What Changed in WCAG 2.2: The Nine New Success Criteria

WCAG 2.2 was published as a W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023 and revised on 12 December 2024. It is a small release by design: nine new success criteria, one removal, and no changes to anything that already existed. If your site conforms to WCAG 2.1 Level AA, you are most of the way to 2.2 already.

Small does not mean unimportant. The additions target three groups the earlier versions served least well — people with cognitive and learning disabilities, people with low vision, and people with limited dexterity — and several of them describe patterns that are extremely common on modern sites. Sticky headers and drag-and-drop interfaces both got requirements they frequently fail.

Here is each one, with the actual threshold rather than a paraphrase.

The new Level A criteria

3.2.6 Consistent Help. If your site offers a way to get help — a phone number, an email address, a contact form, a live chat, a self-help option — and that mechanism appears on more than one page, it must appear in the same order relative to the other content on the page. The requirement is about *relative order*, not identical pixel positions. Someone who has learned that the support link sits at the end of the footer should not have to hunt for it on the next page.

3.3.7 Redundant Entry. Information the user already entered in the same process must not be demanded again from memory. Either auto-populate it or make it selectable. The classic failure is a checkout that collects a delivery address, then asks for the billing address with no "same as delivery" option. There are sensible exceptions: re-entry is allowed where it is essential (confirming a new password), required for security, or where the earlier information is no longer valid.

The new Level AA criteria — the ones that matter for compliance

Level AA is the level almost every law names, so these four are the ones with practical teeth.

2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum). When a component receives keyboard focus, it must not be *entirely* hidden by content you created. This is the sticky-header criterion. A fixed banner, a cookie notice or a floating chat bubble that completely covers the element a keyboard user has just tabbed to is a failure — they are operating a control they cannot see. Partial obscuring passes at AA; the stricter version is at AAA.

2.5.7 Dragging Movements. Any functionality that works by dragging must also be achievable with a single pointer without dragging — unless dragging is essential to the function, or the behaviour comes from the browser and you have not modified it. Sliders, drag-to-reorder lists, drag-and-drop file uploads and map panning all need a non-drag alternative such as buttons or a text input. Dragging demands sustained fine motor control that many people cannot supply.

2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum). Pointer targets must be at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with several exceptions. The most useful is the spacing exception: an undersized target passes if a 24-pixel-diameter circle centred on it does not intersect another target's circle — so small icons with generous space around them are fine. Other exceptions cover targets that are duplicated by a larger control on the same page, targets inline within a sentence, browser-determined sizing, and cases where a specific presentation is essential or legally required. Note this is a different, gentler requirement than the pre-existing 2.5.5 Target Size at AAA, which asks for 44 by 44 pixels.

3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum). No step of a login process may require a cognitive function test — remembering, transcribing or manipulating information — unless you provide at least one of four things: an alternative authentication method, a mechanism to help complete the test, a test that is simply recognising objects, or one that identifies non-text content the user themselves provided. In practice the single most common failure is blocking paste on password fields, which breaks password managers and forces memorisation or transcription. Traditional puzzle CAPTCHAs are the other. This matters more than it sounds: in WebAIM's Screen Reader User Survey #10, published in 2024, CAPTCHA was ranked the single most problematic item on the web.

The new Level AAA criteria

2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) raises 2.4.11 to zero tolerance: no part of the focused component may be hidden.

2.4.13 Focus Appearance specifies what a focus indicator must actually look like — an area at least as large as a 2 CSS pixel thick perimeter around the component, with a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 between the focused and unfocused states. Worth knowing: this criterion was proposed at Level AA during development and landed at AAA. Do not let anyone tell you it is an AA requirement.

3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) is 3.3.8 without the object-recognition and personal-content exceptions.

The one that was removed

4.1.1 Parsing is gone. It is the only success criterion ever removed from WCAG 2, and it is retained in the spec as a numbered placeholder reading "Obsolete and removed" so that surrounding numbers do not shift.

The reasoning is sound. 4.1.1 existed to ensure browsers and assistive technologies could parse your markup consistently — a genuine problem in 2008, when parsers disagreed. Modern specifications define error handling precisely, and assistive technologies now read the browser's accessibility tree rather than parsing markup themselves. The W3C's guidance is that 4.1.1 "should be considered as always satisfied" for HTML and XML content, including for anyone still testing against WCAG 2.0 or 2.1.

Importantly, nothing became permissible. The problems that used to fail 4.1.1 — duplicate IDs that break ARIA references, elements whose name or role is not exposed correctly — now fail 1.3.1 Info and Relationships or 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value instead. The coverage moved; it did not disappear.

Is WCAG 2.2 what the law requires yet?

Usually not — and this is a distinction worth getting right before you tell a client they are behind.

In the European Union, the harmonised standard cited in the Official Journal is EN 301 549 version 3.2.1, which builds on WCAG 2.1 Level AA. A revision aligning EN 301 549 to WCAG 2.2 has been through public enquiry and reached final draft stage at ETSI, but it has not been published or cited in the Official Journal, so WCAG 2.1 AA remains the operative EU reference today.

In the United States, the Department of Justice's ADA Title II web rule adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and Section 508 — which governs federal agencies — still references WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

The UK government's published guidance for public sector bodies does require WCAG 2.2 Level AA, and the Government Digital Service has monitored against 2.2 since October 2024. Australia's Human Rights Commission guidance, published in November 2025, also recommends WCAG 2.2 AA as a minimum.

The practical answer for most organisations: build to WCAG 2.2 AA. It is backward compatible, so it satisfies every law that names an earlier version, and it means you are not rebuilding when the standards catch up — which they will.

What this means if you are already at 2.1 AA

Your gap list is short and specific. Walk your site looking for exactly these things:

• A sticky header, banner or chat widget that fully covers a focused element when tabbing
• Anything that only works by dragging
• Interactive targets smaller than 24 by 24 pixels without clear space around them
• Password fields that block pasting, and puzzle CAPTCHAs
• Help mechanisms that move around between pages
• Multi-step forms that ask for the same information twice

Most of these are invisible to automated scanners, because they require judgement about what a control does and how a process flows. That is the recurring theme of WCAG 2.2: the new criteria are largely things a machine cannot see. Our guide to running an accessibility audit covers how to structure the manual pass that finds them.

*Success criteria text, thresholds and exceptions in this article are drawn from the W3C's published WCAG 2.2 Recommendation and its Understanding documents. ChecksTrue is not affiliated with or endorsed by the W3C.*