What is a VPAT?
A VPAT is a template for describing how accessible a product is. Filled in, it becomes an Accessibility Conformance Report. Buyers ask for it because their own rules require them to know what they are purchasing.
The document
The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template is published by the Information Technology Industry Council, a US trade association. It is a blank form. What you send a customer is the completed form, which is properly called an Accessibility Conformance Report, or ACR. In practice people say “send us your VPAT” and mean the finished report.
The body of the report is a table. Each row is one success criterion from the accessibility standard, and each row carries two things: a conformance level and an explanation.
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Supports | The product has at least one method that meets the criterion, with no known defects. |
| Partially Supports | Some functionality meets it and some does not. The explanation has to say which. |
| Does Not Support | The majority of functionality does not meet the criterion. |
| Not Applicable | The criterion is not relevant — no audio content, no tables, and so on. |
The explanations are the part that gets read. A reviewer skimming a column of unexplained “Supports” learns nothing and has no reason to believe any of it.
There is no such thing as VPAT certification
“No, there is no VPAT certification.”
Information Technology Industry Council, publisher of the template
No licence, no accrediting body, no exam grants the right to produce one. Either party may complete a VPAT — the vendor, or a third party acting for the vendor.
Two consequences, and they are worth knowing before you spend money:
- You may write your own. If someone in-house knows WCAG properly, that is a legitimate route and it costs nothing but their time. How to do it, and when it is a bad idea.
- A report you write about yourself carries less weight. Procurement reads a self-assessment as a claim and an independent evaluation as evidence. That difference is the only real reason to pay anybody for this.
If a supplier tells you they are “VPAT certified”, they are describing something that does not exist. It is the fastest way to tell whether the person you are talking to has done this before.
Which standard goes in it
The report is written against whichever standard your buyer works to. Almost always one of:
- WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA — fifty success criteria; the baseline everything else is built on.
- Revised Section 508 — the US federal standard, which incorporates WCAG and adds requirements for software, hardware and documentation. What Section 508 actually requires.
- EN 301 549 — the European equivalent, used for EU public-sector purchasing.
One evaluation produces the evidence for all three. Only the mapping differs, which is why a combined report costs less than two separate ones.
- VPAT or ACR — what is the difference?One is the blank template, one is the finished report. Which one your buyer wants.
- Do I actually need one?By who is asking, and what happens if you say no.