Texas Department of Information Resources rules on accessibility information from a vendor of electronic and information resources (as amended effective June 16, 2026)

For the procurement of electronic and information resources made directly by an institution of higher education or through the department's information technology commodity procurement contracts, the institution must require a vendor to provide accessibility information for the purchased products or services, where applicable.

A vendor can meet that requirement with URLs to the manufacturer's VPATs or ACRs for applicable commercial off-the-shelf products or services, or with other documents that provide credible evidence of the vendor's capability or ability to produce accessible electronic and information resources, such as an internal accessibility policy, contractual warranties for accessibility, accessibility testing documents, and examples of prior work.

If credible accessibility documentation cannot be provided, the electronic and information resources are considered noncompliant.

The subchapter applies to electronic and information resources developed, procured, or materially changed by an institution of higher education, or developed, procured, or materially changed by a contractor under a contract with an institution, which requires the use of such product to a significant extent in the performance of a service or the furnishing of a product.

All such products developed, procured or materially changed through a procured services contract, and all electronic and information resource services provided through hosted or managed services contracts, must comply with chapter 206 and chapter 213 of title 1 of the Texas Administrative Code, as applicable, unless an exception or exemption is approved.

A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is a vendor-supplied industry template form used to document compliance with technical accessibility standards and success criteria. An Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) is a report based on a completed VPAT demonstrating how a product or service conforms to WCAG standards and success criteria.

Nothing in the subchapter for institutions of higher education is intended to prevent the use of designs or technologies as alternatives to those it prescribes, provided they result in substantially equivalent or greater access to and use of a product for people with disabilities. Section 213.18 states the same requirement for the procurement of electronic and information resources made directly by an agency or through the department's information technology commodity procurement contracts.

For a state agency, section 213.18 also requires accessibility testing by a third-party testing resource or a knowledgeable state agency staff member, to validate compliance with 1 TAC section 206.50 and chapter 213, for any electronic and information resources development project whose costs exceed $500,000 and that requires one year or longer to reach operations status, involves more than one state agency or institution of higher education, or substantially alters work methods of agency personnel or the delivery of services to clients, and it carries the same proviso for alternative designs or technologies that give substantially equivalent or greater access.

The Department of Information Resources adopted section 213.18 without changes to the proposal published in the March 13, 2026 edition of the Texas Register.