The 2026 report
ADA website lawsuit statistics
How many ADA website lawsuits are actually being filed, where, and against whom. We compile the public numbers from the trackers that count these cases, Seyfarth Shaw and UsableNet among them, and update this report every year. Every figure is cited. Last updated 2026-07-09.
Headline numbers for 2025
digital accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2025, the most on record
UsableNet year-end reportof those were filed in federal court, up about 27 percent from the year before
Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III blog, March 2026is a typical small-business settlement for a single demand letter, before legal fees
Accessible.org settlement dataper violation in statutory damages under the Unruh Act in California, on top of the federal ADA
Cal. Civ. Code Sec. 52Year over year: federal filings keep climbing
The longest-running public count comes from law firm Seyfarth Shaw, whose ADA Title III team tracks website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal court. After a brief dip, filings bounced back hard in 2025. And federal court is only part of the picture: UsableNet, which also counts state court cases in New York and California, put the 2025 total above five thousand, the most ever recorded.
| Year | Federal website accessibility lawsuits | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 3,255 | A record at the time, about 360 more than 2021 (Seyfarth Shaw) |
| 2023 | 2,749 | Down from 2022 (Seyfarth Shaw) |
| 2024 | 2,452 | Down about 13 percent from 2023 (Seyfarth Shaw) |
| 2025 | 3,117 | Up about 27 percent from 2024 (Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III blog, March 2026) |
Source: Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III blog, year-end counts. Federal court only; state court cases and demand letters are additional.
Where the lawsuits are filed
These cases are heavily concentrated. A relatively small set of plaintiff firms, often working with serial plaintiffs, accounts for most filings, and they cluster in a handful of venues.
| State | 2025 volume | What is going on |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 1,021 | Consistently the busiest federal venue for these cases, driven by a concentrated group of plaintiff firms. (Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III blog) |
| California | Declined in 2025 | California’s cases run largely through state court under the Unruh Act (statutory damages from $4,000 per violation), so its federal count understates it. UsableNet reported California was the only major state to decline year over year in 2025; New York and California state courts together accounted for close to 2,000 filings. A clean California-only state-court count is not published separately. (UsableNet 2025 year-end report; Cal. Civ. Code Sec. 52) |
| Florida | 961 | A recurring top-three federal venue in recent years. (Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III blog) |
California deserves its own note. If your business serves California customers, state law stacks on top of the ADA: the Unruh Act supplies statutory damages of $4,000 per violation, which is why so many demand letters cite both laws in the same breath. We wrote a full plain-language guide to ADA website lawsuits in California and the Unruh Act, from an owner who has been sued twice.
Who gets sued
| Category | Share of 2025 lawsuits | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Nearly 70% | Online stores are the largest single category in UsableNet’s tracking. (UsableNet year-end report) |
| Restaurants and food service | About 21% (UsableNet); 34.65% in EcomBack’s dataset | EcomBack’s 2025 dataset ranks Restaurant, Food, Drinks as the single most sued category with 1,368 lawsuits. UsableNet’s tracker puts food service around 21 percent, second to e-commerce. (EcomBack 2025 dataset; UsableNet tracker) |
| Small businesses overall | 64% | Most defendants are small and midsize businesses, not big brands. (UsableNet year-end report) |
Three patterns worth knowing
| Finding | Figure | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Sites that already had an accessibility overlay installed | Roughly a quarter of lawsuits | UsableNet has reported that roughly a quarter of recent digital accessibility lawsuits were filed against sites that already had an overlay or widget installed, with the overlay itself often cited as a barrier. (UsableNet) |
| Businesses sued more than once | 1,427 | Settling one claim does not remove a site from the scanning lists. Repeat claims against the same businesses are a documented pattern. (UsableNet year-end report) |
| Demand letters | Far more than lawsuits | Demand letters far outnumber filed lawsuits, so every headline count on this page understates the real pressure on site owners. (Industry estimates) |
Is there data by website platform?
