Ontario · AODA · Accessibility Compliance Report

The 2026 AODA compliance report: every question your business must answer.

Guide · Published 2026-07-03 · 12 min read

By December 31, 2026, every Ontario business and non-profit with 20 or more employees must file an accessibility compliance report — and a senior officer must legally certify it. This guide shows you the actual questions on the government form, word for word, what each one really requires, and what happens if you answer “No.”

The short version

  • Businesses and non-profits with 20+ employees in Ontario must file by December 31, 2026. Under 20: no report required (the rules still apply to you).
  • 20–49 employees: the form asks one compliance question, about the Customer Service Standards.
  • 50+ employees: the form asks six questions — General, Information & Communications, Employment, Transportation, Design of Public Spaces, and Customer Service.
  • Every question is Yes/No. Answering “No” puts your non-compliance on the record; answering “Yes” falsely is a false legal certification.
  • The underlying rules are already in force — some since 2012–2015, website accessibility (50+) since January 1, 2021.

Part 1 — Who must file

Who files, and who signs

Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), Ontario businesses and non-profits with 20 or more employees in Ontario must file an accessibility compliance report every three years through the province’s Accessibility Compliance Reporting Portal. The current deadline is December 31, 2026. Filing is free — and it is a legal obligation, not an optional survey.

Organizations with 1–19 employees are not required to file, though the accessibility rules themselves still apply to them.

The part most owners don’t expect: the report must be certified by a senior officer — someone with authority to legally bind the organization. The certification checkbox reads:

Verbatim — from the portal“I certify that all the information is accurate, and I have the authority to bind the organization.”

That is a named person, on the record with the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility, personally attesting that the answers are true. Which makes the real question: what exactly are you attesting to?

Part 2 — If you have 20–49 employees

Your form asks exactly one question

Compliance question — Customer Service Standards

“Is your organization in compliance with all applicable requirements of the Customer Service Standards?”

If you answer “No,” you must check which of these apply:

  • Customer service policies for accessibility
  • Service animals and support persons
  • Feedback process and providing information in accessible formats upon request
  • Notice of temporary disruption for facilities and services that support accessibility

What “Yes” really requires: policies on serving customers with disabilities; welcoming service animals and support persons (with the narrow legal exceptions handled properly); a working, posted way for customers to give accessibility feedback; a practice for notifying customers when an accessible feature — an elevator, a ramp, an accessible washroom — is temporarily out of service; and staff actually trained on all of it.

One question sounds easy. But notice it bundles four separate practices — and “we’re nice to everyone” is not a policy, a feedback process, or a training record. Most 20–49 employee businesses we check are missing at least two of the four.

Part 3 — If you have 50+ employees

Your form asks six questions. Here they are.

Question 1 — General Section

“Is your organization in compliance with all applicable requirements of the General Section?”

If “No,” the portal makes you specify:

  • Accessibility Policies
  • Multi-Year Accessibility Plans
  • Self-Service Kiosks
  • Training staff
  • Training records

What “Yes” really requires: written accessibility policies and a statement of commitment; a multi-year accessibility plan posted on your website and reviewed at least every five years; accessibility training for every employee and volunteer (on the standards and the Ontario Human Rights Code); and dated written records of who was trained and when. The province publishes free training modules at AccessForward — but the records obligation is yours.

Question 2 — Information and Communications Standards

“Is your organization in compliance with all applicable requirements of the Information and Communications Standards?”

If “No,” you must specify:

  • Accessible feedback
  • Accessible alternative formats upon request
  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0)
  • Accessible formats of emergency and public safety information
  • Requirements applicable to education and training institutions
  • Requirements applicable to libraries

What “Yes” really requires: the big one is your public website meeting WCAG 2.0 Level AA — required since January 1, 2021 for organizations with 50+ employees (with two narrow exceptions: live captions and pre-recorded audio description). It covers content published since 2012: pages, PDFs, forms, images. Plus accessible formats of your information on request, at no extra charge, in a timely way. Most business websites we scan fail dozens to hundreds of automated WCAG checks — usually without anyone at the company knowing.

Question 3 — Employment Standards

“Is your organization in compliance with all applicable requirements of the Employment Standards?”

If “No,” you must specify:

  • Notifying applicants about accommodations, during recruitment, hiring, and onboarding
  • Notifying employees about the availability of accommodations
  • Individualized accommodation plans and return to work process for employees
  • Performance Management, Career Development, Redeployment
  • Providing workplace emergency response information to employees who have a disability

What “Yes” really requires: accommodation language in job postings, offers, and onboarding; employees told that supports exist; a written process for individual accommodation plans and a written return-to-work process (both mandatory at 50+); accessible performance management; and individualized emergency response information for employees who need it. This question demands more written documents than any other.

Question 4 — Transportation Standards

“Does your organization provide transportation services, either directly or through a third party?”

How it works: this one is gated. If you don’t provide passenger transportation services, you answer “No” to the gate and move on — most businesses do. If you do (shuttles, patient transport, tour vehicles), a second question asks whether you comply with the Transportation Standards, which have their own detailed rules.

