Tax Incentives for Website Accessibility: The Disabled Access Credit and Barrier Removal Deduction, Explained

Most accessibility articles talk about risk — lawsuits, demand letters, what a scanner catches. Less discussed: the federal tax code already has two provisions designed specifically to help a business pay for access improvements, and they predate the modern web entirely. Whether they apply to a website remediation project specifically is a genuinely open question, but understanding what they are and how they work is the first step to asking your accountant the right question.

Quick answer: The federal tax code offers two incentives for accessibility spending. The Disabled Access Credit (Internal Revenue Code Section 44, claimed on IRS Form 8826) is a credit worth 50% of eligible access expenditures between $250 and $10,250 — a maximum of $5,000 — available only to small businesses (30 or fewer full-time employees, or $1 million or less in prior-year gross receipts). The Barrier Removal Deduction (Section 190) is a separate deduction of up to $15,000 per year, open to businesses of any size. Both can be used in the same year on the same project if the costs qualify under both sections. Neither applies to new construction, and neither the IRS nor ADA.gov states plainly whether website remediation specifically counts as a qualifying expenditure — that determination depends on your actual costs and belongs to a tax professional, not a general article.

This article explains two provisions of the federal tax code in general terms. It is not legal or tax advice. Whether your specific accessibility expenditures qualify for either incentive is a determination for a qualified tax professional or attorney looking at your actual costs — not something to assume from this or any other article.

The two incentives, side by side

	Disabled Access Credit (§44)	Barrier Removal Deduction (§190)
Type	Tax credit (reduces tax owed dollar-for-dollar)	Tax deduction (reduces taxable income)
Who qualifies	Small businesses only: ≤30 full-time employees, or ≤$1M in prior-year gross receipts	Businesses of any size
Maximum benefit	$5,000/year (50% of expenditures from $250–$10,250)	$15,000/year
Covers	Barrier removal, accessible services (e.g. interpreters), materials in alternate formats, accessible equipment	Removing architectural or transportation barriers
Excludes	New construction	New construction
Form/citation	IRS Form 8826; 26 U.S.C. §44	26 U.S.C. §190

A credit and a deduction aren’t the same thing, and the difference matters for the math below: a credit subtracts directly from the tax you owe. A deduction subtracts from your taxable income before tax is calculated, so its actual dollar value depends on your tax bracket.

The Disabled Access Credit: how the math works

Section 44 defines an “eligible small business” as one that, in the preceding tax year, either had gross receipts of $1,000,000 or less, or employed no more than 30 full-time employees. For a qualifying business, the credit equals 50% of “eligible access expenditures” between $250 and $10,250 in a tax year — the first $250 of spending isn’t creditable at all, and spending above $10,250 doesn’t add to the credit either. Run the numbers at the ceiling: $10,250 − $250 = $10,000, and 50% of $10,000 is $5,000 — the maximum credit a business can claim in a given year, per Form 8826’s own line-by-line instructions.

The statute’s definition of “eligible access expenditures” is broader than it might sound at first: amounts paid to remove barriers, provide qualified interpreters or other methods of making audio material available, provide readers or materials in alternate formats like large print or Braille, and acquire or modify equipment or devices for people with disabilities. One restriction applies regardless of category: Section 44(c)(4) excludes expenditures connected to any facility first placed in service after the law’s 1990 enactment — this credit is for fixing an existing facility, not building an accessible one from scratch.

Form 8826 also has a no-double-dipping rule: whatever portion of an expenditure you claim as a credit, you can’t also deduct, capitalize, or use toward any other credit. That matters for the combined-use math in the next section.

The Barrier Removal Deduction: a bigger cap, open to any size business

Section 190 is a separate provision with a different shape. There’s no small-business size test — a business of any size can claim it. The deduction covers “expenditure for the purpose of making any facility or public transportation vehicle owned or leased by the taxpayer… more accessible to, and usable by, handicapped and elderly individuals,” and the statute caps the deduction allowed in any tax year at $15,000. Because it’s a deduction rather than a credit, its actual value depends on your marginal tax rate — a $15,000 deduction isn’t a $15,000 reduction in tax owed, it’s a $15,000 reduction in the income you’re taxed on.

