Israel website accessibility law: what is required

In Israel, most business websites must be accessible under regulation 35 of the service accessibility regulations: the site itself has to meet the Israeli standard IS 5568 at level AA and show an accessibility statement with a contact for requests. Very small businesses have defined exemptions, but even an exempt site must state the exemption in its statement. An accessibility widget alone does not change the site's code, so it does not replace work on the site itself.

What the law says, in short

The base is the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law, 1998 (Hebrew text). Under it come the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities (Service Accessibility Adjustments) Regulations, 2013 (Hebrew text). The part about websites is regulation 35 and regulations 35A to 35F (in Hebrew numbering, 35א to 35ו).

The main points:

• The standard: under regulation 35A(a), a site that serves the public must meet IS 5568 (ת״י 5568) at level AA.
• The statement: under regulation 35E, the site shows an accessibility statement in a prominent place.
• The exemptions: regulation 35F lists who is exempt and on what terms.
• Time to fix: under regulation 35A(d), a deviation from the standard counts as a breach only after someone asked in writing for a fix and the fix was not made within 60 days.
• The risk: a person who is harmed can claim tens of thousands of shekels per claim without proof of damage. So it pays to deal with this before a request arrives.

The Ministry of Justice has a fuller official explanation on its service accessibility page.

What IS 5568 is, and which level to aim for

IS 5568 is the Israeli standard for accessible web content. The part 1 edition was published in 2023. It is based on the international WCAG 2.0 guidelines at level AA.

Some vendors say the new edition moves toward WCAG 2.1, but that is not verified. What is safe to say: the base is WCAG 2.0 AA, and aiming at WCAG 2.1 AA is the safer choice. Anything that meets 2.1 AA also meets 2.0 AA, and not the other way around.

In practice, WCAG is about four plain things: everyone can see or hear the content, use the site without a mouse, understand what is written, and use the site with assistive technology such as a screen reader.

Who is exempt, and on what terms

Regulation 35F lists several exemptions. These are the ones that matter for a small business, with the exact thresholds from the regulations:

Two things matter here:

• An exempt site still states its exemption in its accessibility statement (35F(c)). An exemption is not a reason to skip the statement.
• The exemption depends on your business figures, not on the size of the site. If you are not sure you are under a threshold, that is exactly the question for a lawyer.

What the accessibility statement must hold

Under regulation 35E, the statement sits in a prominent place on the site. Usually that is a link in the footer of every page to a page of its own. It holds:

• Which adjustments the site has. Say in plain words what works: keyboard navigation, alt text for images, contrast and so on.
• The accessibility coordinator's details, where the business must have one.
• A contact for gaps and requests. A phone number, email or form, so someone who gets stuck can reach you.
• The exemption, if any. An exempt site states it here.

It also helps to say what is not accessible yet and when you plan to fix it. An honest statement helps the user and shows you are dealing with it.

Accessibility widgets: why they are not enough

An accessibility widget is a floating button that opens a menu to enlarge text, change colors and so on. They are common, and they look like a quick fix.

The catch: the law asks the site itself to meet the standard, and a widget does not change the site's code. If an image has no alt text, a button cannot be reached by keyboard, or a form field has no label, the widget does not fix that in the code. We found no ruling that says otherwise, so the safe advice is to fix the site itself. If you have a widget you can keep it, but do not rely on it.

A checklist for a small business

You can check and fix most of this yourself, or ask the AI agent that built the site:

1. Headings in order. One main heading per page, then subheadings in order, without skipping levels.
2. Alt text for images. Every image that carries information has a short description. A purely decorative image gets empty alt text.
3. Color contrast. Light text on a light background is hard to read. Level AA sets a minimum contrast ratio, and automated tools measure it well.
4. Keyboard. Try the whole site with only Tab, Enter and Esc. Every button, link and menu must be reachable, and you must always see where the focus is.
5. Forms. Every field has a label tied to it. An error message appears next to the field, says what to fix, and does not rely on color alone.
6. Video and audio. Videos you publish have captions where the standard requires them.
7. Language and direction. The page declares its language, and Hebrew pages are set right to left, so a screen reader reads them correctly.
8. Accessibility statement page. Linked from every page, with the adjustments and a contact for requests.

Automated and manual checks

An automated tool finds only part of the problems. It is good at contrast, images without alt text, fields without labels and heading order. It cannot tell whether the alt text really describes the image, whether keyboard navigation makes sense, or whether an error message is clear.

So the order that works:

1. An automated check to find the obvious problems. You can start with the free accessibility check.
2. A manual check of what the tool cannot see: the keyboard, a screen reader on your key pages, and every form from start to finish.
3. A service accessibility consultant, if you want a professional opinion on your site.

Run the check again after every big change, such as a new page or a new form.

How DeployAI helps, and what it does not do

The DeployAI accessibility check runs our IS 5568 rules on the page as a browser renders it, together with the Google Lighthouse accessibility audits, and checks whether the page links to an accessibility statement with the required details. It is an automated check, not a compliance sign-off.

The free Legal helper add-on helps write the accessibility statement and the rest of what Israeli law asks of a website. It is not legal advice, and it tells you to have an expert validate and update the result. DeployAI does not add accessibility widgets to sites, because the fix belongs in the site itself.

If you are building a new site with AI, ask for accessibility from the start rather than fixing it at the end. Putting such a site live has its own guide: how to put a site you built with AI live. And if you are working out what the whole site will cost, accessibility included, read the guide to small business website costs.