ADA Accessible ADVs: What You Need to Know

February 12, 2026

What Happened?

Recently, some large financial institutions, including intermediaries, wrap sponsors, and broker-dealers that hire outside advisers for their clients, have specified that advisers who use their platforms need better, higher-level accessibility conformance on Part 2 of their Form ADV PDFs and on Form CRS.  Many will no longer accept Acrobat’s built-in accessibility check reports and will require more in-depth automated testing (such as CommonLook).

The Americans with Disabilities Act

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is commonly interpreted to require documents and websites to feature such accessibility features. Regardless of legal standards, updating documents to include these features will better serve all types of stakeholders and presents much friendlier, more easily consumable content to your clients.

PDF Accessibility

In general, PDF accessibility refers to the ability of PDF content to be consumed by everyone, including those with disabilities, by allowing assistive technologies (like screen readers or braille devices) to access and interpret the content of the PDF.

The main requirements include:

• Tagging of all text content and structure, including tables
• Ensuring content is presented in a logical reading order
• Including alternative text descriptions for graphical or photographic content (e.g., “this is a picture of a tree”)
• Proper text and color contrast throughout the document

Most of these updates are not visible in the final PDF unless you are using such assistive devices. Although many of the requirements can be met and verified via automated scans, some, such as reading order, are more subjective and require manual review and editing.

What does this mean for me?

If you share your ADV with intermediaries, wrap sponsors, and/or broker-dealers who hire outside advisers for their clients, you may need your PDF to conform to these standards (such as PDF UA/1 or WCAG).

Join our webinar to learn more.

FilePoint is holding a webinar on March 11, 2026, at Noon ET to walk through these expectations and to provide guidance for how advisers can ensure compliance. To register, click here.

Still have questions?

FilePoint can help you meet these accessibility standards by converting and updating your ADVs to meet these higher standards. If you have questions or would like assistance, please let us know.