ADA Parking Requirements by State

The Federal Floor Applies Everywhere

The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design are federal civil-rights law. They set the minimum number of accessible parking spaces, the stall and access-aisle dimensions, the van ratio, and the signage for every public and commercial lot in the country. No state can require less. That is why the required count of accessible spaces does not change when you cross a state line.

A common myth is that some states, California especially, require more accessible spaces than federal law. As a rule they do not: California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and New York outside New York City all use the same count table as the federal standard. The one real exception is New York City, which runs its own code and uses a flat 5 percent rule that can require more accessible spaces than the federal table on a large lot. Everywhere else, the stricter states differ in how big the stalls are, what the signs must say, and how large the fine is, not how many spaces you stripe.

What Stays The Same: The Count

This is the federal accessible-space count table from Section 208.2 of the 2010 ADA Standards. All six states covered here adopt it unchanged, except New York City, which uses a flat 5 percent count that can exceed the table on large lots. At least one in every six accessible spaces (rounding up) must be van-accessible.

What Changes: Dimensions, Signage, And Fines

The deltas that matter, state by state, for the four covered here. Each links to a full guide.

How To Use This

Design the accessible-space count and the accessible route to the federal standard first, since that is the part that never changes. Then open the local guide for the state, and the municipal code on top of it, to catch the stricter stall dimensions, the required signage wording, and the fine amount that has to appear on the sign. Getting the count right but the stall six inches too narrow, or the sign missing the fine, is a failed inspection and a re-stripe.