Research ยท October 2026
How many local government PDFs are accessible? We tested 77,960.
In October 2026 Celsari tested the PDFs on the websites of 6,767 cities, counties and special districts in all 50 states. 65,268 of the 77,960 PDFs failed a basic accessibility check, or 84%.
Of every 100 PDFs we checked on municipal websites, 84 failed and 16 passed.
On 46% of the websites, every PDF we tested failed. About half of the failing PDFs were untagged or plain scans with no readable text at all. The rest were missing a document title or a language setting.
The numbers
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Governments tested | 6,767 cities, counties and special districts |
| States covered | All 50 |
| PDFs tested | 77,960 |
| PDFs that failed | 65,268 (84%) |
| PDFs that passed | 12,692 (16%) |
| Websites where every PDF tested failed | 46% |
Why it matters now
The Justice Department's 2024 rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires state and local government websites, and the documents posted on them, to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. In April 2026 the department moved both compliance dates back one year. Governments serving 50,000 people or more must comply by April 26, 2027. Governments serving fewer than 50,000 people, and special districts, must comply by April 26, 2028.
Agendas, minutes, permit applications, budgets and public notices are the documents residents need most, and most of them are posted as PDFs. A scanned agenda is a picture of a page. A screen reader opening it says one word: "Image."
Read what the 2028 date means for smaller municipalities.
What we checked
For each PDF, our scanner checked four things a screen reader user needs before anything else:
- whether the file is tagged, so assistive technology can read its structure
- whether it has real text or is only a scanned image
- whether it has a document title
- whether it declares its language
A PDF that failed any of these failed our check. These are the most basic tests, not a full WCAG 2.1 AA review. A full check also looks at reading order, headings, table structure, alternative text for images and color contrast, and finds more problems. The real share of inaccessible PDFs is therefore higher than 84%.
How we chose the websites
On each government's website we read up to 20 public pages and tested up to 15 PDFs linked from them, following each site's robots.txt. Governments with no website we could find, and sites with no PDFs on the pages we read, are not counted.
Limits of this study
- It is a sample of each website, not every document on it. Large document centers and agenda platforms hold far more files than we read.
- It tests only basic accessibility features, so it understates the problem.
- Some PDFs may be covered by the rule's exceptions for archived content or preexisting documents. Here is how those exceptions work.
- It shows what was posted in October 2026. Websites change every week.
What a municipality can do
- Count your PDFs and sort them into three groups: fix, move to a clearly labeled archive, or remove.
- Fix what residents use now: current forms, applications, notices, agendas and minutes.
- Change your agenda and minutes templates so new files come out accessible.
- Post an accessibility statement with a way to ask for another format.
See what drives the cost of fixing PDFs, or ask us for a free count of the documents on your site.
How to cite this study
Celsari, "How many local government PDFs are accessible? We tested 77,960," October 2026, https://celsari.com/research/municipal-pdf-accessibility-2026/
Reporters and associations: we are glad to answer questions about the method by email through our contact page.
Find out how your own PDFs score
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