New Industry Report Finds 95% of Public-Facing PDFs Are Inaccessible, Highlighting Urgent Need for Change

Allyant’s First-Ever PDF Accessibility Index Analyzes Nearly 645,000 PDFs Across Key Sectors

OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Allyant, the leader in document, digital, and alternative format accessibility, today released its inaugural PDF Accessibility Index: 2025–2026 Benchmark Report, the market’s first large-scale, cross-industry analysis of public-facing PDF accessibility. The findings reveal a systemic issue: 94.75% of PDFs scanned across major industries were found to be inaccessible, creating widespread barriers for people with disabilities.

The study evaluated 644,854 PDFs—representing more than 15 million pages of content—across more than 770 websites in education, government, healthcare, financial services, and other document-intensive sectors. Each file was tested against the WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards using Allyant’s Clarity scanning technology.

While accessibility conversations often center around websites and applications, the report underscores a critical miss: PDFs remain among the most relied-upon formats for delivering essential information—and among the least accessible.

“The PDF Accessibility Index gives the market something it has never had before—a true baseline,” said Ariel Kunar, CEO of Allyant. “And while the findings are sobering, they are also empowering. Organizations now have the insight they need to benchmark their own efforts against industry standards and leverage this data to influence organizational change.”

This report comes at a pivotal moment as regulatory expectations rise and 2026 compliance deadlines approach. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II deadlines take effect in April, alongside stricter Health and Human Services (HHS) accessibility requirements, and European Accessibility Act (EAA) requirements already in effect.

Key Index Findings:

• PDF accessibility is failing at scale: Automated scanning reveals that nearly 95% of public-facing PDFs fail one or more accessibility checkpoint.
• “Usable” is rare: Only 5.25% of PDFs met a baseline level of usability, and usable does not mean fully accessible or fully compliant—it simply indicates a baseline level of functionality.
• Government and education are the worst performers: The aggregate of government (97.12% inaccessible) and education (98.01% inaccessible) showed the highest inaccessibility rates, despite clear legal obligations and high volumes of mission-critical documents.
• Healthcare performs better than other industries—but still falls short: Healthcare had the highest usability rate in the Index at 22.06%, likely due to long-standing regulations, yet more than three-quarters of its PDFs remain inaccessible.

“As we dig more deeply into the high-level findings, the data gets even more illuminating,” added Kunar. “For example, as we subdivide government, the data indicates U.S. federal agencies outperform state, county, and municipal organizations. This would suggest established regulations like Section 508 have made an impact, and we should expect ADA Title II rulemaking to have an impact at the state and municipal level.”

The Index also reveals that most failures stem from foundational document structure and tagging issues—such as missing or improperly defined headings, incomplete document metadata, missing table header associations, and the absence of alternative text for figures. These findings indicate that accessibility gaps often originate in document creation workflows and authoring practices, not just in post-production remediation.

“The most important takeaway from this report is that this problem is solvable,” said Ferass Elrayes, CTO of Allyant and a long-time PDF technology expert. “We’re not witnessing edge-case failures—these are repeatable, preventable issues. The wide gap between industries proves that better outcomes are possible when accessibility is built into publishing processes, and when teams have the tooling and support needed to create accessible files.”

Access The PDF Accessibility Index: 2025–2026 Benchmark Report today at: https://allyant.com/resources/whitepaper/pdf-accessibility-index/.

About Allyant

Allyant is the leading provider of accessible document, digital, and alternative format print communications solutions, helping organizations achieve compliance with accessibility standards. Allyant empowers businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and more with industry-leading software, tools, and expert guidance to create inclusive communications for all users. Learn more at Allyant.com.