Does SEBI's digital accessibility rule apply to research analysts and investment advisers?

5 min read

IA and RASEBI registration

Yes. Every SEBI-registered intermediary is covered, individual RAs and IAs included. Your website, app and the documents you publish on them must meet WCAG 2.1 and Indian accessibility standards, and an IAAP-certified auditor must audit them, with the findings fixed, by 31 January 2027.

Want this checked against your own position? We handle the documentation and the filing.

SEBI's circular of 31 July 2025 applies the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 to every regulated entity, from that date. Investment advisers are named in its reporting table and research analysts fall within the rest of the regulated entities. There is no carve-out for individuals: where no Nodal Officer is named, the circular makes the Compliance Officer or the Proprietor that officer.

RAs and IAs report on it to BSE Ltd. SEBI moved the reporting authority for both to BSE on 29 August 2025.

The dates

Step	Date
List of digital platforms and compliance report	30 September 2025 (passed)
Readiness status for each website and app, at AA level	31 March 2026 (passed)
Appoint an IAAP-certified accessibility auditor	31 January 2027
Accessibility audit, with usability testing by persons with disabilities	31 January 2027
Fix the audit findings	31 January 2027
Annual compliance	Within 30 days of each financial year end, first by 30 April 2027

The 31 January 2027 date comes from SEBI's circular of 30 October 2026, which replaced the earlier 31 October 2026 deadline.

What your website and documents need

Conformance with WCAG 2.1 or later, the latest Guidelines for Indian Government Websites and IS 17802. SEBI's readiness format asks whether each platform meets level AA.
Alternate text on images, captions on videos, and Indian Sign Language and audio description on explainer videos.
Research reports, disclosures and other documents published on your website or app as accessible documents: tagged PDFs, a logical reading order, real headings, alt text.
A grievance channel for accessibility problems, by email, helpline or web form, with escalation to a senior person.
A disability-status field on your KYC or client registration form, with an option such as a call-back.
An accessible way to complete KYC, and a review by a person before you reject an application from someone with a disability.

The rest is paperwork and people: a Nodal Officer, sign-off by the proprietor or managing director, training, and accessibility terms in your contract with whoever builds your site. You stay responsible even if the site runs on a website builder.

Note

An accessibility toolbar on its own does not meet the rule. SEBI asks for an audit by an IAAP-certified professional, including testing by persons with disabilities, and for the findings to be fixed.

Our view: template sites fail the basic checks first, such as missing alt text, unlabelled forms and PDFs scanned as images. Fixing those before the auditor arrives is cheaper than paying for a second audit round. Run your site through our SEBI adviser website checker for a first read, then see digital accessibility for RAs and IAs.

Sources

We handle the documentation and filing: Digital accessibility for RAs and IAs

Sources read on 4 November 2026. SEBI revises these requirements, so we re-confirm every figure against the current circular before it goes into an application.

BuildWright Consultants provides documentation, application-drafting, and compliance facilitation for SEBI Investment Adviser and Research Analyst registration. This is not legal advice and does not replace a qualified professional. We are not SEBI and do not guarantee registration outcomes. Eligibility, deposit, fee, and timeline requirements are as prescribed by SEBI from time to time. Every figure we publish names the SEBI document it came from and the date it was read, and we re-confirm it against the current circular during scoping.