Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Explained

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits disability discrimination by any organization that receives federal financial assistance. Unlike Section 508, which applies to federal agencies themselves, Section 504 reaches a much broader set of organizations, since federal funding flows to thousands of schools, hospitals, and human services agencies well outside the federal government.

For more than 50 years, it operated as a general nondiscrimination requirement without a specific digital standard. That changed in 2024, when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a final rule setting a concrete technical benchmark for web content and mobile apps.

Who Must Comply

Section 504 applies to any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance, a category far broader than most people expect. This includes public schools, colleges, and universities, ; hospitals, physician practices, and federally qualified health centers, ; state Medicaid agencies and human services programs. This is why healthcare website accessibility has become such a pressing compliance issue, since HHS has clarified that even a single Medicare or Medicaid payment is enough to trigger coverage, meaning many smaller healthcare providers are covered even if they don’t think of themselves as federal grant recipients.

What It Requires for Websites

Section 504’s digital accessibility requirement has evolved in two distinct phases: a long-standing general obligation that applied for decades without a specific technical benchmark, and a newer, more concrete standard introduced specifically for organizations funded by HHS. Understanding both is necessary to know exactly what your organization is expected to meet, and by when.

General Nondiscrimination Requirements for Federally Funded Programs

Section 504’s core requirement is that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability be excluded from, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any program receiving federal funding. For decades, this was applied to digital properties only through the general principle that a website or online service is an extension of the program itself, without a named technical standard to measure compliance against.

The 2024 HHS Rule for Healthcare Organizations

On May 9, 2024, HHS published a final rule amending its Section 504 regulations to name, for the first time, a specific technical standard: WCAG 2.1, Levels A and AA, for web content and mobile applications provided by HHS-funded recipients. This covers websites, patient portals, online scheduling and payment systems, and mobile apps, including those delivered through third-party arrangements.

The rule originally set compliance dates of May 11, 2026 for recipients with 15 or more employees and May 10, 2027 for smaller recipients. On May 7, 2026, HHS’s Office for Civil Rights extended both dates by one year, citing implementation burden reported by community health centers and smaller hospitals, and aligning the timeline with the Department of Justice’s parallel Title II rulemaking. Only the deadline changed; the technical standard itself stayed the same.

Recipients with 15 or more employees must now conform by May 11, 2027, and smaller recipients by May 10, 2028. The underlying nondiscrimination obligation, including reasonable modification requirements, has applied since the rule took effect on July 8, 2024, regardless of the technical deadline extension.

How Section 504 Differs from Section 508

Section 504 and Section 508 share the same legal origin in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 but apply to entirely different organizations. Section 508 requires federal agencies to make their own technology accessible and reaches vendors only indirectly, through federal procurement. Section 504 instead applies to any organization, public or private, that receives federal funding, which is why it reaches public schools, hospitals, and human services agencies that have no direct contracting relationship with the federal government at all.

Enforcement and Compliance Risk

Section 504 complaints are generally filed with the federal agency that provided the funding in question. For healthcare and human services organizations, that means HHS’s Office for Civil Rights. F; for schools and universities, it typically means the Department of Education, making education website accessibility a direct compliance concern for institutions receiving federal funding. OCR has also clarified that it can investigate proactively, without waiting for a complaint to be filed, meaning an organization’s web accessibility posture matters even before any individual complaint arises.

Section 504 lawsuits are also a real avenue of enforcement, separate from the administrative complaint process. The new named technical standard is expected to give both complainants and courts a clearer basis for evaluating claims going forward, similar to the effect DOJ’s 2024 Title II rule has had on ADA litigation against state and local governments.

FAQ

What is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act?

Section 504 is a federal law that prohibits disability discrimination by any organization receiving federal financial assistance, including public schools, hospitals, and human services agencies. Since 2024, it has included a specific technical standard, WCAG 2.1 Levels A and AA, for web content and mobile apps provided by HHS-funded recipients.

What is the difference between Section 504 and ADA Section 508?

Section 504 applies broadly to any organization receiving federal funding, while Section 508 applies specifically to federal agencies and, indirectly, to vendors selling technology to those agencies. Both originate from the same 1973 law but were written to reach different types of organizations.

Who is covered under the Section 504 web accessibility rule?

Any organization receiving federal financial assistance from HHS is covered, including hospitals, physician practices, federally qualified health centers, nursing homes participating in Medicare or Medicaid, state Medicaid agencies, and HHS-funded colleges and universities. Notably, HHS has clarified that a single Medicare or Medicaid payment is enough to trigger coverage, meaning many organizations are subject to the rule even if they don’t consider themselves federal grant recipients.

Does Section 504 apply to schools and universities?

Yes. Section 504 applies to any public school, college, or university that receives federal funding, which includes the vast majority of public educational institutions in the United States. This means their websites, online course platforms, and digital services are subject to the same nondiscrimination obligation as healthcare organizations receiving HHS funding.