The longer version is below.

Before April 2024 the obligation was real but the bar was abstract: provide effective communication, do not discriminate. After April 2024 the bar is a number — WCAG 2.1 Level AA — and the deadline is on the calendar. For video, four WCAG criteria do almost all of the work. The rest of this piece walks through who the rule covers, which videos it touches, what you actually have to deliver, and when.

Does the ADA require captions on government videos?

Yes. If you produce video for a state or local government, every public-facing video needs synchronized captions and an audio description track. The rule lives in the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II, and as of 2024 it has a specific technical bar.

On 24 April 2024 the Department of Justice (DOJ) published a final rule under Title II of the ADA adopting WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for web content and mobile applications provided by state and local government entities. The rule appears in 28 CFR Part 35 and took effect 60 days after publication. It does not extend to private businesses — that is Title III — but private actions under WCAG continue to drive most of the production-facing risk for everyone else.

The rule does not invent a new obligation. It puts a number on one that was already there. — § 35.200, in plain reading

Who counts as a public entity?

Any state or local government and any of its agencies, departments, or instrumentalities. That is the legal definition. In practice it means cities, counties, public schools, public universities, public libraries, transit authorities, state agencies, courts, and any special district that rolls up under one of those.

ADA Title II also reaches private organizations operating under government contract to provide a public service — a contractor running a city's job-training portal, for example. If you ship for a city, university, or transit authority, you are squarely inside Title II. If you ship for a private brand, the rule below does not apply directly, but the WCAG 2.1 AA standard it adopts is the same one private plaintiffs are already using as the de facto floor in litigation. Treat the standard as load-bearing either way.

The rule does not reach private companies, federal agencies, or non-profits operating outside a government contract. Federal agencies have their own obligation under Section 508; private companies face Title III and the patchwork of state-level laws; the CVAA covers commercial broadcast and online video distributors. Three statutes, three triggers — and we have a separate piece on which one applies to your file.

Which videos does the rule cover?

All of them. If a public entity hosts, embeds, or links to a video from its website, app, or social, the video is covered. ADA Title II calls this content the entity provides or makes available, and the definition is wide on purpose.

In practice that means recorded events, marketing and recruitment video, training and onboarding video, public-meeting recordings, and the kind of short-form clip that fills out a homepage.

Live video is treated the same as recorded video for the purpose of the rule, with the caveat that real-time captioning is the relevant standard during the broadcast and a corrected recorded version is the standard afterward. Archived recordings of meetings the entity is required to make public must be brought up to standard within the same compliance windows as the rest of the content.

What is not covered

Three categories sit outside the rule even when an entity is otherwise inside it: archived content posted before the compliance date that is not currently in use; pre-existing conventional documents (PDFs, Word, Excel) unless used to apply for or receive a service; and password-protected content provided by an external party for an individual user. The third exception is narrow and easy to over-read; do not lean on it.

What do I actually have to deliver?

A caption file, an audio description (AD) audio track, and on-screen text that is also in the caption file. That covers about 95% of public-entity video work.

WCAG 2.1 has 50 success criteria at AA. Four of them carry almost all of the video work. Knowing what each one requires in production terms is enough to ship compliant files in nearly every case.

The two that surprise most producers are 1.2.5 and 1.4.5. 1.2.5 — audio description (AD) at Level AA — is what changes a corporate video budget. It is also the one that most short-form ad spots have historically skipped, on the assumption that the visuals are obvious from the audio. They usually are not.

When is the deadline?

26 April 2027 if your entity serves 50,000 or more people. 26 April 2028 if your entity is smaller, or is a special-purpose district. Both dates reflect a one-year extension the DOJ issued in April 2026.

ADA Title II splits public entities into two groups by population. Larger entities — those serving 50,000 or more people — were originally required to comply within two years of the rule's effective date. Smaller entities — under 50,000, plus all special-purpose districts — had three years. Both clocks started running on 24 June 2024, the date the rule took effect.

On 20 April 2026, the DOJ published an Interim Final Rule (IFR) extending both compliance dates by one year. The IFR does not alter any substantive requirement — WCAG 2.1 Level AA remains the enforced standard — but it moves both calendar targets forward. The DOJ has signaled it may use the extension period to issue a new NPRM revisiting the rule's substance; that process, if it begins, will be separate from the current compliance obligation.

What videos are exempt?

Very little, and the exemptions are narrower than they sound. The shortest version: if a member of the public might still watch it for any current purpose, the exemption does not apply.

ADA Title II includes a short list of categories that are not subject to the technical standard. The archived content exception applies only to material that is genuinely archived — not in use, not linked from current pages, not part of any current service. A meeting recording that is still being viewed for reference is not archived for purposes of the rule.

The pre-existing conventional documents exception is the one most often misread. It applies to PDFs and similar documents that pre-date the compliance date — and that are not currently used to apply for or receive a service. A 2019 PDF guide that the agency still hands out to the public is not exempt. The exception is meant for genuinely historical documents.

Three things to do this quarter

Inventory what you have, set a delivery floor for everything new, and pick a remediation order for the back catalog. That is the whole playbook.

For producers and ad-ops leads inside or under contract to a covered entity, three concrete steps are within reach in a normal production cycle.

1. Inventory. Pull a list of every video currently embedded in or linked from your domains. Mark which were produced before the compliance date and which are scheduled for production after.
2. Set a delivery floor. Update your delivery checklist so every new video ships with a VTT caption file, an audio description (AD) script, and AD audio — production-ready, not draft.
3. Pick a remediation order. For the back catalog, prioritize anything that is currently load-bearing in a service flow: recruitment video, public-information spots, training video that residents are required to view.

The cost-and-time math at vendor rates makes the back catalog feel impossible, which is the gap Post Slate exists to close. The point of the rule, though, is not the math. The point is that the bar is now a number, and the number is no longer abstract.

Editor's note. This piece reflects the published rule, the April 2026 IFR extending compliance dates, and DOJ guidance current as of 22 April 2026. Compliance dates cited are those established by the IFR (91 Fed. Reg. 20902): 26 April 2027 for large entities; 26 April 2028 for smaller entities and special districts. The IFR is subject to a 60-day comment period ending 22 June 2026 and may be revised. It is not legal advice. Consult counsel for entity-specific obligations.