Are burned-in captions accessibility-compliant?
Not on their own. WCAG and ADA require toggleable closed captions. Burned-in captions are visible to everyone, but you also need to ship a separate SRT/VTT for compliance.
Detail
Closed captions standards (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2, ADA Title III, Section 508) require captions to be toggleable so that viewers who don't need them can turn them off. Burned-in captions are baked into the video pixels and can't be disabled — they fail the toggleable requirement on their own. The practical compliance workflow is to deliver both: a burned-in MP4 for short-form social distribution, and a separate SRT/VTT for the closed-captions track on platforms that support it (YouTube, Vimeo, accessible web embeds). Most professional accessibility audits accept this hybrid as long as both the burned-in and CC tracks accurately match the audio. Burned-in captions do guarantee that every viewer sees the captions regardless of their device settings, which is a net positive for accessibility — but the legal standard requires the toggleable option as well.
- WCAG 2.1 SC 1.2.2 requires toggleable closed captions
- Burned-in captions can't be toggled off — fails the requirement alone
- Best practice: deliver both burned-in MP4 + separate SRT/VTT
- Burned-in captions guarantee visibility (good for reach)
- Closed captions satisfy the legal standard (good for compliance)
- Most audits accept the hybrid approach
Burn them in for short-form social (TikTok, Reels, Shorts, X). Deliver SRT for long-form (YouTube, Vimeo, courses, sermons).
Subtitles transcribe spoken dialogue. Closed captions also describe non-speech audio (music, sound effects, speaker IDs) and are the accessibility standard.