Acquisition is the strongest factor
61.7% of agencies rated High or Very High on Acquisition, the best result of any factor. Putting Section 508 language into a solicitation is a paperwork exercise an agency controls completely, and it shows.
Research report
FY2025 data
60 agencies
Reviewed: Aug 27, 2026
Section 508: How Federal Agencies Scored
Accessibility maturity across all 60 United States federal agencies, from the FY2025 governmentwide Section 508 assessment.
Headline finding
58.3% of federal agencies rated Low or Very Low on whether their technology is actually accessible. On testing and remediation, the weakest factor in the assessment, 61.7% rated that low.
Source: Governmentwide Section 508 Assessment, FY2025. Agencies self-report. Percentages computed from the published response data.
- Agencies assessed
- 60
- Low conformance
- 58.3%
- Low on testing
- 61.7%
- High on acquisition
- 61.7%
Executive summary
A programme on paper, not in practice
Section 508 has been law since 1998. Nearly three decades later, most federal agencies report having the policies, governance, and contract language in place, and most also report that their technology still is not accessible. The assessment measures both, and the distance between them is the story.
Every percentage on this page is computed from the government's own published response file, so you can reproduce it from the source CSV.
01
Conformance lags implementation badly
26.7% of agencies rated Low or Very Low on having a programme, but 58.3% rated that low on whether the technology is accessible.
02
Testing is where it breaks
61.7% of agencies rated Low or Very Low on testing and remediation, the weakest factor measured.
03
Buying is the easy part
61.7% rated High or Very High on acquisition. Writing the requirement into a contract is fully within an agency's control; verifying the result is not.
These scores are self-reported
Agencies answer the assessment themselves. Nobody independently audits their websites, documents, or internal software to produce these ratings. That cuts in an uncomfortable direction: if anything, self-assessment tends to flatter, so the real picture is unlikely to be better than what agencies reported about themselves.
How agencies scored on each factor
Number of the 60 assessed agencies at each maturity level, by assessment factor.
The two index scores tell different stories. 58.3% of agencies rated Low or Very Low on the Accessibility Conformance Index, which measures whether their ICT is actually accessible, while only 26.7% rated that low on Implementation, which measures whether they have a programme in place. Having a programme is not the same as having accessible technology.
Accessibility Conformance Index
58.3% Low or Very Low
Accessibility Implementation Index
26.7% Low or Very Low
Policy Integration
26.7% Low or Very Low
Acquisition
18.3% Low or Very Low
Testing and Remediation
61.7% Low or Very Low
Bars run from Very Low on the left to Very High on the right. Open the data table for exact counts.
Interpretation
Good at buying it, bad at checking it
The factor scores form a clear shape. Agencies have largely succeeded at writing accessibility into policy and contracts. They have largely failed at verifying that what they bought and built actually works.
Testing is the weakest
61.7% of agencies rated Low or Very Low on Testing and Remediation, the worst factor in the assessment. Testing requires trained staff, assistive technology, and time against real user journeys. That is where the effort collapses.
A VPAT is not a test result
Strong acquisition scores alongside weak testing scores suggest agencies are accepting vendor conformance claims without verifying them. A supplier's accessibility conformance report is a starting point for evaluation, not evidence of conformance.
If you are on the buying side of this, our accessible procurement guidance covers how to evaluate a conformance report, and the audit guide covers what real verification involves. For the standard itself, see Section 508.
Every agency, scored
All 60 agencies with their Conformance and Implementation index outcomes, ordered from lowest conformance to highest.
Open the data table to find a specific agency. Conformance measures whether the ICT is accessible; Implementation measures whether the programme to deliver it exists.
The 60 agencies break down as 17 Very Low, 18 Low, 11 Moderate, 6 High, 8 Very High on the Accessibility Conformance Index. Select View data table below for the full list.
Data Sources
- Governmentwide Section 508 Assessment, FY2025
Annual assessment of federal agency Section 508 programmes, mandated by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023. Responses from 60 federal agencies, published as open data by GSA.
Sample Size
60 federal agencies
Date Range
FY2025, published 2026-03-02
Limitations
- Agencies self-report. No independent audit of agency websites, documents, or internal software produces these ratings.
- The Accessibility Conformance Index and Accessibility Implementation Index are maturity ratings on a five-point scale, not counts of WCAG failures. A Very High rating does not mean an agency's ICT is conformant.
- The percentages on this page are our own computation from the published agency response data file, not figures quoted from the GSA narrative report.
- Agency size and mission vary enormously across the 60 respondents, and the assessment does not weight by the number of people an agency serves.
- A correction issued on 30 July 2026 added missing data from five agencies. This page uses the corrected file.
- The assessment covers United States federal agencies only. It says nothing about state or local government, which fall under ADA Title II rather than Section 508.
Last updated: 2026-08-27
Use the research
Download, cite, and share
This assessment is a United States Government work in the public domain. Cite the original alongside our analysis.
Download the data
The PDF contains the factor distribution and the full agency list. The CSV contains one row per agency plus the factor breakdown.
Cite this report
Accessibility.build. (2026). Section 508 Assessment FY2025: How Federal Agencies Scored. https://accessibility.build/research/section-508-assessment
Questions about the data
Frequently asked questions
What the assessment measures, and what it does not.
Get the data
Every number on this page is available as CSV and JSON under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Cite Accessibility.build and the underlying sources (US General Services Administration). Last updated .
- Agency resultsCSV, Agency resultsJSON, Agency results
- Maturity levelsCSV, Maturity levelsJSON, Maturity levels
- Assessment factorsCSV, Assessment factorsJSON, Assessment factors
Essential Accessibility Resources
Comprehensive tools, checklists, and guides to help you create inclusive digital experiences
Top Pick
Section 508 Compliance Guide
Section 508 requirements for federal agencies and vendors, VPATs, and WCAG mapping
section 508
508 compliance
vpat
+2 more
Top Pick
Accessibility Laws by Jurisdiction
Global tracker of accessibility laws comparing WCAG requirements, penalties, and enforcement across 35+ jurisdictions
ada title ii
section 508
accessibility compliance
Top Pick
VPAT & Accessibility Conformance Report Guide
VPAT and ACR demystified: the template versus the report, the four editions (508, EU, WCAG, INT) and who asks for each, how to read an ACR before buying, how to produce one that survives scrutiny with testing behind it, and why EAA-era European buyers ask for the EN 301 549 edition
vpat
accessibility conformance report
vpat 508
+1 more