A VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is the template published by the ITI (Information Technology Industry Council) for reporting the accessibility status of a digital product in a standard format. A completed VPAT is called an ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report). It documents conformance against standards such as WCAG, Section 508 in the US and EN 301 549 in Europe, and is used above all in corporate and public procurement.
A VPAT answers the question 'is your product accessible' criterion by criterion rather than with marketing sentences. The template comes in editions matching the chosen standard: a WCAG edition, a Section 508 edition for US federal procurement, an EN 301 549 edition for Europe and an international (INT) edition combining them. For each success criterion, the product's status is stated: supports, partially supports, does not support, or not applicable. The remarks column makes partial support concrete by explaining where and how it occurs. The document's main stage is procurement: US federal purchases require Section 508 conformance information, European public tenders reference EN 301 549, and large corporate buyers request an ACR from vendors before purchase.
The completed VPAT, the ACR, is the standard answer to those requests. One distinction matters: a VPAT is not a certificate but a self-declaration based on the vendor's own assessment, and its value equals the seriousness of the testing behind it. The way to a good ACR is clear: genuinely evaluate the product with automated scanning and manual testing (keyboard, screen reader, contrast), mark each criterion based on evidence and document partial support honestly with remarks. A VPAT that marks everything as 'supports' raises doubt, not trust, with experienced buyers. The document is version-bound and should be updated with significant product changes; unlike a public accessibility statement, which is a general commitment for a site, an ACR is a criterion-level conformance report for a specific product version.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a VPAT and an ACR?
VPAT is the name of the empty template, ACR of its completed form: the vendor tests the product and fills in the ITI-published template criterion by criterion, and the resulting document is called an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). Although the two terms are used interchangeably in everyday language, what a buyer requests in procurement is the ACR, based on a real assessment and with the remarks filled in.
Is preparing a VPAT mandatory?
As the name says, it is voluntary; there is no general legal obligation. In practice, however, it is the gateway to certain markets: US federal procurement requires Section 508 conformance information and expects an ACR from vendors, and a similar expectation is increasingly common in European public tenders referencing EN 301 549 and in large corporate purchases. For a software vendor selling into these segments, the VPAT is effectively a standard sales document.
This content is for information only and is not legal advice.