October 18, 2026

RGAA compliance status: partial, full or non-compliant explained

Your RGAA compliance status, partial or full, comes down to a simple calculation. According to the official pages on RGAA legal obligations, a service is fully compliant if all RGAA control criteria are met, partially compliant if at least 50% of those criteria are met, and non-compliant if fewer than 50% are met or if there is no audit result still valid to measure them. This status must appear in your accessibility statement. You still need to know how the percentage is calculated, which criteria count, and what a valid audit actually covers. Below are the rules as those official pages describe them, followed by a clearly fictitious worked example.

Full, partial or non-compliant: the three RGAA compliance statuses

According to the official text, the accessibility statement is the result of an actual assessment of the service's compliance with the reference standard. Its first component is a compliance status, which can take only three values.

The first thing to check is therefore the percentage of RGAA control criteria met. The second, often overlooked, is whether an audit exists at all: with no audit result still valid, the service is non-compliant, whatever its real level of accessibility.

In the official template, the status is written as "[Site name] is [fully / partially / not] compliant with the référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité" (or with the other test protocol used, where applicable).

Full compliance: all RGAA control criteria are met.
Partial compliance: at least 50% of RGAA control criteria are met.
Non-compliance: fewer than 50% of the criteria are met, or there is no audit result still valid that measures whether the criteria are met.

The 50% threshold: how the percentage of criteria met is calculated

The percentage of RGAA criteria met is obtained by dividing the number of validated criteria by the number of applicable criteria. Both sides of the division follow strict rules, applied across the whole audited sample of pages.

A criterion is validated for a page only if every element on the page passes that criterion's tests: a single failing element is enough to invalidate it for the page. For a page that belongs to a process (submitting a declaration, taking part in a public consultation, booking an appointment), the criterion is validated only if it is validated on every page of the process.

A criterion can be not applicable to a page for three reasons: the content it covers does not exist (for example, no video on the page), the content is exempt from the accessibility obligation, or it falls under a disproportionate burden exemption and comes with an accessible digital alternative. Without an accessible alternative, criteria covering content under that exemption remain applicable.

Do not confuse this with the average compliance rate, which is the average of each page's compliance rate. It may appear in the statement but is optional in the official template, whereas the percentage of criteria met is expected there.

Validated criterion: validated on every page of the sample. If it fails on a single page, it does not count as valid in the calculation.
Applicable criterion: it only needs to be applicable on one page of the sample. It is not applicable only if it is not applicable on every page, without exception.

Fictitious worked example: from audit to compliance status

The following example is entirely fictitious: the figures illustrate the method, they do not describe a real site. Imagine a site audited on a sample of pages, with 60 applicable criteria, meaning criteria applicable on at least one page.

Of those 60 criteria, 45 are validated on every page of the sample. The percentage of criteria met is 45 / 60 = 75%. That is at least 50% but below 100%: the site is partially compliant.

Now suppose a defect appears on a single page, say a form field on the contact page, and causes two criteria that were validated everywhere to fail. Those two criteria no longer count as valid: 43 / 60, about 71.7%. The site remains partially compliant, but one page was enough to lower the overall score.

In another fictitious version of the same site, only 28 of 60 criteria would be validated, about 46.7%, and the site would be non-compliant. Conversely, to be fully compliant, all 60 applicable criteria would have to be validated on every page.

One last point: if each page taken on its own validates most of its criteria, the average compliance rate can be high while the percentage of criteria met is lower, because the latter requires a criterion to be validated everywhere. It is this percentage that determines the compliance status.

What does an audit "still valid" mean?

The definition of non-compliance refers to the absence of an audit result "en cours de validité", that is, still valid. To judge whether your audit can still support your compliance status, combine what the official texts say about the audit with what they say about the validity of the statement, which is the audit's final phase.

On the audit side, the assessment must be reliable and representative. It may be carried out by the organisation itself (self-assessment) or by a third party, but the organisation is responsible for ensuring the reliability of its statement by any means: an external provider, training in-house experts, cross-audits. It covers a representative sample of pages, checked against the RGAA control criteria.

On the statement side, it is valid from its publication date and must be updated in the cases listed below. The official pages consulted do not set a separate validity period for the audit itself. In its absence, the update deadlines of the statement, which is based on the audit, are a reasonable benchmark.

The text adds that it may be advisable to update the statement more often, including for the same version of the technical method, to highlight the efforts made and refresh the percentage of criteria met. The official pages also note that version 5 of the RGAA is being drafted, with publication planned for late 2026, and that accessibility work must not be suspended or postponed in the meantime.

On the date of a substantial modification or redesign of the site concerned.
3 years after the statement's publication date.
18 months after the publication date of a new version of the standard, for those applying the technical method.

The page sample: the basis of every calculation

A percentage only means something if the sample is representative. The text lists the pages that must at least be included where they exist: home page, contact page, legal notice, "accessibility" page, sitemap, help page and login page.

Added to these, where they exist: at least one relevant page for each type of service provided and each main intended use, including the search function; at least one relevant downloadable document, where applicable, for each type of service provided; all pages of a process, such as a multi-page form or transaction; and examples of pages that look noticeably different or contain different content (data tables, multimedia, forms, etc.).

Finally, randomly selected pages must make up at least 10% of the pages in the sample thus built. The number of visitors per page may be taken into account when building the sample. For mobile apps, screens count as pages.

Showing your compliance status in the accessibility statement

The statement follows a mandatory format. After the compliance status, the "Test results" section states whether the audit was done in-house or by a company, then gives the percentage of RGAA criteria met and, optionally, the average compliance rate. You can detail the results or link to the test report.

Non-accessible content is then listed in three categories: non-compliance, disproportionate burden exemptions (to be explained and justified) and content outside the scope of the accessibility obligation. The statement also gives the date it was drawn up and updated, the technologies used, the test environment, the tools and the list of pages checked.

For a website, the statement is published in an accessible format on an accessibility page reachable directly from the home page and from any page of the site. For a mobile app, the compliance status is stated within the app. The statement is also filed through an online service.

Between two audits, a free test followed by continuous monitoring of your pages helps you spot regressions before updating your statement, without replacing the audit.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between partial and full RGAA compliance?

Full compliance requires all RGAA control criteria to be met. Partial compliance applies as soon as at least 50% of those criteria are met, without all of them being met.

What percentage makes a site partially RGAA compliant?

At least 50% of control criteria met. The percentage is the number of validated criteria divided by the number of applicable criteria on the audited sample. Below 50%, the site is non-compliant.

Is a site that has never been audited non-compliant?

Yes. According to the official texts, a service is non-compliant if there is no audit result still valid that measures whether the criteria are met.

How long is an accessibility statement valid?

It is valid from its publication date and must be updated on the date of a substantial modification or redesign, 3 years after publication, or 18 months after a new version of the standard is published for those applying the technical method.

Do you have to state the average compliance rate in the statement?

No, it is optional in the official template. The percentage of RGAA criteria met, however, appears in the "Test results" section.

Can you carry out an RGAA audit yourself?

Yes, the audit can be a self-assessment or be entrusted to a third party. The organisation must still ensure its reliability, for example through an external provider, training in-house experts or cross-audits.

Sources

This article relies on the official sources listed at the end of the page.