Are there WCAG criteria that can be considered non-essential?

Every WCAG success criterion exists for a specific reason and addresses a particular barrier experienced by users with disabilities. For that reason, we don’t recommend ranking criteria by importance, doing so would imply that some disabilities matter more than others, which is not a responsible or inclusive approach.

That said, certain criteria may not be relevant on all pages. For example, success criteria related to video or audio content wouldn’t apply to pages that don’t contain those media types. In those cases, it’s appropriate to mark those items as “not applicable” in your audit or VPAT.

So rather than thinking about deprioritizing, it’s better to focus on context: evaluate which criteria are relevant based on your actual content and functionality.