Color Contrast Checker
Test any foreground and background pair against WCAG 2 AA and AAA requirements, with live previews, copy-ready color codes, and instant suggestions when a combination falls short.
Foreground (text)
Background
Normal text (15px): The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Large text (24px): Smooth.
Foreground
Background
Try a famous pairing
About WCAG 2 contrast compliance
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 define minimum contrast ratios between text and its background so content stays readable for people with low vision or color-vision deficiencies. Contrast is expressed as a ratio from 1:1 (identical colors) to 21:1 (black on white).
AA compliance (the common legal standard)
- Normal text (under 18pt/24px): minimum ratio of 4.5:1
- Large text (18pt/24px and up, or 14pt/18.66px bold): minimum ratio of 3:1
- Graphical objects and UI components (icons, chart segments, input borders): minimum ratio of 3:1
AAA compliance (enhanced)
- Normal text: minimum ratio of 7:1
- Large text: minimum ratio of 4.5:1
AAA is recommended for body-length reading experiences and audiences with significant visual impairment; most product teams target AA sitewide and AAA where practical.
Exceptions
- Logos: text that is part of a logo or brand name has no contrast requirement.
- Disabled elements: inactive UI components have no contrast requirement.
- Incidental text: text in inactive decoration or photographs is exempt.
What about APCA and WCAG 3?
The draft successor to WCAG 2 proposes a new model called APCA (Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm) that accounts for font size, weight, and polarity (light-on-dark vs dark-on-light) instead of a single ratio. It is not yet a legal standard, and AA under WCAG 2 remains the compliance target today, but it explains why some technically-passing pairs look weak and some failing pairs look fine. We plan to add APCA scoring to CoCo as the specification stabilizes.
Read the full guidelines at w3.org/WAI. To check an entire brand palette at once, every palette in our Swatchy Brands Database includes precomputed contrast checks against black and white.