Website Accessibility in Israel: What IS 5568 Requires From Your Business

Not a nice-to-have in Israel

Under the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law and the service accessibility regulations adopted in 2013, websites that provide a service to the public must be accessible to people with disabilities. This covers businesses, public bodies and non-profits alike — and the obligation lies with whoever operates the site, not with the studio that built it.

What the standard is

The technical requirements are set by Israeli Standard IS 5568, which is based on the international WCAG 2.0 guidelines at level AA. In practice, that means a site must be usable:

• with a keyboard only — every menu, button and form reachable and visible in focus
• with a screen reader — meaningful headings, alt text for images, labelled form fields
• with low vision — sufficient colour contrast, text that can be enlarged without breaking the layout
• without relying on colour or sound alone — errors explained in text, videos with captions

The accessibility statement

Sites must publish an accessibility statement: how the site was made accessible, which parts are not yet accessible and what alternatives exist, and how to contact the person responsible for accessibility. It is usually linked from the footer of every page.

What is at stake

According to Kol Zchut, the Israeli rights information portal, a violation can lead to a civil claim with compensation of up to NIS 50,000 without proof of damage, as well as class actions and enforcement by the Commission for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The regulations also allow exemptions in specific cases — for example a heavy economic burden or technical impossibility — but these are exceptions, not a default.

Why a widget is not enough

Accessibility toolbars that change font size or contrast are popular, but they cannot fix problems in the code itself: a button that is not reachable by keyboard, a form field without a label, an image without a description. Real compliance is built into the templates and components — and checked with a keyboard and a screen reader, not just an automated scanner.

Selling to Europe? There is a second law

The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. It covers services such as e-commerce offered to consumers in the EU, so an Israeli online shop with European customers should check whether it falls within scope. Microenterprises providing services are exempt from the service requirements.

Where to start

Run an audit of the main templates, fix the issues in the components so every page benefits, publish the statement and add accessibility checks to every future release. For a new site, building accessibility in from the first design is far cheaper than retrofitting it.

Accessibility also pays off in conversions: read accessibility as conversion optimisation and how to design lead forms that convert. We build accessible multi-page websites and audit existing ones as part of website support.

Need to make your site accessible? Codearia audits and builds websites to IS 5568 and WCAG — contact us for an assessment. This article is general information, not legal advice.