What WCAG 3.0 is Actually Trying to Do

There is a number circulating about WCAG 3.0, and it is doing a lot of damage: 174. 

That's 174 proposed requirements, compared to WCAG 2.2's 86 success criteria (the individual, testable rules inside WCAG 2.2). At first glance, that sounds like the workload is about to double. Read the drafts closely, though, and you'll find something closer to the opposite.

Getting the number right matters, but it isn't the real story. The real story: the W3C has published a formal list of goals for the next accessibility standard. One goal is to make an organization's effort visible in its conformance claim, not just whether a page passes or fails a test. The W3C has spent seven years trying to build a way to measure that. Whether it works is the biggest open question in this field for the next few years.

This article explains what WCAG 3.0 is trying to do, based only on the current drafts. It also compares WCAG 3.0 fairly to WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the standard most organizations follow today.

What Exists Today, and What Status Each Document Has

Most confusion about WCAG 3.0 comes from mixing up four separate documents. Only one of them is an actual standard in progress. The rest are proposals and background material. Treating any of the others as a firm rule is where the misunderstandings start.

Here are the four documents, and what each one is:

• The Guidelines(opens in a new tab) (Working Draft, published on March 3, 2026): This is the real standard-in-progress. It's the only document that's "normative," meaning it contains the actual requirements organizations must follow. 

• The Explainer(opens in a new tab) (Editor’s Draft): This document explains the thinking behind the guidelines. It's "informative," meaning it isn't binding. Its own status note says it isn't expected to become an official W3C standard. Everything published about the Bronze, Silver, and Gold conformance levels comes from here, so all of that is still a proposal, not a rule.

• The Requirements document (Group Note Draft): This outlines the goals and design principles of WCAG 3.0. Use it to answer the question, "Why does WCAG 3.0 exist?"

• The Editor’s Draft of the Guidelines: An early, unfinished version that goes further than the published Working Draft. It's the roughest, most exploratory material of the four.

Two more facts about where things stand. First, WCAG 3.0 hasn't reached the top two of the W3C's five maturity stages yet, so it still has a long way to go. Second, the draft says plainly that requirements will be added, combined, and removed before it's finished. Their wording will change, and not all of them will apply to the baseline level of conformance.

So the number 174 is real and current, but it's provisional (meaning it's expected to change) by design. WCAG 3.0's requirements are written in smaller, more detailed pieces than WCAG 2's success criteria. The working group is deliberately including as much as possible right now, then asking reviewers whether that much detail helps, or whether it should be combined into fewer, broader requirements. The number 174 isn't a finding. It's a question still open for public comment.

A series of four accessibility symbols fading into the distance, against a rainbow gradient background.

What is WCAG 3.0 Trying to Do?

WCAG 3.0 lists nine formal goals. Its biggest one is building a conformance model that measures an organization's effort, not just whether a page passes a test.

These goals live in the Requirements document, not in the Guidelines themselves. The working group must show it has met all nine before the standard can move to its next stage of approval:

1. Broad disability support, including needs WCAG 2 couldn’t fully address, such as cognitive and learning disabilities, having more than one disability at once, and limited vision.

2. Flexible maintenance and growth, so the guidance can be updated as technology changes. 

3. Multiple ways to display the guidance, in formats suited to different readers.

4. Technology neutrality, so core guidance applies to emerging technologies before specific advice exists.

5. Readability, aimed at the widest possible audience.

6. Fit for the legal system, written so it’s easier to adopt into law, regulation, or policy.

7. Motivation, a conformance model that rewards going beyond the minimum by showing which requirements took more effort to meet.

8. A scope workable for producers of every size.

9. Self-validation, meaning the standard follows its own requirements.

Two of these nine carry most of the weight.

The legal system’s goal is an unusually honest statement from a standards body. It says the guidance matters because laws adopt it, so it should be written to be easy to adopt. That's an admission that voluntary adoption alone hasn't been enough.

The motivation goal is the more consequential one. A model that shows which organizations put in more effort measures something about the organization itself, not just its product. Nearly everything new and different in WCAG 3.0, including assertions, graded levels, and a new type of test that isn't a simple pass or fail, comes from this one goal.

How do WCAG 3.0’s Guidelines, Requirements, and Assertions Fit Together?

WCAG 3.0 replaces WCAG 2's single, flat list of success criteria with three layers: guidelines, requirements (split into "core" and "supplemental"), and a new category called assertions, which documents an organization's process.

WCAG 2 is flat: four principles, thirteen guidelines, and eighty-six success criteria. Each is set to Level A, AA, or AAA, and each is either met or not. WCAG 3.0 replaces that with layers:

• Guidelines are plain-language outcome statements. In WCAG 3.0, these are normative (binding), which is a change from WCAG 2, where the guidelines were just background and the success criteria carried the actual obligation.

