Attribute “aria-hidden” is unnecessary for elements that have attribute “hidden”.

The aria-hidden attribute is redundant when the hidden attribute is already present on an element.

The hidden attribute is a boolean HTML attribute that makes an element not visible and not perceivable to any user. Browsers hide the element from rendering, and accessibility tools also ignore it. The aria-hidden="true" attribute does something narrower: it removes the element from the accessibility tree but does not affect visual rendering.

When both attributes appear on the same element, aria-hidden adds nothing. The hidden attribute already tells assistive technologies to skip the element. The validator flags this as unnecessary markup.

There is one subtle difference worth knowing. aria-hidden="false" on an element with hidden would create a contradiction: the element is hidden from everyone visually, yet exposed to assistive technologies. This is almost never intentional and likely a bug.

If the goal is to hide content from all users, use hidden alone. If the goal is to hide content only from assistive technologies while keeping it visible, use aria-hidden="true" alone without hidden.

HTML examples

Before fix

<div hidden aria-hidden="true">
  <p>This content is hidden from everyone.</p>
</div>

After fix

<div hidden>
  <p>This content is hidden from everyone.</p>
</div>

Learn more:

MDN Reference

Using the aria-hidden attribute - Accessibility | MDN

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MDN Reference

The hidden attribute - HTML | MDN

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WHATWG Spec

ARIA in HTML

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