Compliance reference

WCAG 2.2 AA captions: what changed, what stayed the same

If you already meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA on your caption tracks, you already meet 2.2 AA. None of the 9 success criteria added in WCAG 2.2 touch captions. Here is the receipts-version of that answer so you can close the ticket.

TL;DR

WCAG 2.2 added 9 new success criteria over 2.1 and removed one (SC 4.1.1 Parsing was obsoleted). Every new 2.2 criterion is in the Operable, Understandable, or Robust principle buckets — none in Perceivable's timed-media cluster. That means SC 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) and SC 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded) are bit-for-bit identical between the two versions. A 2.1 AA caption track passes 2.2 AA.

Every success criterion WCAG 2.2 added (none caption-related)

For the record, here is the full list of what is new at Level A or AA in WCAG 2.2. None are about captions, audio description, or timed media:

2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) — AA
2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) — AAA
2.4.13 Focus Appearance — AAA
2.5.7 Dragging Movements — AA
2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) — AA
3.2.6 Consistent Help — A
3.3.7 Redundant Entry — A
3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) — AA
3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) — AAA

Every new 2.2 criterion addresses interaction patterns — focus visibility, drag alternatives, touch targets, cognitive load in authentication and forms. Your video player itself may need attention for some of these (target sizes on player controls, focus indicators). Your caption track does not.

The one thing 2.2 removed, and why it doesn't matter for captions

WCAG 2.2 deleted SC 4.1.1 Parsing because it addressed an HTML-validator-era problem that modern browsers no longer surface. Caption tracks are typically shipped as .srt, .vtt, or .ttml files — not inline HTML — so the deprecation has zero impact on caption compliance. The practical effect is that a handful of automated accessibility scanners stopped counting 4.1.1 failures; no changes to caption requirements flow from that.

What this means for your existing caption library

If your 2.1-AA-compliant caption library is already verbatim for dialogue, marks speaker changes, includes meaningful non-speech sounds, and stays under the 160-wpm reading-speed ceiling, that library is 2.2 AA today. No re-render needed. Procurement and security questionnaires that ask "are your captions WCAG 2.2 AA?" can be answered "yes — we meet all timed-media success criteria, which are unchanged from 2.1."

Where the practical difference shows up is in the rest of your LMS. The player chrome, the enroll flow, the feedback form — those are where WCAG 2.2's new interaction SCs land. That is a different team's ticket.

How GlossCap helps

GlossCap ships WCAG 2.1 AA-compliant caption files by default — synchronized, verbatim for dialogue, with speaker labels and non-speech sound markers. Because WCAG 2.2 made no timed-media changes, the same exports are 2.2-AA-compliant the moment your legal team adopts the newer version of the spec. We version-pin the accuracy target at the DCMP Captioning Key's ≈99% word-level accuracy — the number U.S. auditors quote. See our WCAG 2.1 AA captions reference for the full spec walk-through.

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