VPAT template: free download and how to fill it in
The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT®) is free. The hard part is not the form; it is testing your product well enough to answer every row honestly. This page covers both: where to get the template, and how to fill it in so it holds up in procurement review.
Download the template
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) publishes the VPAT and updates it. The current version is VPAT 2.5Rev, dated April 2025. ITI says it "provides the VPAT templates as a free resource for anyone to use", and you do not need to be an ITI member. Get the official Word files from ITI's VPAT page:
- VPAT 2.5Rev WCAG edition (Word, 6.8 MB, on itic.org)
- VPAT 2.5Rev Revised Section 508 edition (Word, 7.5 MB)
- VPAT 2.5Rev EN 301 549 (EU) edition (Word, 7.8 MB)
- VPAT 2.5Rev International (INT) edition (Word, 0.1 MB)
Each official file starts with nine or ten pages of ITI's instructions, then the report form itself. Read the instructions once: they set the rules your report has to follow to use the VPAT name.
Free: a blank WCAG-edition report form, ready to fill in
We copied the report part of the VPAT 2.5Rev WCAG edition into a clean Word file: the required heading fields, the standards table, ITI's term definitions and all 87 criteria rows (32 Level A, 24 Level AA, 31 Level AAA), with the instruction pages left out and real heading and table-header markup. Check the finished document, and any PDF you export from it, for accessibility before you publish. Nothing in the form is changed; ITI allows the template to be "used as is or replicated in a different delivery format".
Download the blank ACR form (Word, 40 KB)
No email or sign-up needed. The form is ITI's VPAT® 2.5Rev report form; VPAT® is ITI's registered service mark, and Plain ACR is not affiliated with ITI. For the Section 508, EU or INT edition, use ITI's original files above.
Which edition to use
Use the edition your buyer names. If they don't name one:
- WCAG edition when the buyer asks only for WCAG 2.1 or 2.2, which is common with companies and many universities. It reports against WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2. Some states, school districts and universities also want the Section 508 criteria (Minnesota and Prince George's County Public Schools ask for the INT edition, for example); that means the INT edition.
- Revised Section 508 edition for US federal agencies. GSA tells vendors that for federal sales "you must use the Revised Section 508 or the INT International Editions" (section508.gov). See Section 508 testing and the 508 VPAT.
- EU edition for European public buyers who ask for EN 301 549.
- INT edition if you sell into several of these markets and want one report.
More on how the editions differ, and who asks for which: what an Accessibility Conformance Report is.
How to fill in each section
ITI's Essential Requirements for Authors list what every report must contain. Here are the required sections, plus the optional ones, in order:
| Section | What to write |
|---|---|
| Report title | "[Your company] Accessibility Conformance Report", followed by the edition and "(Based on VPAT® Version 2.5Rev)". Keep the ® mark: ITI requires it. |
| Name of Product/Version | The product name and a version or release identifier. For a web app with no version number, use the release date or "as live on" a date. |
| Report Date | At least month and year. If you revise the report, change the date and say what changed in Notes. |
| Product Description | Two or three sentences on what the product is and who uses it. |
| Contact Information | An email address for accessibility questions is enough. |
| Notes | What the report covers and what it does not: which parts of the product, which platforms, any separate reports for other parts. ITI allows it to be blank, but a clear scope here saves questions later. |
| Evaluation Methods Used | How you tested: manual and automated, which tools, which browsers, which screen readers and other assistive technology, and whether testers knew the product. This is the section reviewers use to decide whether to trust the rest. |
| Applicable Standards/Guidelines | Mark Yes or No for each WCAG version and level you report on. Most buyers want WCAG 2.1 or 2.2, Level A and AA. |
| Terms | Keep ITI's definitions as written. If you use your own, ITI says to note the change in Notes. |
| Criteria tables | For every row in the levels you report on, a Conformance Level and a remark. You may delete the Level AAA table if you don't evaluate AAA. For a WCAG 2.0-only report you may remove the rows marked "2.1 and 2.2" and "2.2 only"; for a WCAG 2.1-only report, only the "2.2 only" rows. Keep every other criterion for the versions and levels you report. |
| Legal Disclaimer | Optional. Your company's own disclaimer, if it has one. |
Conformance levels: what each answer means
These are ITI's definitions, quoted from the template:
- Supports: "The functionality of the product has at least one method that meets the criterion without known defects or meets with equivalent facilitation."
- Partially Supports: "Some functionality of the product does not meet the criterion."
- Does Not Support: "The majority of product functionality does not meet the criterion."
- Not Applicable: "The criterion is not relevant to the product."
- Not Evaluated: "The product has not been evaluated against the criterion. This can only be used in WCAG Level AAA criteria." Every Level A and AA row you report on needs a real answer.
Two details trip people up. First, for WCAG rows ITI notes that you may answer "Supports" where you might expect "Not Applicable": if your product has no video, WCAG treats the captions criterion as met. Second, the 4.1.1 Parsing row comes pre-filled as "Supports": WCAG 2.2 removed that criterion, and for WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 the September 2023 errata added a note that it "should be considered as always satisfied for any content using HTML or XML" (WCAG 2.1, 4.1.1).
Writing remarks that hold up
ITI asks that every "Partially Supports" or "Does Not Support" remark say which functions or features have the problem and how they fall short. A useful remark names the place, the problem and any workaround. For example:
- Weak: "Some images may be missing alt text."
- Useful: "Partially Supports. Images in the help centre have text alternatives. Chart images on the Reports page have no text alternative; the same figures are available in the data table below each chart."
For "Supports" rows a short remark is still worth writing ("All form fields have visible labels that match their accessible names"). A column of bare "Supports" is the first thing reviewers distrust.
Mistakes that get a report sent back
- "Supports" on every row, with no remarks. Section508.gov says such a report "is not credible" (section508.gov).
- Blank rows, or "Not Evaluated" on Level A or AA criteria.
- No Evaluation Methods section, or one that lists only an automated scanner. Scanners find only part of the problems, and reviewers know it.
- No product version or report date, or a date older than the buyer allows (often 12 to 24 months).
- ITI's instruction pages left in the published file.
- The report itself is an inaccessible PDF. ITI's rules say the final report must be accessible.
- The wrong edition for the buyer, for example a WCAG edition sent to a federal agency that asked for 508.
Should you fill it in yourself?
You can. ITI does not require an outside tester, though some solicitations do, and some university reviewers mark a report down when it was tested in-house by people who aren't accessibility specialists (the University of Vermont's scoring rubric, for example). What it takes: someone who can test your product with a keyboard and a screen reader, knows what each WCAG criterion actually requires, and has a few days to go through all of it. If you have that person, use the form above.
To see where you stand first, run our free VPAT readiness check: it scans up to three pages with axe-core and lays the results out against these same WCAG rows. A scan settles only part of the work, and the check says which rows still need a person.
If you don't, or the deadline is close, we test the product and write the report for you: 1,490 USD for the WCAG edition, 5 business days. See how our VPAT audit works and a sample report.