Government website readability
How readable US government websites are, what grade level to aim for, what the law requires, and how ScanGov scores readability on every page it scans.
Plain language is the difference between a resident finding the answer and a resident calling the office. Federal law requires it, most state and local governments adopt it as a standard, and it is one of the easiest things on a website to measure. ScanGov scores the reading grade level of every government web page it scans and publishes the result on each site's public scorecard.
Check a page
Enter the URL of any public web page to get its Automated Readability Index and Flesch-Kincaid grade, scored the same way as the ScanGov scan.
How government websites score
ScanGov has readability scores for the homepages of 3,792 US government websites, as of September 2026. About six in ten meet the grade-8 standard ScanGov scores against. About one in three meet the grade-6 target that experienced government content teams set for themselves.
| Domain type | Homepages | Grade 8 or below | Grade 6 or below |
|---|---|---|---|
| All | 3,792 | 61.5% | 32.4% |
| .gov | 1,915 | 62.8% | 33.2% |
| .edu | 654 | 65.3% | 32.7% |
| Other (.org, .com, .net) | 870 | 59.0% | 32.2% |
| .us | 353 | 53.8% | 28.6% |
The .us group, where many cities, counties and special districts live, is the weakest on both measures. Those are also the governments facing the April 26, 2028 ADA Title II deadline. Homepages are the least representative page for readability, since they are mostly navigation; interior pages with real prose usually score higher grades, which is where the work is.
Every site in that count has a public scorecard on scangov.org, with readability among its usability checks. Browse the usability rankings to find yours.
What ScanGov checks
The readability standard takes the main content of a page, drops navigation and boilerplate, and runs two public formulas: the Automated Readability Index and Flesch-Kincaid. A page passes when its ARI rounds to grade 8 or below. The score sits in the usability indicator alongside page titles, descriptions, mobile viewport and Core Web Vitals.
Check any single page with the free readability checker. It uses the same formulas and the same pass rule as the scan, and shows the exact text it scored.
What grade level to aim for
Grade 8 is the common target for a general audience and the level ScanGov scores against. Government style guides set targets between grade 6 and grade 8, and content teams with a mature plain-language practice aim for grade 6, especially for the pages people need most: applying, paying, reporting, and finding out what happens next. Treat 8 as the floor and 6 as the goal for essential services.
The formulas only see sentence and word length, so the fastest wins are the plainest: one idea per sentence, common words over official ones, the action first, and headings and lists in place of paragraphs. The federal plain language guidelines and digital.gov's plain language resources cover the rest.
What the law requires
- The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal agencies to write public communications clearly. See plainlanguage.gov for the statute and agency requirements.
- The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, implemented by OMB memo M-23-22, requires federal websites to use plain language, and the US federal website standards carry it into design guidance.
- WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.5 Reading level asks for a lower-secondary reading level, or a simpler alternative, at Level AAA. It is above the Level AA the ADA Title II web rule requires of state and local governments, but it is the accessibility community's own statement that readability is an access issue.
Track it over time
A readability project is a rewrite of many pages over months, and it only shows up in a measurement that covers every page and repeats. Two views do that:
- The public scorecard for your site charts its homepage indicators over time in the profile's Pulse view, free, for every scanned government site.
- The ScanGov monitoring product scans every page of the site and has a readability section under usability that lists the pages written above the target grade, so the team can work through them and watch the list shrink as pages are rewritten, and catch new content that slips.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the Automated Readability Index and Flesch-Kincaid?
Both estimate the US school grade a reader needs. ARI uses characters per word and words per sentence; Flesch-Kincaid uses syllables per word and words per sentence. They usually land within a grade of each other. ScanGov records both and scores the pass or fail on ARI.
Does readability count toward accessibility compliance?
WCAG 2.2 has a reading level criterion (3.1.5) at Level AAA, above the Level AA the ADA Title II rule requires, so a hard-to-read page does not by itself fail Title II. It does fail the people the rule exists for. Plain language is the standard federal sites are held to under the Plain Writing Act and 21st Century IDEA, and most state and local style guides adopt it.
Why does my site fail readability on its ScanGov scorecard?
The public scorecard on scangov.org scores the homepage, and homepages are mostly links and labels, which read as fragments. A fail there means the homepage text rounds above grade 8. A ScanGov subscription scans every page, so you can see which pages actually carry the hard-to-read prose and fix those first.
How often is readability re-scored?
Public scorecards on scangov.org are refreshed on ScanGov's regular scan schedule, and each profile's Pulse view charts the homepage's indicators over time. Sites monitored in the ScanGov product are scanned on their plan's cadence, and the readability section under usability lists every page above the target grade after each scan, so a content team can measure the effect of a rewrite page by page.