Helping people access cash | FCA

Fees and levies | FCA

FCA Board | FCA

How to apply for authorisation or registration | FCA

Firms | FCA

Authorisation home | FCA

About the FCA | FCA

Early careers | FCA

Approved Persons Regime | FCA

Consumer credit firms | FCA

When selecting a user interface component with the keyboard, the focus indicator must 
not be partly obscured by anything in front of it. This is the stricter version of this check for 
Level AAA.

## Why this matters

When using a keyboard, it is important that the user can see where they are on the page.
If the focus indicator is obscured, the user may not know where they are, and may not
be able to interact with the page.

## Examples

Most common examples include:

* Banners at the top or bottom of the page, such as cookie banners
* Fixed navigation bars
* Fixed footers
* Popup modals, such as cookie consent modals

## How to fix

With elements that cover part of the screen, such as cookie banners, ensure
that the user can scroll to see any content behind the banner, without having to close
the banner.

With popup modals, it should usually be impossible to focus anything behind the modal.
Most common modal frameworks will automatically trap focus within the modal, so that
this is impossible. Example: [Bootstrap Modal](https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.2/components/modal/#live-demo).

## Further reading

This is part of the draft WCAG 2.2 specification and is subject to change.

* [WCAG 2.4.13](https://w3c.github.io/wcag/understanding/focus-not-obscured-enhanced.html)

ensure-focus-is-not-obscured-enhanced

June 2025

May 2025

Financial Conduct Authority

Title / URL	Issues
Helping people access cash \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/access-to-cash	82
Fees and levies \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/fees	79
FCA Board \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/about/who-we-are/fca-board	78
How to apply for authorisation or registration \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/authorisation/apply	74
Firms \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms	72
Authorisation home \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/authorisation	72
About the FCA \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/about/what-we-do/the-fca	67
Early careers \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/careers/early-careers	62
Approved Persons Regime \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/approved-persons	61
Consumer credit firms \| FCAwww.fca.org.uk/firms/consumer-credit	59

Ensure focus is not partly obscured

Financial Conduct Authority

Where this issue has occurred