Question 5 — Design of Public Spaces Standards

“Is your organization in compliance with all applicable requirements of the Design of Public Spaces Standards?”

If “No,” you must specify (or mark “Other” if you don’t own your public spaces):

  • Outdoor public spaces, such as beach access routes or recreational trails
  • Outdoor public spaces, such as sidewalks and walkways, accessible to people with disabilities
  • Accessible parking including minimum number and type of parking spaces
  • Service counters, waiting areas
  • Accessible outdoor public use eating areas

What “Yes” really requires: this standard only bites when you build new or significantly redevelop public-facing spaces (roughly 2017 onward) — new parking lots need accessible spaces with proper signage and access aisles; new service counters need at least one accessible counter; fixed waiting areas need accessible seating. If you lease and your landlord controls the spaces, the portal itself tells you to note that under “Other.” Many businesses can answer this honestly with a short determination — but you need to have actually made it.

Question 6 — Customer Service Standards

“Is your organization in compliance with all applicable requirements of the Customer Service Standards?”

What “Yes” really requires: the same four practices as the 20–49 question above — policies, service animals and support persons, feedback process, disruption notices — except at 50+ your customer service policy must be documented in writing and publicly available, with accessible formats on request.

Reading this and realizing how much is missing?

That’s the normal reaction. We verify all six questions, draft every missing document, scan your website, and hand your signer a package where every answer is safe — in days, not months.

Book a free 15-minute readiness call See packages & pricing

Part 4 — Answering “No” (or falsely “Yes”)

What happens if you can’t answer Yes

The form forces a choice on every question. Select “No” and checkboxes appear — you must specify exactly which areas you’re non-compliant in, on the record, with an optional comments box. Before final submission, the portal shows a legal-reminder popup for any report containing a “No.”

Select “Yes” when it isn’t true, and your senior officer has made a false certification to the provincial government in their own name. Non-compliance with the AODA can carry administrative penalties, and the statute provides for fines that reach — on paper — up to $100,000 per day for corporations in the most serious cases. Actual enforcement is far more measured, but the exposure belongs personally to whoever certifies.

Which leaves the third option: close the gaps before December 31, then certify truthfully. For most businesses the gaps are real but fixable — policies that need writing, training that needs running and recording, a feedback page that needs posting, website issues that a developer can clear from a precise list.

Part 5 — The deadlines that already passed

You’re not preparing for a deadline. You’re catching up to one.

The report is due in December — but the obligations it asks about are old. Customer service accessibility and staff training have been required of private businesses since 2012–2015. Written policies, multi-year plans, and employment processes for 50+ organizations phased in by 2016. Website accessibility (WCAG 2.0 AA) has applied to 50+ organizations since January 1, 2021.

Government-commissioned reviews of the AODA have repeatedly found that most obligated businesses never filed past reports at all, and that non-compliance with even the foundational requirements is widespread. The ministry knows this. The December 2026 cycle is the moment your business either joins the record honestly — or keeps betting that nobody asks.

Part 6 — How to file

Filing itself is the easy part — once the answers are true

  1. Create an account at the Accessibility Compliance Reporting Portal (My Ontario Account — email verification required).
  2. Start a New Submission → Accessibility Compliance Report, choose “Business / Non-profit,” and select your employee range — this determines whether you get one question or six.
  3. Add your organization: legal name, CRA business number (BN9) or AODA identifier, employee count, address. Up to 20 related organizations can share one form if every answer is identical.
  4. Answer the compliance question(s). Have your evidence organized before you start — the answers should describe reality, not hope.
  5. Complete certification: your senior officer reviews, checks the certification box, and submits. The portal can email a draft to your certifier for review first.
  6. After submitting, print and keep the PDF copy — the ministry requires it for your records, and it belongs in your evidence binder.

Part 7 — The honest workload

What doing this yourself actually takes

For a typical 50+ employee business starting from little or no documentation, based on the work we do every week:

TaskDIY estimate
Understand the six questions and what counts as evidence4–6 hrs
Write accessibility policy + multi-year plan + customer service policy8–12 hrs
Set up training, run it, build the records4–8 hrs
Feedback process, disruption notices, employment documents6–10 hrs
Website WCAG review + coordinating fixes with your web person10–20 hrs
Organize evidence and prepare defensible answers3–5 hrs
Total35–60 hrs

It’s all doable — the government publishes samples and checklists for most of it. The question is whether the person who’d do it at your company has a spare work-week and a half between now and December, and whether they’ll get it right the first time.

Or hand us the whole file.

AODAPrep verifies where you stand, drafts everything that’s missing, scans your website, builds the evidence binder, and walks your certifier through the portal. $199 for 20–49 employee businesses; $995 for 50+ (founding pricing). Your signer signs once — safely.

Book a free 15-minute readiness call Get a free website accessibility check

Both free. Worst case, you leave knowing exactly where you stand.

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Sources — Official

Question and checkbox wording captured from the Accessibility Compliance Reporting Portal, July 2026. This guide is general information, not legal advice.