Using both together

ADA.gov’s own guidance states the combined-use rule in general terms: “These two incentives can be used together by eligible businesses if the expenditures qualify under both Sections 44 and 190,” and “if a small business’ expenses exceed $10,250 for the maximum $5,000 tax credit, then the deduction equals the difference between the total spent and the amount of the credit claimed.” ADA.gov doesn’t publish a specific dollar example — applying that formula to a hypothetical makes it concrete: a qualifying small business that spends $20,000 on access improvements in a year could claim the $5,000 credit (based on the $10,250 of expenditures eligible for it) plus a $15,000 deduction — the deduction equal to the difference between what it spent and the credit it claimed ($20,000 − $5,000 = $15,000). A smaller or larger total spend would produce different numbers, and the no-double-dipping rule from Form 8826 still applies to whatever portion of the expenditure the credit already covered.

A business that doesn’t meet the small-business size test for Section 44 can still use Section 190 on its own, up to the $15,000 cap, regardless of size.

The real open question: does this cover a website?

Here’s the part worth being direct about. Both of these provisions were written in 1990, in the language of physical “facilities” — doorways, ramps, vehicles, printed materials, interpreters. Neither the statute text, the IRS’s Form 8826 instructions, nor ADA.gov’s current guidance explicitly states whether the cost of remediating a website — developer time spent fixing color contrast, keyboard traps, or missing form labels — counts as an “eligible access expenditure” or “barrier removal” expense in the same way that widening a doorway does.

There’s a plausible argument on both sides. The statute’s definition of eligible access expenditures explicitly includes “acquisition or modification of equipment or devices,” which could arguably extend to accessibility-related software or tooling; providing materials in alternate formats is also already squarely covered, and some website remediation work — captioning, alt text, transcripts — resembles that category closely. But a website isn’t a “facility” in the physical sense the statutes were drafted around, and no IRS guidance or revenue ruling we could locate resolves this directly one way or the other for digital remediation specifically.

That ambiguity is exactly why this is a question for your own accountant or tax attorney, looking at your actual invoice line items, not something to assume from a blog post — including this one. If you commission an accessibility audit or development work, keep the invoice detailed enough that a tax professional can actually evaluate it: itemized by task, not a single lump sum.

What this doesn’t change

Neither incentive is a substitute for doing the remediation work itself, and neither is evidence of legal compliance. Claiming a tax credit for accessibility spending says nothing about whether your site meets WCAG 2.1 AA or reduces your litigation exposure under the ADA — those are separate questions, covered in our guide to ADA compliance risk for e-commerce SMBs. A tax incentive changes the economics of paying for fixes; it doesn’t change what counts as a fix.

FAQ

Can a mid-size or large e-commerce business use either incentive? Not the Disabled Access Credit — Section 44 is limited to businesses with 30 or fewer full-time employees or $1 million or less in prior-year gross receipts. The Barrier Removal Deduction under Section 190 has no size limit and is open to any business.

Do these incentives cover the cost of an accessibility audit itself, or only fixes? The statutes and IRS guidance describe eligible expenditures in terms of removing barriers, providing accessible materials/services, and modifying equipment — they don’t specifically break out “audit” versus “remediation” as separate categories. Whether a specific audit invoice line item qualifies is exactly the kind of question to bring to a tax professional with the actual invoice in hand.

Can a business claim these every year? Yes — per ADA.gov’s guidance, a business that incurs eligible expenses annually to work toward ADA compliance can use both incentives every year, not just once. Each year’s expenditures are evaluated independently against that year’s caps.

Is there a form for the Section 190 deduction the way there’s Form 8826 for the credit? Section 190 is generally taken as a business expense deduction on your standard business tax return rather than a dedicated form — confirm the correct reporting mechanics with your tax preparer, since this can depend on your business’s entity type.

Get the audit; let your accountant answer the tax question

Quietramp’s job is the technical side: a human-verified WCAG 2.1 AA audit with concrete, developer-actionable fixes, not a tax determination. Whether any of that cost is creditable or deductible under Sections 44 or 190 is a question for whoever does your taxes, working from your actual invoice. See a real sample report or check pricing — $890 one-time, $99/month for ongoing re-checks after fixes ship.

---

This article explains general provisions of the federal tax code and is not legal or tax advice. It does not state or imply that any specific expenditure — including an accessibility audit or remediation project — qualifies for the Disabled Access Credit or the Barrier Removal Deduction. Consult a qualified tax professional about your specific costs, and qualified counsel for any legal compliance questions.

This article was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a person for accuracy before publication.