ADA Title II PDF requirements: what's exempt and what changed in 2026

If your city, county, school district or special district posts PDFs, the ADA Title II web rule expects them to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. In April 2026 the Department of Justice moved the deadlines back a year and left the standard where it was. As of October 2026, a government serving 50,000 people or more has until April 26, 2027, and smaller governments and special districts have until April 26, 2028. You do not have to fix every old file. Archived content, and older documents nobody uses to get a service, can be exempt, though you will likely still need to provide them in an accessible form on request. This guide ends with a plan you can finish.

What changed in April 2026

On April 20, 2026, DOJ published an interim final rule that extended both Title II compliance dates by one year. The rule it amends is 28 CFR part 35, subpart H, first published in April 2024.

The interim rule changed the dates and nothing else. In DOJ's words, "The amendments do not alter any other provisions of the 2024 final rule." The technical standard is still WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and the exceptions read the same as before.

DOJ partly attributed the delay to technology, writing that "advanced technology, such as generative AI, does not yet reliably automate the remediation of inaccessible content at scale." DOJ also said it plans further rulemaking on the rule's substance and will consider a proposed rule with public comment. Any change to the requirements themselves would come through that process.

Two more things to keep in view.

• The extension is being challenged. On May 21, 2026, the National Federation of the Blind sued DOJ and HHS in federal court in Maryland, asking the court to set aside both extensions. As of October 2026, no ruling has been reported.
• Your existing duties did not move. The interim rule itself says that "regardless of the compliance dates," covered entities have an ongoing obligation to keep the services they offer online accessible under their existing Title II obligations.

The extra year is time to do the work well. Plan so that a ruling either way does not leave you starting from zero.

Which PDFs are in scope

The rule covers web content and mobile apps that a public entity "provides or makes available, directly or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements." Web content explicitly includes conventional electronic documents, which the rule defines as PDF, word processor, presentation and spreadsheet files.

In practice, that covers PDFs on any website you run, PDFs inside your mobile apps, and PDFs a vendor or contractor posts for you, such as files on an agenda platform. It also covers material made by outside companies that you post yourself. DOJ's compliance guide says tools such as calendars and maps built by a technology company are still covered "because it is posted by the state or local government."

Within that scope, two groups of PDFs need to meet WCAG 2.1 AA.

1. Everything you post on or after your compliance date. That includes old files you update. DOJ's guide says a document first posted in 2020 and later updated with new contact information no longer qualifies for the preexisting-document exception.
2. Older PDFs that people currently use to apply for, gain access to, or participate in your services, programs or activities. Applications, permit forms and current instructions typically fall here. DOJ's own example is a business license application posted in 2020 that people still use after the compliance date.

DOJ has treated inaccessible PDFs as a Title II problem for some time. In June 2024 it reached agreements with four Texas counties over their election websites. Its letter of findings to one county listed "Many PDF Documents Posted on the Website are Inaccessible" among the problems, describing files that lacked tags and alternative text or were scanned images.

What's exempt

The rule lists five exceptions in 28 CFR 35.201. Two of them do most of the work for a PDF library.

The archived content exception

Archived web content is exempt only when all four of these are true.

1. It was created before your compliance date, or it reproduces paper documents or other physical media created before that date.
2. It is kept only for reference, research or recordkeeping.
3. It has not been altered or updated since it was archived.
4. It is organized and stored in a dedicated area clearly identified as archived.

In DOJ's guide, a 1998 water quality report stored unchanged in an archive section for research qualifies. City council minutes created after the compliance date do not qualify, even if they sit in an archive section. Our guide to sorting a PDF library turns the four conditions into a checklist.

The preexisting documents exception

PDFs and other conventional electronic documents that were on your site before your compliance date are exempt, unless they are currently used to apply for, gain access to, or participate in your services, programs or activities. DOJ's examples include a 2018 parade flyer, which qualifies, and the business license application that people still use, which does not.

The dates in these exceptions moved too

Both exceptions refer to the date your entity must comply. The April 2026 rule moved that date. A large city's PDF posted in June 2026, for example, could now count as preexisting where it would not have before. Confirm with counsel how the new date applies to your documents, especially while the lawsuit over the extension is pending.

The other three exceptions

• Third-party content that a third party posts on its own, such as a resident's comment on a public message board. Content posted for you under a contract or other arrangement is covered.
• Individualized, secured documents. A PDF about a specific person, their property or their account, behind a password or otherwise secured, such as a tax statement in a resident portal.
• Preexisting social media posts made before your compliance date.

Two narrow limits that are separate from the exceptions

Under 28 CFR 35.204, an entity can try to show that full compliance would cause a fundamental alteration or undue financial and administrative burdens. The head of the entity or a designee must make that decision in writing, and you must still do as much as you can short of that point. Under 28 CFR 35.205, a failure to meet WCAG can count as compliance when its impact is so minimal that people with disabilities can still use your content with substantially equivalent timeliness, privacy, independence and ease. Both are fact-specific, so ask counsel before you rely on either.

