On 10 September 2026 the W3C published an updated Working Draft of WCAG 3.0. It is the second draft this year, and it reworks the part of WCAG 3 that has been argued about the longest: how conformance works. This post explains what the draft says, what is still open, and why none of it changes what you should build to today.
Where WCAG 3 stands
WCAG 3 is a successor to WCAG 2.2, not a replacement for it. The W3C says plainly that WCAG 3 “does not deprecate WCAG 2” and that WCAG 2 “will still be required by different countries for a long time to come”. The draft is “not expected to be a completed W3C standard for a few more years”, and even after it is finished WCAG 2 will not be deprecated for several years.
Every section of the draft carries a status: placeholder, exploratory, developing, refining or mature. The September draft includes all requirements that have reached the developing status, which is the midpoint of that scale. That tells you how far there is to go.
The structure
WCAG 2 has principles, guidelines and success criteria. WCAG 3 has guidelines written as outcome statements, and under each guideline sit requirements. The draft distinguishes core requirements, supplemental requirements, assertions and recommended practices. Methods play the role that techniques play in WCAG 2, and “How to” documents correspond to the Understanding documents.
Requirements are far more granular than WCAG 2 success criteria. Many are written in an “applies when” and “except when” form that states the condition that triggers the requirement and the situations it does not cover. The W3C is explicitly asking whether that format is understandable and whether the finer granularity helps or whether requirements should be consolidated.
One conformance level, six reporting tiers
Earlier WCAG 3 drafts experimented with Bronze, Silver and Gold levels and with percentage scoring. The current proposal is simpler at its core: there is one conformance level. “To conform to WCAG 3, content must meet all core requirements.”
Each core requirement carries one of four tags describing the impact when it is not met:
- Physical harm: the content can cause immediate physical harm to a person with a disability.
- Risk: it unreasonably increases financial, medical, legal, privacy or security risk.
- Barrier: it can prevent a person with a disability from proceeding.
- Friction: it can hinder a person with a disability.
The tags feed six reporting tiers. Tier 1 covers physical harm and risk requirements. Tier 2 adds barrier requirements. Tier 3 adds friction requirements, which means all core requirements, and is the conformance point. Tiers 4 and 5 add supplemental requirements and assertions about the content, more of them at Tier 5. Tier 6 adds assertions about the organisation, such as the procedures it follows.
The idea is that a team that cannot yet claim conformance can still report honestly where it stands, and a team that goes further can show that too. The Explainer also describes an alternative approach in which the same tags generate a score above and below conformance, and the W3C wants to hear the pros and cons of each approach before choosing.
What the W3C is asking
The feedback requests in this draft are unusually specific. Does the single level with tags improve on earlier drafts? Are there user needs the requirements do not cover? Is the “applies when” format clear? Do the conformance and reporting changes make adoption easier? The group is also asking for research on gaps, especially for non-Latin scripts and languages.
Comments go to the w3c/wcag3 repository on GitHub, one issue per topic, or by email to public-agwg-comments@w3.org with “[wcag-3.0]” in the subject.
What this means for your roadmap
Nothing in law points at WCAG 3, and nothing will for years. The EAA’s harmonised standard, EN 301 549 V4.1.1, moved to WCAG 2.2 only last month (see our post on the new edition). The US rules cite WCAG 2.1. If you meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA now, the W3C expects you to meet most of WCAG 3’s minimum level when it arrives, with additional work for full conformance.
Where WCAG 3 is worth following is in the thinking. The impact tags are a useful way to triage an audit backlog today: fix the physical harm and risk items first, then barriers, then friction. The APCA contrast method, which has been researched for WCAG 3, is already available alongside the WCAG 2 ratios in Accessibility Checker, so you can compare the two on your own palette.
The draft itself is at w3.org/TR/wcag-3.0, and the WCAG 3 Introduction is the best short summary of the conformance model.
Try it this week
Take the open issues from your last audit and tag each one as physical harm, risk, barrier or friction, then reorder the backlog. Then read What is new in WCAG 2.2, since 2.2 is the version every current law is converging on.