• Core requirements must be met to achieve the baseline level of conformance. They cover much of the same ground as WCAG 2.2 Level AA, though not identical ground. Supplemental requirements sit alongside them. Testers or policymakers can choose to include them at any level. This is not simply a new name for Level AAA.

• Assertions are documented, attributable statements about the steps an organization follows. They're binding, but they build on core requirements. They can't replace them. No amount of documentation can make up for a real technical failure.

• Methods and best practices are also documented statements about an organization's steps, but they're informative, not binding. Like assertions, they build on core requirements and can't replace them.

A standard that creates a formal place for guidance, it can't fully test is a standard being honest about the limits of testing.

We’ll explain each of these in more detail below.

The Scope Unit Changes from the Page to the Task Flow

WCAG 2 allows organizations to claim conformance for a page or an entire process. WCAG 3.0 adds a ladder of options: the item, the view, the task flow, and the product. The task flow is the most interesting one. A task flow is a series of screens that support a single user activity, such as ordering an item, from search through payment to confirmation. Only the parts of those screens that support that one activity count. Anyone who has seen a site pass a page-by-page audit while its checkout process stayed unusable will recognize exactly why this matters.

Binary Results Give Way to Graded Ones

WCAG 3.0 defines two kinds of tests. Measurable tests produce the same result no matter who runs them. Judgment-based tests rely on a person evaluating something against stated criteria, so results can vary between testers who understand those criteria differently. The draft gives an example: judging whether alt text is actually good, not just whether it exists at all. The exact mechanics for grading results, including severity ratings, descriptive ratings, and scoring by points or percentages, are still being worked out.

Backward Compatibility Is Not Being Carried Forward on Purpose

WCAG 3.0 retains five of the six goals set for WCAG 2.0 in 2006. It clearly drops the sixth one. The plan is to move WCAG 2 content into a different structure and a different conformance model. If you want one sentence that proves this is a break from the past rather than a small update, that's it.

Organizational Process Enters the Standard

WCAG 2 has nothing like this at all. Through assertions, WCAG 3.0 makes an organization's documented process part of a binding conformance claim for the first time. That's exactly why a program that already combines automated coverage with documented expert review is well-positioned for where the standard is heading.

What Are the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Levels in WCAG 3.0?

Bronze, Silver, and Gold are the three proposed WCAG 3.0 conformance levels. They currently live in an informative draft at an early, exploratory stage, so none of the details are final.

Under the current proposal, Bronze (the minimum level) would require all core requirements, plus some as-yet-undetermined amount of the supplemental requirements and assertions. Silver would require more, and Gold more still. The higher levels are designed to be reached by fairly meeting a wide range of user needs, rather than by doing extremely well in just one area.

Numbers you may have seen elsewhere, like a scoring scale from 0 to 4 or a Bronze threshold of 3.5, don't appear anywhere in the current Explainer. The scoring mechanics are still among the ideas the working group is exploring.

The relationship to WCAG 2.2 is described more carefully in the drafts than in most online commentary. Content that meets WCAG 2.2 Levels A and AA is expected to meet most of WCAG 3.0's minimum level. Still, some extra work will be needed for full conformance, because WCAG 3.0 adds new tests and uses different scoring methods. The working group expects some organizations will stay on WCAG 2 while others move to WCAG 3.0, and it plans to provide materials to help with that transition, possibly including a way to map one standard's requirements to the other's.

Do I Need to Comply with WCAG 3.0 Yet?

No. As of this writing, no law references WCAG 3.0. No one can make a conformance claim against a Working Draft. WCAG 2.2 Level AA remains the standard for compliance, and meeting it is also the best way to prepare for WCAG 3.0.

WCAG 3.0 doesn't replace WCAG 2. The drafts make this clear and repeat it: the two will exist side by side. No law anywhere currently references WCAG 3.0, and no one can make a conformance claim against a Working Draft.

So the practical answer for any organization stays the same: WCAG 2.2 Level AA is still the target, and meeting it is also the best preparation available, since WCAG 3.0's core requirements are being built to cover much of the same ground. If you need a starting point, our ADA compliance checklist maps the baseline most teams need in place today.

The more interesting answer is about attention, not compliance. WCAG 3.0 is at the stage where public comments can still shape the outcome, and the draft itself asks whether the requirements are too detailed and whether it has missed any user needs. Every requirement and assertion links to its own discussion thread online. The window where a practitioner's real-world experience can still change the standard is open right now, and it won't stay open forever.

Which brings the number 174 back into perspective. It isn't a forecast of how much work is coming. It's a list of everything a working group could think of, published so accessibility experts and advocates can say what's missing, what won't work, and what they got wrong.

The organizations that will adjust to WCAG 3.0 with the least extra work are the ones already treating accessibility as an ongoing program of automated coverage plus expert review, not a checklist they complete once.