Should you target WCAG 2.2?
A practical, vendor-neutral decision guide: which target is right for your project, and what moving from 2.1 to 2.2 actually costs.
This page is about the decision. For what the law actually mandates, see is WCAG 2.2 required? (short version: 2.1 AA is the current U.S. legal floor, 2.2 is best practice). For how to verify a target once you pick it, see the conformance checklist.
Decide by your situation
Match your project to the closest row:
| Your situation | Recommended target | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Building a new site or app | 2.2 AA | Cheapest time to meet it is while building. No legacy rework, and you avoid a future upgrade scramble. |
| Remediating a site right now | 2.2 AA | You are already in the code. Doing 2.1 now and 2.2 later means paying for two passes; do it once. |
| Already conform to 2.1 AA | 2.2 AA | The gap is just six new criteria (below); you do not re-test the other 49. Small, bounded upgrade. |
| Touch / mobile-heavy product | 2.2 AA | The new criteria (target size, dragging alternatives) map directly to real mobile usability wins. |
| Public sector / procurement / RFPs | 2.2 AA | Buyers and auditors increasingly specify 2.2; meeting it satisfies the 2.1 AA that ADA Title II requires. |
| You serve EU consumers | 2.2 AA | The European Accessibility Act applies, and the EU harmonized standard is moving toward 2.2. |
| Hard deadline to hit the U.S. legal floor | 2.1 AA now, 2.2 next | 2.1 AA is what ADA Title II requires today. Ship it, then close the six-criterion gap to 2.2. |
Note the pattern: 2.2 AA is the right answer in almost every case, because it is a small, additive step over 2.1 AA rather than a different target.
What 2.2 costs over 2.1
WCAG 2.2 does not change any 2.1 criteria; it adds. So if you already meet (or are targeting) 2.1 AA, the entire extra cost of 2.2 AA is these six new Level A and AA criteria, and you can remove one (4.1.1 Parsing, now obsolete) (Source: W3C WAI, What's New in WCAG 2.2 ) .
| SC | Criterion | Level | Typical effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.4.11 | Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) | AA | Low — usually CSS scroll-padding |
| 2.5.7 | Dragging Movements | AA | Low–medium — add a single-pointer alternative |
| 2.5.8 | Target Size (Minimum) | AA | Low–medium — size small controls to 24×24px |
| 3.2.6 | Consistent Help | A | Low — order help links consistently |
| 3.3.7 | Redundant Entry | A | Low — auto-fill or let users reuse prior input |
| 3.3.8 | Accessible Authentication (Minimum) | AA | Medium — allow paste/autofill; avoid pure recall/CAPTCHA |
That is the whole delta. For verification steps on each, see the conformance checklist and the testing guide.
When to add the AAA criteria
WCAG 2.2 also adds three Level AAA criteria. W3C advises against making full AAA a site-wide policy because it cannot be satisfied for all content (Source: W3C, Understanding Conformance ) , so do not target AAA across the board. But two of the three are worth cherry-picking on high-value flows:
- 2.4.13 Focus Appearance — a measurably visible focus indicator. Cheap to apply globally via one
:focus-visiblerule, and a real win for keyboard and low-vision users. - 3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) — worth it on login if you already use passkeys or magic links; it mainly means retiring image-recognition CAPTCHA.
- 2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) — often satisfied for free if your 2.4.11 fix is generous.
When 2.1 AA is the right call (for now)
There is a narrow, honest case for targeting only 2.1 AA in the short term:
- You are under a hard compliance deadline (for example, an ADA Title II date) and need to demonstrate the legally required 2.1 AA first (Source: ADA.gov, Title II rule ) .
- Your build is frozen or end-of-life and will be replaced soon, so investing past the legal floor is hard to justify.
Even then, treat 2.1 AA as a checkpoint, not the destination. The six-criterion gap to 2.2 is small, and the required line has historically moved upward.
Common questions
Should I target WCAG 2.1 or 2.2?
For almost all new and in-progress work, target 2.2 AA. It is only six success criteria beyond the 2.1 AA that U.S. law already expects, it is backward-compatible (meeting 2.2 also meets 2.1), and it future-proofs against the standard moving up. Target 2.1 AA alone only when you are racing a hard deadline to hit the legal floor and will return to 2.2 later.
Is it worth upgrading an existing WCAG 2.1 AA site to 2.2?
Usually yes, because the gap is small: six new Level A/AA criteria, and one removed (4.1.1 Parsing). If you already conform to 2.1 AA you do not re-test the other 49 criteria, so the upgrade is bounded and cheap relative to the credibility and future-proofing it buys.
Does targeting WCAG 2.2 cost more than 2.1?
Marginally. Because 2.2 adds rather than changes criteria, the extra work is just the six new A/AA criteria on top of everything in 2.1 AA. There is no rework of existing 2.1 conformance, and several of the new criteria (target size, dragging alternatives, accessible authentication) are quick wins.