Free Section 508 Checker
Federal agencies and the vendors who supply them - No account needed
- Results in seconds
- Free report by email
Does Section 508 apply to you?
Who it covers
Federal agencies directly, including the US Postal Service at every stage of how they build, buy, maintain and use technology. If you are a federal agency, this is your obligation.
How it reaches suppliers
Section 508 does not apply to private companies directly. It applies when they work under federal contracts, where accessibility standards are often a requirement for winning and keeping the work.
Which standard applies
The Revised 508 Standards point to WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA. That has been the requirement since January 2018, and it is still the version named today, while the newer federal web rules have moved on to WCAG 2.1.
Who enforces it
Each agency handles complaints about its own technology, there is no central enforcer. An individual can complain to the agency, and the law provides a route to court from there.
What Does the Free Section 508 Check Cover?
The free check tests your homepage against WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Section 508 names WCAG 2.0 as the standard, and the W3C confirms that meeting 2.2 also means meeting 2.0 while giving you a more up to date version of the guideline.
What you get: your compliance status, a count of every issue found graded critical, high, medium or low, a breakdown of which disability groups they affect, and which of the four WCAG principles is weakest. You’ll receive your report by email. No account, no card needed.
What to do with your results?
Your result is just the first step to analysing your website's compliance status. Email yourself the full report for what you actually need to plan a fix: every issue by severity, the WCAG criteria involved, and which parts of the homepage are affected.
What you do next depends on which result you got:
Compliant. Congratulations! That's rare on a first scan. Run a full scan to check your whole site, then turn on continuous monitoring to catch future changes. Our advanced tools can also check colour contrast, tabbing order and content.
Partially compliant. You've got a mix of good and bad. Work through the flagged issues using our Content and Media tools, then run the check again to confirm they're fixed. Once the check comes back compliant, you're ready for a full website scan.
Non-compliant. Start with critical and high-severity issues. Because they often come from repeated components, fixing one can resolve several issues at once. Run the check again, or let our team help with the remaining issues.
How Nexus Inclusion keeps your whole site accessible
The platform tests your whole site against the same WCAG 2.2 Level AA standard as the free check, including the checkout, booking forms and account areas a homepage scan cannot reach. To help you achieve Section 508 compliance, we also offer a full suite of standalone tools to support media, content and image accessibility.
Detailed fix recommendations for each issue, continuous monitoring that re-tests as your site changes, alerts when something breaks, and compliance reporting you can share with your team and management.
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Keep track of your website’s accessibility with continuous monitoring
Website Monitoring -
Read what Section 508 asks of agencies and suppliers
Section 508 Compliance Guide -
Compare what each plan covers
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Talk to someone about your website accessibility
Book a Demo
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Yes. No account, no card, no trial that expires. We ask for an email address if you want the full report sent to you, and you can see the headline result without giving us anything.
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No. This tool analyses and gives an indicative compliance status of your homepage. Only a full website accessibility audit can determine whether your site is in accordance with global accessibility regulations.
To achieve full compliance and be digitally inclusive, use our full suite of tools or we can help you with dedicated accessibility support.
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WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA. The Revised 508 Standards incorporate it by reference, and that has been the requirement since January 2018. The Department of Justice rule for state and local government and HHS's rule for funding recipients both moved to WCAG 2.1. This check tests WCAG 2.2, and the W3C confirms 2.2 conformance also means 2.0 conformance, so it is a stricter test.
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Not directly. Section 508 applies to federal agencies. It reaches private companies through procurement: when an agency buys technology, its solicitation carries the accessibility requirements, so meeting them becomes part of winning and keeping the contract.
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Because checking one page keeps the scan free and instant, while a whole-website scan takes more time and effort. Your homepage tells you the state of your shared components, which is the fastest useful signal we can give you in thirty seconds.
Compare our Plans to find the right option to a full scan of your website.
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Automated checks quickly and reliably identify accessibility issues. They analyse what is detected in code, which is the starting point for digital accessibility. The Nexus Inclusion platform takes it from there: every page tested, tools to fix what comes back, monitoring to keep it fixed, and our own accessibility team on hand to make your site genuinely accessible and inclusive.
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Section 508 covers federal agencies' own technology and points to WCAG 2.0 AA. Section 504 covers organisations that receive federal funding and HHS's rule points to WCAG 2.1 AA, with deadlines in May 2027 and May 2028. The ADA covers state and local government under Title II, which also points to WCAG 2.1 AA with deadlines in April 2027 and April 2028, and private businesses open to the public under Title III, where no technical standard is named at all.
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If you sell technology to the federal government, most likely yes; federal solicitations routinely ask for one. A VPAT is the industry template; once you have filled it in for a specific product, the completed document is an Accessibility Conformance Report. A free homepage scan is the first step to be able to create this report. It will show you whether your front door has problems before you start the real work.
More Free Tools and Guides
Website Accessibility Scanner
See how the Section 508 accessibility scanner finds issues across a whole website, delivering detection, analysis, and guidance on how to fix the issues.
Free Colour Contrast Checker
Use our contrast checker tool to make sure the contrast ratio between your two selected colours meets WCAG requirements.
Free ADA Compliance Checker
Buying or selling to a federal agency? Check if your homepage is compliant with the ADA, the regulation that applies in this cases.
Now it’s time to check if the rest of your website is compliant with Section 508.
Upgrade to access advanced testing, detailed fix recommendations, compliance reporting, and continuous monitoring.