WCAG 3.0 is an active W3C Working Draft in development by the AGWG. Requirements, assertions, the conformance model and reporting tiers are still being developed and may change. The latest published draft is the 10 September 2026 Working Draft; this site follows the editors’ draft, which also includes exploratory provisions.
developingSupplemental requirement
Error Messages Persistent
Group: error-handling • Guideline: correct-errors
Summary in Plain English
Error messages stay on screen until the error is fixed or the user dismisses them - they do not time out on their own.
Why It Matters
A message that disappears on a timer is gone before many people have finished reading it, particularly people who read slowly, use magnification, or are navigating with a screen reader.
Keep track of the state of the error and make visibility of the error message depending on this state.
In a form, revalidate all fields when the form is submitted and remove all error messages that are no longer relevant.
Add a “Dismiss” button to the error that makes the error message disappear.
W3C Working Group Status
W3C Maturity Status:developing
Track / Group:error-handling
The draft records no open editors' notes on this provision.
W3C Threads on This Provision
No GitHub issue in w3c/wcag3 carries this provision's label, so there
is no recorded discussion to show. Cross-cutting threads that name no
provision are listed on the
Discussions page.
WCAG 2.2 Criteria That Map Here
From this site's reviewed WCAG 2.2 → WCAG 3 map. The map is
an interpretation, not a W3C mapping: W3C has not published one yet.
No mapping recorded. No WCAG 2.2 criterion in
this site's map is recorded as a predecessor of this provision.