Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Who the ADA covers

Title I of the ADA applies to private employers with 15 or more employees, state and local governments, employment agencies, labor unions and joint labor-management committees. Federal agencies are covered by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which uses the same standards. The EEOC enforces Title I, and a candidate or employee generally has 180 days to file a charge, extended to 300 days where a state or local agency enforces a similar law.

The law protects a qualified individual with a disability. Disability means a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having one. After courts read the definition narrowly, Congress passed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), which tells everyone to interpret disability broadly. Since then, conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, major depression, PTSD, cancer and many back conditions almost always qualify, and mitigating measures like medication are ignored when deciding whether someone is disabled.

Qualified means the person meets the legitimate skill, experience and education requirements and can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without reasonable accommodation. That makes essential functions the most important thing a hiring team writes down.

What employers can ask at each stage of hiring

The ADA splits the hiring process into three stages, and the rules on medical questions are different in each. Most mistakes we see come from mixing them up.

1. Before an offer. You cannot ask whether a candidate has a disability or ask disability-related questions, and you cannot require a medical exam. You can describe the job and ask whether the candidate can perform its functions, with or without accommodation. You can ask about attendance history in neutral terms (how many days did you miss last year), but not about sick days due to illness. A test for illegal drugs is not a medical exam under the ADA and is allowed pre-offer.
2. After a conditional offer, before the start date. You can require a medical exam or ask medical questions, as long as you do it for every entering employee in the same job category. You can withdraw the offer only if the results show the person cannot perform the essential functions even with reasonable accommodation, or would pose a direct threat to health or safety that accommodation cannot reduce. See our notes on the pre-employment medical exam for how to set this up.
3. During employment. Medical questions and exams must be job related and consistent with business necessity, for example a fitness-for-duty exam after a documented safety incident.

Any medical information you collect is confidential. Keep it in a separate file from the personnel file, with access limited to people who need it, such as supervisors who need to know about work restrictions or first aid staff.

Essential functions and job descriptions

When a dispute arises, the job description written before the posting is evidence of what the employer considered essential. Courts also look at how much time is spent on the function, what happens if it is not done, what current incumbents actually do and any collective bargaining terms.

Most job descriptions list everything at once. Lift 50 pounds, work any shift, drive a vehicle, all in the same flat list. That makes it harder to defend a decision and easier to screen out someone illegally. Sort duties into essential and marginal. For a contact center agent, handling customer contacts through the assigned channels and meeting schedule adherence are essential; covering the front desk once a quarter is marginal. A candidate who cannot do a marginal duty because of a disability cannot be rejected for it.

Watch for physical requirements copied from an old template. A requirement to lift 25 pounds on a remote chat support role screens out people for something the job never asks.

Accessible hiring processes

The ADA covers the application process, not just the job. Online applications, assessments, video interviews and chatbots all need to be usable by candidates who are blind, deaf, have limited dexterity or have cognitive disabilities, or the employer needs a clear way to request an alternative.

Practical checks for a high-volume funnel:

• Put a plain accommodation request contact (phone and email) on the career site and in every assessment invite.
• Test application forms and assessments with a screen reader and keyboard-only navigation.
• Have a pre-agreed path for timed tests, such as extra time or an untimed version, so a recruiter does not have to improvise.
• Make sure one-way video interviews and AI-scored assessments offer an alternative format. Algorithmic tools can screen out people with disabilities, for example by scoring speech patterns or facial expressions. The EEOC warned about this in 2022 and removed that guidance in January 2025, but the ADA itself has not changed.
• Train recruiters to route requests instead of judging them.

The volume problem is real: a funnel that loses 1% of candidates to an inaccessible step loses hundreds of people a year at a large employer, and each one is a potential charge.

Penalties and enforcement

Remedies under Title I include hiring or reinstatement, back pay, front pay, attorney's fees and, for intentional discrimination, compensatory and punitive damages. The combined cap on compensatory and punitive damages depends on employer size: $50,000 for 15 to 100 employees, $100,000 for 101 to 200, $200,000 for 201 to 500 and $300,000 above 500. Back pay is not capped.

Failure-to-accommodate and retaliation claims make up a large share of ADA charges. Retaliation is separately prohibited, so firing or disciplining someone for asking for an accommodation creates a claim even if the underlying request was not one the employer had to grant. Many states have their own disability laws that cover smaller employers or define disability even more broadly, with California's Fair Employment and Housing Act being the best-known example.

Common ADA mistakes in hiring

• Asking about health or medication in a phone screen. Questions like do you have any conditions that might affect your attendance are disability-related and banned before an offer.
• Inconsistent post-offer exams. Sending only some new hires in the same job category to a medical exam breaks the rule.
• Rescinding offers on a doctor's note alone. You need an individualized assessment of whether the person can do the essential functions, and of whether accommodation would work.
• Treating a 100% healed policy as normal. Requiring an employee to have no restrictions before returning to work is a classic violation.
• Mixing medical records into personnel files or emailing them broadly.
• Missing accommodation requests. A candidate does not need to say ADA or reasonable accommodation; I need extra time because of my dyslexia is a request.

This page describes federal requirements. State and local disability laws often go further, so check the rules where you hire.