How ready are German public-service pages for accessible language versions?

Results derived from the observations

Sample and collection method

The frozen sample contains four federal portals, all 16 Länder service portals, and the 20 largest municipalities selected from the latest official Destatis city table available when collection began.

For every portal we reviewed residence registration, identity-card application, and housing-benefit application. Each observation records the source portal, collection and verification date, version availability, discoverability, task completeness, structural complexity, maintenance signal, and source-to-version linkage.

Discoverability scores are 0 when no path is visible, 1 when a version needs search or indirect navigation, and 2 when it is linked from the relevant service path. Task completeness scores are 0 for no usable task information, 1 for partial information, and 2 when requirements, documents, costs, timing, and the next action are available.

Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis): Städte in Deutschland nach Fläche, Bevölkerung und Bevölkerungsdichte am 31.12.2024, 2024-12-31

Interpretation and limitations

The audit is a structured cross-section of public pages on the collection date. It does not evaluate authenticated transactions, individual assistive-technology compatibility, legal accuracy, or every service offered by a portal. Scores describe the selected journeys and are intended for operational benchmarking, not a ranking of administrations.

All 120 observations