People often ask how many of these lawsuits hit Squarespace sites specifically, or Wix, or Shopify. Honest answer: none of the major trackers publish counts by website platform, so any platform-level number you see elsewhere is an estimate. What the data does show is that the most-sued categories, small e-commerce shops, restaurants, salons, and local service businesses, are exactly the businesses that build on platforms like Squarespace. The barriers cited in complaints are content-level issues that exist on every platform: missing alt text, low contrast, unlabeled forms, broken keyboard navigation.
What this means for Squarespace site owners
The numbers point to three practical conclusions. First, small sites are not too small to be found. The firms behind these cases run automated scans across thousands of sites at once, and small consumer-facing businesses are among the most frequent targets precisely because they are numerous and tend to settle fast. Second, shortcuts do not hold up. Sites running overlay widgets keep getting sued, and the widget itself is often named as a barrier. Third, settling is not fixing. Repeat claims against the same businesses are a documented pattern, because paying one plaintiff does not remove the barriers the next scan will find.
What genuinely reduces risk is doing the work: real fixes in your site content, measured against WCAG 2.1 AA, re-checked as your site changes, with a dated record of all of it. If you want the full walkthrough of what that work looks like on Squarespace, start with our guide to making a Squarespace site ADA accessible or the complete Squarespace accessibility guide. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no service can promise a legal outcome.
About the numbers on this page
This report compiles figures published by the organizations that track these cases: Seyfarth Shaw’s ADA Title III blog (federal court counts), UsableNet’s year-end lawsuit reports (federal plus New York and California state courts), EcomBack’s industry dataset, and Accessible.org’s settlement data. Their methodologies differ, which is why totals differ: Seyfarth counts federal filings only, while UsableNet includes key state courts. We cite the source next to every figure and refresh this page each year when the year-end reports land.
Common questions, answered honestly
How many ADA website lawsuits were filed last year?
More than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2025, the most on record, according to UsableNet's year-end report. Of those, 3,117 were filed in federal court, up about twenty-seven percent from the year before, per Seyfarth Shaw's ADA Title III tracking. Demand letters far outnumber filed lawsuits, so the true volume of claims is higher than any headline count.
Can my Squarespace site get sued for ADA?
Yes. Website accessibility claims are filed against businesses of every size, including very small ones on Squarespace. The firms behind these cases run automated scans across thousands of sites at once, and small consumer-facing businesses like restaurants, salons, and shops are among the most frequent targets. What changes your position is making the site genuinely accessible and keeping a dated record of the work. This is not legal advice.
Which states have the most ADA website lawsuits?
New York and California lead, with Florida usually close behind. New York is the busiest federal venue, and California adds a large second wave of state court cases under the Unruh Act, where statutory damages start at four thousand dollars per violation on top of the federal ADA.
How much does it cost to settle an ADA website lawsuit?
A typical small-business settlement for a single demand letter runs five thousand to twenty thousand dollars before legal fees, based on Accessible.org settlement data. Paying resolves that one claim with that one plaintiff. It does not fix the website, and a different plaintiff can raise the same barriers later.
Do accessibility overlay widgets stop ADA lawsuits?
No. UsableNet has reported that roughly a quarter of recent digital accessibility lawsuits were filed against sites that already had an overlay or widget installed, with the overlay itself often cited as a barrier. Real fixes written into the source content of your site are the durable approach.
Is Squarespace ADA compliant by default?
No platform can settle that for you. Squarespace templates give you a reasonable structural start, but the barriers these lawsuits cite live in the content you add: images without alt text, low-contrast colors, unlabeled forms, vague link names. Whether a finished Squarespace site is accessible depends on the work done inside it.
What standard do ADA website lawsuits measure sites against?
WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The ADA itself has no technical checklist for websites, so courts, settlement agreements, and Department of Justice guidance consistently point to WCAG 2.1 AA. When a demand letter lists failures, they are almost always WCAG failures.
More questions? See the full FAQ. Nothing on this page is legal advice; for advice about a specific claim, talk to an attorney.