ADA Title II and your PDFs

In 2024 the U.S. Department of Justice published a rule that sets a technical standard for the websites and mobile apps of state and local governments under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The standard is WCAG 2.1 Level AA. School districts, cities, counties and other public agencies are covered.

Do PDFs count?

Yes. The rule covers web content, and documents posted on a website are web content. Agendas, board packets, budgets, forms, newsletters and meeting minutes are all in scope, and they are usually the largest and oldest part of a public site. The rule includes a limited exception for older archived documents that are not in current use, and several others, so which of your files must be fixed is a question to settle with your counsel.

Where the dates stand

The Department of Justice extended the compliance dates by one year in an interim final rule in April 2026. Larger governments, those with a population of 50,000 or more, now have until April 26, 2027. Smaller governments and special districts have a later date. The extension does not change the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard, and it does not change the duty to provide equal access. Check the current text on ada.gov before you plan around a date, because it has changed once already.

Why PDFs are the hard part

Most pages on a site can be fixed once in a template. A PDF cannot. Each file has to be checked and repaired on its own: tags, reading order, headings, table structure, alternative text for images, document language and a title. Scanned documents have no text at all until they have been through OCR. A district with thousands of files cannot fix them by hand on a deadline, and new ones arrive every week.

A practical way to start

• Take inventory. Find out how many PDFs you publish and where. Our free report does this for a site you name.
• Sort by use. Current agendas, forms and notices matter most. Archived material can come later.
• Fix the source. Where staff create documents in Word or similar tools, accessible authoring prevents most problems at the start.
• Convert the rest. An accessible HTML version of each PDF is often the fastest route. See why HTML works better than fixing each file.
• Keep a record. Note what you checked and when, and give people a way to ask for help.

How Savoy fits in

Savoy finds the PDFs on your site and turns each one into an accessible web page served from your own domain, scored with the axe-core testing tool. It runs as a WordPress plugin or one script tag on any site. It reduces the work, and it does not replace a review of your site as a whole.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Savoy does not guarantee compliance with any accessibility law. See our Terms of Service.