Originally published on danholloran.me
If accessibility audits still reference WCAG 2.1 at your company, you're behind. WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023 and is now the version that regulators, auditors, and legal teams point to. In the US, the Department of Justice formally adopted WCAG 2.1 AA as the ADA standard — but in practice, WCAG 2.2 is what modern audits check. The European Accessibility Act, which hit full enforcement for digital products in 2025, also tracks WCAG 2.2.
The good news: WCAG 2.2 is backward compatible. If you're already meeting 2.1 AA, you're not starting over. You have nine new success criteria to address, and several of them are things you probably already knew you should fix.
Focus Indicators: The Changes That Matter Most
Two of the nine new criteria deal with focus, and they're the ones that trip up the most component libraries and design systems.