Exempt content must still be provided on request

The exceptions remove the duty to make content meet WCAG 2.1 AA in advance. They leave in place your existing duty to communicate effectively with people with disabilities under 28 CFR 35.160. DOJ's guide says that "even when web content or content in mobile apps does not have to meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA, you would likely still need to provide the content to a person with a disability who needs it in a format that is accessible to them." Publish a clear way to ask, and decide in advance who answers and how fast.

Sorting five sample documents

Here is how the rules might play out for a county of 80,000 people, whose compliance date is now April 26, 2027. Treat these as working decisions to confirm with counsel.

Two of the five need fixing. Your own split will differ, which is why sorting comes before any budget. If you remove files, check your records retention schedule first, as the archive guide explains.

What WCAG 2.1 AA means for a PDF

WCAG 2.1 contains 50 success criteria at Levels A and AA, and the W3C publishes techniques for applying them to PDF. For a typical PDF, they come down to a few concrete properties.

• Tags and structure. Headings, lists, tables and paragraphs are marked so assistive technology can navigate them (1.3.1).
• Reading order. Content is announced in a sequence that preserves its meaning, including in multi-column layouts (1.3.2).
• Alternative text. Meaningful images have descriptions, and decorative ones are hidden from screen readers (1.1.1).
• Table headers. Header cells are marked so each value is read with its row and column labels (1.3.1).
• Form fields. Every field has a name and role that a screen reader can announce (4.1.2).
• Title and language. The document has a real title (2.4.2) and declares its language (3.1.1).
• Contrast. Body text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background, and large text at least 3:1 (1.4.3).
• Real text. A scanned page is only a picture until it gets a text layer and structure (1.1.1).

You may also see PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1), a separate ISO standard for accessible PDF files. Many checkers test against it, and it covers much of the same ground. The Title II rule names WCAG 2.1 AA as its standard.

Some checks are mechanical and some need judgment. Our guide to which checks software can fix sorts them one by one, and the WCAG coverage map shows how our product handles each.

How to size your backlog

Start with arithmetic. Suppose your inventory finds 5,000 PDFs that average 12 pages each.

Comparison written by Ockem. The per-page range reflects vendor quotes in public buyer and practitioner reports that we reviewed in August 2026. The review line is Ockem's measurement of production documents in August 2026. The per-document line uses the published price for Ockem Proof, where one document is a PDF of up to 50 pages and a 120-page PDF counts as three. Importing and auditing are free, and you pay when a document is certified. See current prices.

Budget staff time under every model. Time a sample of your own files: the minutes your team spends per document, multiplied by the number of documents, is the staff time to plan around.

Sorting can shrink the total more than any rate does, because archived, unused and removable files may not need remediation at all. Scans, dense tables and long forms take more work under any model. Our remediation cost guide works through smaller examples, including a 200-page budget book.

A plan you can finish

1. Count what you publish

List every place your PDFs live, including the main site, department sites, agenda and permitting platforms, document centers and apps. Our free PDF inventory tool crawls a site and counts its PDFs using file metadata only.

2. Sort before you fix

Put each file in one of four groups: fix, archive, keep as preexisting, or remove. Write down why. The archive guide has a decision table by document type.

3. Fix what people use first

Start with documents people need to get something done, such as applications, forms, eligibility rules, fee schedules, current meeting materials and election information. Then work back through recent documents.

4. Change how new documents are made

Every inaccessible PDF you post after your compliance date adds to the backlog. Build accessibility into source templates with real heading styles, alt text written in the authoring tool, tagged PDF export, and colors that pass contrast. DOJ's guide recommends written policies, a named coordinator, a public way to request accessible content, and ongoing staff training.

5. Keep evidence

Record each sorting decision, each remediated file, and each accessibility request with how you answered it. If you remediate with Ockem Proof, each certified document gets a certificate and a public verification page stating what software verified, what your organization attested, and what is not claimed.

6. Re-check on a schedule

New uploads, edited files and vendor-posted content can each pull a document back into scope. Re-run your inventory on a set schedule, such as quarterly, and re-check what changed.

If you also receive HHS funding

Organizations that receive federal financial assistance from HHS, such as many health departments, hospitals and human services agencies, also fall under the HHS Section 504 rule at 45 CFR part 84. It uses the same WCAG 2.1 AA standard and the same five exceptions (45 CFR 84.85). HHS extended its dates in an interim final rule published May 11, 2026.

The NFB lawsuit challenges this extension too. A county health department or other public entity that takes HHS funds can fall under both rules. For a large county the dates are about two weeks apart, so one plan can serve both. Confirm with counsel which rules apply.

Questions

This guide explains the rules in plain language. It isn’t legal advice. Check how they apply to your organization with counsel.