What is the accessibility logo and how do you get it.

The accessibility logo is the mark that Türkiye’s Ministry of Family and Social Services grants, for two years, to the websites and mobile applications of institutions and organizations found accessible once its monitoring process is complete. It is not a badge a site can add on its own initiative; the right is granted by the Ministry, and its validity is confirmed by the Ministry’s own page.

This guide explains, from primary sources, what the logo is, how it is granted to a website and how it should be used once granted: Presidential Circular No. 2025/10 and the Ministry’s Accessibility Logo Usage Guide. Nothing here is legal advice; verify the current requirement with the official source and consult your lawyer about your organization’s situation.

What does the accessibility logo stand for?

The logo is not a Turkish design. According to the Ministry’s guide, it was drawn by the graphic design unit of the UN Department of Public Information at the request of the United Nations Department for General Assembly and Conference Management, and the Turkish guide itself is based on the UN’s logo guidelines. It shows a human figure with open arms inside a circle: the guide explains the circle as a symbol of global access, the open arms as inclusion of everyone, the head as cognitive thinking, and the four blue circles at the hands and feet as mobility.

The logo was originally used to mark accessible buildings, open spaces and public transport vehicles; owners of structures that had received an accessibility certificate from the provincial governorate could use it on signage, brochures and web pages. The guide was amended on 14 April 2026, and “websites and mobile applications granted a right of use under the relevant legislation” was added to the logo’s meaning. In other words, the logo for websites is the digital counterpart of a system that has worked for buildings for years.

Two limits in the guide should be known from the start. The logo may not be used for personal or commercial financial gain. And using the logo does not mean that a commercial company’s products, services or activities are endorsed by the United Nations.

How do you get the accessibility logo for a website?

For websites and mobile applications, the route is set out in the circular published in the Official Gazette on 21 June 2025: the Ministry grants a two-year right to use the Accessibility Logo to the web pages or mobile applications of institutions and organizations whose monitoring process is complete and which are found to be accessible. The logo does not come at the end of an application form but at the end of a monitoring process. Preparing the evidence that goes into that process by measuring it is the job of a web accessibility audit.

• Scope — are you in one of the groups the circular lists by name? Public institutions, universities, municipalities, banks, private hospitals, private educational institutions, private passenger transport companies, Group A travel agencies, large communications operators and service providers engaged in e-commerce. The full list and deadlines are in the guide to the circular.
• Review Commission — every institution, organization, university and legal entity to be monitored sets up an internal commission to review its own site and application technically and prepare a report.
• Criteria — the Ministry’s “Accessibility Checklist for Websites and Mobile Applications – Level A” and WCAG 2.2. The list’s questions are answered separately for every web page and every mobile screen.
• Monitoring — the report is submitted to the Monitoring Commission chaired by the Minister of Family and Social Services; the Ministry’s Monitoring Plan determines which sites are monitored in a given year, and the Minister announces the result reports.
• Right — a site or application found accessible at the end of monitoring is granted a two-year right of use by the Ministry.

When these lines were written, on 23 September 2026, the Ministry’s accessibility resources page had no separate logo application form for websites; the application and inspection forms there were for buildings, open spaces and public transport. The circular states that the Ministry will set the working procedures and principles of the commissions. For that reason, following the process through the Ministry’s own announcements is more reliable than third-party accounts of a “logo application.”

How many questions does the checklist have, and which version?

The logo rests on the checklist, so the version of the list matters. The Ministry’s 2026 list (V2.2.30.01) groups the 31 level A success criteria of WCAG 2.2 under four principles and expands them into 126 questions. The Ministry’s 2025 announcement of the circular, by contrast, spoke of 122 questions for the first version. The number changes with the version; when you prepare, write in your report which version you worked against.

The answer format of the list also needs to be understood: single-asterisk questions ask about conditions that must be met, and “Yes” means the condition is met; double-asterisk questions ask about situations that must not occur, and there “Yes” is a defect. Mixing up the two types produces answers that look correct in the report but read the wrong way round.

How is the logo used on a website?

The guide’s annex of 14 April 2026 sets a single but critical rule for web and mobile use: so that the right of use and the validity of the logo can be checked, clicking the logo image must lead to the relevant verification page on the official site of the General Directorate of Services for Persons with Disabilities and the Elderly. In other words, the logo on a site is not decoration but a verifiable link.

The visual rules come from the general section of the guide and apply to the web as well:

• As a whole — the elements of the logo are not rearranged or removed; no text, other element or circular background color is added to the logo.
• Color — primary use is full color (deep black and blue) on a white background; secondary use is single-color black, or white on a black background; tertiary use is white on a blue background. No colors other than the color codes in the guide are used.
• Size — the logo is never used smaller than 6 mm; if it is to be used smaller than 10 mm, the single-color positive option is chosen. Height stays proportional to width.
• Clear space — a minimum clear space is always left around the logo; no other logo is placed so close that it crowds it.
• Background — on a colored, dark, patterned or photographic background, the logo is placed inside a black or white square field; it is never laid transparently over an image.
• Form — the logo is not rotated or flipped; its line weight and opacity are not changed.

There is an irony specific to the web: the accessibility logo is an image link on the page, so it has to pass the checklist itself. It needs alternative text that states the purpose of the link (criterion 1, non-text content, and criterion 19, link purpose, in the list); it must be reachable by keyboard and visible when focused. Target size should also be considered so it can be tapped comfortably on a touchscreen; the 24×24 pixel minimum of WCAG 2.2 is at level AA, with details in the guide to touch target size.

How long is the logo valid, and when is it removed?

The circular grants the right of use for websites for two years. For building and open-space certificates, the guide requires use of the logo to stop when the certificate is revoked; on the web side, linking the logo on the site to the Ministry’s verification page exists so that anyone can check whether the right is valid at that moment. The practical consequence: the logo on a site is not a permanent stamp but a status with a term and a verification.

The logo is valid for two years; the site changes with every release.

Are the logo, an accessibility statement and a plugin the same thing?

No, all three are different things. The logo is a right the Ministry grants at the end of monitoring. An accessibility statement is a declaration the site writes itself: which standard it targets, what it meets, its known gaps and the feedback route. The circular does not require a statement, but for an institution preparing for monitoring, an accessibility statement is the readable summary of its evidence file. The button of an accessibility plugin added to the page replaces neither; the right is granted by the Ministry and does not come with installing a plugin.

How do you stay accessible for two years?

Getting the logo may take a day; continuing to deserve it for two years takes a routine. On this site, that routine is set up like this: before release, every version passes an automated accessibility audit (axe) and a suite of 1462 tests. In the suite, the 2-pixel thickness of the focus ring, touch targets of at least 44 pixels and the AA contrast thresholds are guarded: if a change breaks one of these values, the suite turns red and the version is not released in that state.

The automated layer does not see everything; whether alternative text is accurate or whether the focus order makes sense needs human judgment (the limits of automated testing). But tying every measurable decision to a test shrinks the part that quietly breaks across two years of releases and brings the evidence ready to the next round of monitoring.

While writing this guide, a second lesson repeated itself. The first version of our guide to the circular had taken the publication date from a secondary website and got it wrong; the date was corrected from the Official Gazette itself on 2 September 2026. This time, too, the number of questions in the Ministry’s 2025 announcement and the number in the 2026 list turned out to differ. The only binding sources on the logo, the process and the term are the texts of the Ministry and the Official Gazette themselves.

If you want to know whether your site meets these criteria, the web accessibility audit measures every template against WCAG 2.2 point by point, fixes problems at the source and documents the result.