Reference
What is a VPAT?
A vendor has sent you a document and somebody has to decide whether it is good enough to award on. What the document is, which edition answers your solicitation, what the four ratings mean, and what to look for before you sign.
The short version: most of what matters is what the report does not say. Reports rarely contain false claims. They contain omissions.
- Current template, from ITI
- VPAT 2.5Current template, from ITI
- Editions — WCAG, 508, EU, INT
- 4Editions — WCAG, 508, EU, INT
- Conformance ratings permitted
- 4Conformance ratings permitted
- Level A + AA criteria, WCAG 2.1 / 2.2
- 50 / 55Level A + AA criteria, WCAG 2.1 / 2.2
A VPAT is the form. An ACR is what you actually read.
The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template is a blank form published by the Information Technology Industry Council. Once a vendor completes it for a specific product and version, the finished document is an Accessibility Conformance Report. Everyone says “VPAT” for both. What lands in your inbox is an ACR.
The current template is VPAT 2.5, published in November 2023 and aligned to WCAG 2.2, the Revised Section 508 standards and EN 301 549. It is a self-disclosure by the company selling the product. That is not a criticism of vendors — it is how the format is designed — but it does mean the document is the start of a conversation, not proof of anything.
Three checks before you read a single conformance claim
- Which edition is it? A WCAG-edition report does not answer a Section 508 solicitation.
- Which product version does it cover? If it covers version 6 and you are buying version 9, it describes software you are not purchasing.
- When was it written? An undated report is not evidence of anything.
Each of these can invalidate the whole document, and each takes seconds.
The four editions
Which edition does your solicitation need?
It comes down to one question: which standard did you name? The edition decides which requirements the report even attempts to answer — and the chapters outside WCAG are where reports most often go quiet.
VPAT 2.5 — Revised Section 508 edition
US federal agencies, and any entity spending federal funds — which includes a great many state, local and public-university purchases. If your solicitation cites Section 508, this is the edition that answers it.
Success criteria
38
Revised Section 508 incorporates WCAG 2.0 Level AA by reference, not 2.1 — so the success-criteria table is 38 rows, not 50. Holding a report to 2.1 flags twelve criteria the standard never asked for.
Chapter requirements
40
These chapters are where reports go quiet. They cover whether the product works without vision or hearing, whether it hands information to assistive technology through the platform, and whether the support documentation is itself accessible. None of that is in WCAG.
- Chapter 3 — Functional Performance Criteria9 requirements
- Chapter 5 — Software26 requirements
- Chapter 6 — Support Documentation and Services5 requirements
What we check against it. Every criterion the edition requires, counted — including the ones the report never mentions. Absence is reported as absence, not treated as a pass.
Reading the table
Four ratings, and what each one is hiding.
VPAT 2.5 permits exactly four values. The conformance level is the vendor’s claim; the remarks are their evidence for it. A claim without evidence is an assertion, and the template’s own instructions require an explanation whenever conformance is anything other than full support.
| Rating | What it means | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Supports | The product meets the criterion. | With an empty remarks field this tells you nothing. It might be true. You cannot tell from the document. |
| Partially Supports | Some functionality does not meet the criterion. | The most-used and least-informative value in the format. It can mean one obscure edge case fails, or that the feature is unusable with a screen reader in the most common workflow. Only the remarks tell them apart. |
| Does Not Support | The product does not meet the criterion. | Honest, and easier to act on than an unexplained partial. At Level A it is disqualifying regardless of how the rest of the report reads. |
| Not Applicable | The criterion is not relevant to this product. | Legitimate — a product with no audio cannot fail the captions criteria — but it requires a justification. Blank remarks on a criterion that plainly could apply is a flag, not a pass. |
Weigh Level A differently from Level AA
Level A is the floor. A product failing a single Level A criterion has not met the minimum, regardless of how it does on AA. “We support 49 of 50 criteria” sounds excellent until you learn the one is 2.1.1 Keyboard — which means the product cannot be operated without a mouse. So do not tally. Ask whether there are any Level A gaps first.
We read the report you were sent.
GOVvpat does not author conformance reports — we review the ones your vendors submit, against the standard your solicitation actually named, and return a dated assessment for the procurement file. That means counting the criteria the report never mentions, flagging conformance claimed without explanation, catching an edition that does not answer your requirement, and telling you when the same criterion is answered two different ways in two different tables.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a VPAT and an ACR?
The VPAT is the blank template published by the Information Technology Industry Council. Once a vendor completes it for a specific product, the finished document is an Accessibility Conformance Report. In practice people say VPAT for both. What arrives in your inbox is an ACR.
What is VPAT 2.5?
The current version of the template, published by ITI in November 2023 and aligned to WCAG 2.2, the Revised Section 508 standards and EN 301 549. It comes in four editions. Reports still written to VPAT 2.3 or 2.4 are increasingly refused by procurement teams, and a report on an old template usually signals an old evaluation.
Which edition do I need — 508, WCAG, EU or INT?
Match it to the standard your own solicitation names. Section 508 for federal and federally-funded purchases; WCAG where the requirement is simply WCAG, which is what the ADA Title II rule references for state and local government; EU (EN 301 549) for European buyers; INT when a single document has to answer all three. A WCAG-edition report does not answer a Section 508 solicitation, however good it is.
Is a VPAT legally required?
No — the V stands for Voluntary, and no law requires the document itself. The standards behind it are another matter: Section 508 governs federal procurement, and the ADA Title II rule sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA for state and local government web content and mobile apps, with compliance dates of 26 April 2027 for entities serving 50,000 or more and 26 April 2028 for everyone else.
Who can write a VPAT?
Anyone can fill in the template — it is a self-disclosure by the company selling the product, and that is how the format is designed to work. It also means the burden of assessing it falls on the receiving agency. A credible report names who tested, with which assistive technology, and on which platforms.
Can AI generate a VPAT?
It can produce the document, but not the evidence. Automated tooling alone catches a minority of accessibility issues — the DOJ has noted the limits of automated and AI tools — so a report resting entirely on a scanner is a weaker document than one describing manual testing with named assistive technology. Read the Evaluation Methods section before the conformance table.
Does a VPAT prove ADA compliance, or protect us from a lawsuit?
No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. There is no accreditation body for WCAG or Section 508 conformance and no certificate establishes ADA compliance. What protects an agency is the record: what you required, what the vendor disclosed, what you challenged in writing, and what they committed to.
When should a report be updated?
An ACR describes one version of a product at one moment. Best practice is a refresh annually, after any significant change, and when the referenced standard moves. If the report covers version 6 and you are buying version 9, it describes software you are not purchasing.