--- title: "Municipal Code Readiness Dashboard: how the 50 largest U.S. cities publish their municipal code" description: Esper's review of how the 50 largest U.S. cities publish their municipal codes, scored on five factors against the April 2027 WCAG 2.1 AA deadline. --- Municipal Code Readiness Dashboard [Request a briefing](https://resources.esper.com/esper-municipal-code-readiness-dashboard#brief) Overview Methodology Request a Briefing # Where does your city stand? The municipal code is the rulebook residents, builders and businesses check before they act. This dashboard scores how the 50 largest U.S. cities publish their codes across the five modernization factors that matter to residents. Starting **April 26, 2027**, large local governments must meet WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA under the [DOJ's Title II rule](https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/) for web content, including the online municipal code. Compliance deadline approaching in **0**Days **0**Hours **0**Minutes **0**Seconds ## Code modernization score across the 50 largest cities Select your city to see its code modernization score as of October 8, 2026. Each city is scored out of 10 points across five factors. Map Grid ### The five scoring factors Each is worth up to 2 points - **Publishing speed**How quickly newly passed laws reach the online code - **Free access**Whether anyone can read the official code online for free - **Searchable**Full-text search, section links and mobile use - **Accessibility**An automated scan of the code pages - **Language access**Whether the code can be read in other languages ### Filter cities by readiness On track 75% or higher · Partial 50 to 74% · Behind below 50% Sort by Population, largest first Score, highest first Score, lowest first City, A to Z State, A to Z Locate me Score 0 to 100% All cities ⌘Hold **⌘** and scroll to zoom the mapor click and drag to move it **Modernization score** Basemap © Esri, HERE, Garmin, OpenStreetMap contributors Download .xlsx Sort by **Don't see your city?** We're scoring the 50 largest cities first. Request a briefing and we'll score yours too. [Request a briefing](https://resources.esper.com/esper-municipal-code-readiness-dashboard#brief) ## Methodology What changes in April 2027 Starting April 26, 2027, every city government’s web content, including municipal code, has to meet WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA. The requirement comes from the DOJ’s rule under Title II of the ADA (published April 24, 2024), and it’s the first time “accessible” has meant one specific technical standard with one hard date, rather than something open to argument. It binds every state and local government entity, agencies, courts, universities, and elections offices included, along with any work a contractor does on their behalf. Source: [ADA.gov, fact sheet on the web and mobile app accessibility rule](https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/). #### What the rule requires - **One named standard: WCAG 2.1 Level A and Level AA,** not 2.0, not AAA. Because it’s written directly into the regulation, meeting it is a pass/fail test, not a judgment call. - **Machine-readable text.** Scanned or image-only PDFs don’t qualify, the text has to be something a screen reader can actually read. - **Real structure.** Headings, lists, and tables have to be marked up as what they are, not just styled to look like them. - **Keyboard operation.** Anything you can do with a mouse has to be doable with a keyboard too. - **Contrast and resizable text,** including at whatever text size the reader has set in their own browser. - **The obligation stays with the city.** Contracting the work out to a vendor doesn’t move the responsibility. - **Five exceptions, all narrow:** archived content, older documents posted before the deadline, third-party content the city didn’t post, individual password-protected documents, and social media posts from before the deadline. A code that’s still active and still being read doesn’t fall into any of these. - **Non-conforming content still has to be usable.** Where something falls short, the city owes equivalent access another way, and if they’re claiming it’s too burdensome to fix, that has to be documented in writing by the head of the agency. ### What this report covers We score published regulations and codes, not entire city websites. Specifically: can a resident reach the official version of the code, search it, and read it in a format that works in both a browser and a screen reader? Nothing here is a formal WCAG audit of any single page. ### How cities are scored **On track** 75% or higher · **Partial** 50 to 74% · **Behind** below 50% | Factor | 2 points | 1 point | 0 points | | --- | --- | --- | --- | All 50 cities are scanned within the same 14-day window. When a check is unclear, the lower score applies, and cities can send evidence to have a score corrected. The accessibility factor uses an automated scan (axe-core, WCAG 2.1 A and AA rules) of each code's landing page and one section page. It does not prove full WCAG 2.1 AA conformance, and keyboard and screen-reader checks still need to be done by hand. Language access scores are being re-checked against the definitions above. The scores shown now were recorded under an earlier rule that gave 2 points only when a person, not a machine, translated at least one chapter. ### Score breakdown Two pointsOne pointNone ### Walk through your city’s readiness score with our team Share your email and we’ll be in touch as soon as possible. Email\* ## Want more insight on your city's code modernization score? We'll walk you through a tailored report that shows how your code can be more modern and accessible for your residents. [Request a briefing](https://resources.esper.com/esper-municipal-code-readiness-dashboard#brief)