RGAA: France's accessibility standard
The RGAA (Référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité) is the French government's method for checking that a website is accessible. The current version, 4.1.2, has 106 criteria. It binds public bodies and companies whose revenue in France reaches 250 million euros.
Its criteria translate the Level A and AA success criteria of WCAG, the international accessibility guidelines. Those guidelines are what the keyboard-first accessibility audit tests on your pages, without issuing the conformance status that only an RGAA audit establishes.
What the standard contains
The official RGAA site, run by France's interministerial digital agency (DINUM), presents it in two parts. The first sets out the legal obligations, for lawyers and managers. The second is a technical method for auditors: criteria, tests for each one, a glossary and a test environment.
The 106 criteria fall into 13 themes: images, frames, colors, multimedia, tables, links, scripts, mandatory elements, structure, presentation, forms, navigation and consultation.
The method checks the 50 Level A and AA success criteria of WCAG 2.1 retained by the European standard EN 301 549. RGAA 4.1.2 therefore rests on WCAG 2.1, not on version 2.2 published in 2023. If you publish outside France, WCAG is the reference to read first.
Who must apply the RGAA
The obligation comes from Article 47 of the French law of February 11, 2005. The scope published with the standard covers:
- public-law entities: the state, local authorities, public institutions;
- private organizations that carry out a public service mission, or that were set up for a general-interest purpose and are mostly funded or controlled by public bodies;
- companies whose average annual revenue in France, over the last three financial years, reaches 250 million euros.
Since June 28, 2025, another obligation applies to websites that sell to consumers, microenterprises excepted: the European Accessibility Act, which also covers sellers based outside the EU. The directive sets requirements, not a checklist: the RGAA and WCAG remain the basis for checking them.
Applying the RGAA goes beyond the criteria. The site publishes an accessibility statement, shows its conformance status on the home page and keeps a multi-year accessibility plan. The guide on the accessibility statement explains what it contains.
Conformance audit or accessibility review
From a distance the two look alike. They answer different questions.
An RGAA conformance audit applies all 106 criteria, test by test, to a sample of pages. Some tests require checking what assistive technologies actually read out: the reference test environment pairs screen readers (NVDA, JAWS and VoiceOver on desktop; TalkBack or VoiceOver on mobile) with specified browsers. The audit produces a rate of criteria met, which sets the conformance status in the statement. It can be carried out in house or by an outside firm.
An accessibility review, like ours, records the barriers visible on the pages analyzed: what stops a visitor, where, and on how many pages. It produces no rate, and it does not replace a conformance audit.
The two work together. The review locates the barriers before a redesign or before the conformance audit, and says what to fix first. The conformance audit produces the figure the statement publishes.
What we find on the websites we audit
25%have a critical accessibility barrier repeated on 80% or more of their pages
This percentage covers about 30 websites we audited between August 14, 2026 and September 24, 2026, the ones where this point could be checked. Many were audited because a defect showed up quickly, so the figure describes our audits, not websites in general.
This kind of barrier, a button with no name or a field with no label, fails an RGAA criterion on every page where it appears. Because it usually comes from an element all pages share, fixing it in one place raises the rate across the whole sample.
What the audit looks at
The audit exercises the pages the way a visitor would, on criteria the RGAA includes.
- The keyboard, with real presses of the Tab key, and the visual indicator that shows where you are.
- Menus, buttons and panels, by hover, by click and by keyboard, each observed on its own.
- Text contrast, measured on the rendered page, dark mode included.
- The names of links, buttons and fields, as the browser computes them for a screen reader.
- The accessibility statement, on websites the regulations require to publish one.
The report names each barrier, the WCAG criterion involved and the pages where it appears.
RGAA 5, announced for late 2026
The official site says version 5 is being drafted, with publication planned for late 2026. Its content has not been published yet. A statement drawn up under the RGAA method must be reviewed within eighteen months of a new version of the standard.
What this check doesn't tell you
Our review does not certify RGAA conformance. It does not test what a screen reader reads out, does not cover all 106 criteria and does not calculate the rate a statement publishes. The report names what was not checked.
This guide is not legal advice. Whether your organization must apply the RGAA is a question for a lawyer.
Read next
WCAG 2.2 checklist: what blocks a visitor
WCAG 2.2 is the current W3C accessibility standard. Levels A and AA, the criteria that stop visitors, and what a checklist cannot tell you about your site.
Read the guide →Accessibility statement: who needs one
An accessibility statement says how far a website meets the accessibility standard. Who must publish one in Europe, what it contains, and what we check.
Read the guide →European Accessibility Act: who it covers
Since June 28, 2025, the EAA applies to websites that sell to consumers in the EU. Who is covered, which small businesses are exempt, and what to publish.
Read the guide →