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How can I check whether my WordPress theme is accessible?

Three checks: see whether the theme has WordPress.org's "accessibility-ready" tag (only 103 of 8,734 directory themes do), run a free automated checker such as WAVE or axe on a few pages, and try the site with only a keyboard. The tag means the theme passed a manual review, not that it meets WCAG AA, and your content and plugins matter as much as the theme.

We make Fixlight, a free WordPress accessibility plugin, so we're not neutral. Every number below has its source, and facts about other products come from their own pages.

1. Look for the tag

On WordPress.org, themes that pass a manual review by the accessibility team may carry the "accessibility-ready" tag: Twenty Twenty-Five, Hello Elementor, Kadence, OceanWP, Blocksy and Neve among popular ones; Astra and GeneratePress don't have it. The review covers 18 requirements, including a skip link, keyboard navigation, visible focus, contrast, labelled form fields and underlined links in text.

2. Run an automated check

Use WAVE or axe DevTools (both free) on the home page, a post, a page with a form and, if you sell online, the shop and checkout. Automated checks catch many problems, such as missing labels and low contrast, but not all of them.

3. Use only a keyboard

  1. Reload the page and press Tab. A "skip to content" link should appear first.
  2. Keep tabbing: every link, button and menu item should be reachable, in reading order, with a visible outline around it.
  3. Open the menu and any pop-ups with Enter or Space, and close them with Esc. Focus shouldn't get stuck or disappear.
  4. Do it again at phone width, with the mobile menu.

The W3C's Easy Checks cover a few more quick tests, such as page titles, headings and zoom.

What we found on popular themes

So far we've checked the WordPress.org previews of the 500 most-installed themes. The check found problems in the theme's own parts (header, menus, footer, layout) on 473 of them. The commonest: text with too little contrast (313 themes), content outside the page regions (300 themes), heading levels skip (214 themes). See yours on our theme checks.

Sources

Checked on October 25, 2026.

  1. WordPress Theme Handbook: accessibility-ready review
  2. WordPress Theme Handbook: accessibility-ready requirements
  3. WordPress.org themes tagged accessibility-ready
  4. WordPress accessibility knowledge base: keyboard navigation
  5. W3C: Easy Checks
  6. WAVE browser extensions

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