PDF statistics 2026: verified numbers, with sources
Every number on this page comes from a primary source and carries the date it was checked. Numbers we could not verify from their source are not here — the section near the end says which.
How common is PDF on the open web?
Common Crawl archives a sample of the public web each month and publishes the file types it found. These are its three most recent crawls; the latest is CC-MAIN-2026-39.
20,946,500
PDF files in the latest crawl, out of 2,171,285,702 pages crawled
0.965%
of everything crawled is a PDF — about one page in a hundred
181×
more PDFs than Word documents on the open web, and 380× more than Excel files
| Crawl | PDFs | Share | Word (.doc, .docx) |
|---|---|---|---|
| CC-MAIN-2026-30 | 21,345,041 | 0.993% | 120,819 |
| CC-MAIN-2026-34 | 22,052,970 | 1.031% | 123,006 |
| CC-MAIN-2026-39 | 20,946,500 | 0.965% | 115,463 |
Detecting the type from the content finds 326,035 more PDFs than the servers declared. Some PDFs are sent with a generic or wrong type, which can make a browser save them instead of opening them.
Counts use the file type detected from the content (Apache Tika), not the type the server declares. Common Crawl is a large sample, not the whole web, and how it chooses pages changes over time — so year-to-year shares are not a reliable trend and are not shown. Common Crawl — MIME types · retrieved 2026-09-28
How big can an uploaded PDF be?
Official limits on the portals people most often upload PDFs to, each from the portal’s own page and dated.
| Portal | Limit and source |
|---|---|
| IRCC online applicationsCanada | Commonly 4 MB per file; as low as 2 MB on some formsIRCC Help Centre · checked 2026-09-23 |
| USCIS online filing (evidence uploads)United States | 12 MB per file; PDF, JPG or JPEG (TIFF for some forms)USCIS — Tips for filing forms online · checked 2026-09-23 |
| ImmiAccount visa applicationsAustralia | 5 MB per file; 30 to 60 files per application depending on the visaHome Affairs — attaching documents · checked 2026-09-23 |
| US federal courts (CM/ECF)United States | Set by each court: often 35–50 MB; 10 MB in S.D.N.Y. and the Second CircuitC.D. Cal. — file size limit · Second Circuit — dividing an oversized PDF · checked 2026-09-23 |
| Indian recruitment portals (UPSC, SSC, RRB, IBPS)India | Varies by notification; documents often 200 KB, sometimes 100 KB · checked 2026-09-23 |
| Gmail (personal accounts)Global | 25 MB per messageGmail Help — attachment limits · checked 2026-09-23 |
| EOIR Courts & Appeals System (ECAS)United States | 25 MB per document; PDF or JPG onlyEOIR — ECAS user manual · checked 2026-09-27 |
| Etsy digital downloadsGlobal | 20 MB per file; up to five files per listingEtsy Help — digital listings · checked 2026-09-27 |
| Turnitin submissionsGlobal | Under 100 MB and under 800 pages per fileTurnitin Guides — file requirements · checked 2026-09-27 |
How long does a PDF job take?
Our own tools, measured three times each on 2026-09-28 (Chrome 153 · Apple M4 Pro); the middle run is shown. Times depend on the computer or phone.
- Compress — 6-page scanned PDF · 10.0 MB: 1.1 s, result 1.9 MB; largest request sent while it ran: 0 bytes.
- Merge — three 10-page PDFs · 27 KB: 0.3 s, result 25 KB; largest request sent while it ran: 0 bytes.
- PDF to JPG — 10-page text PDF · 9 KB: 0.3 s, result 1.8 MB; largest request sent while it ran: 0 bytes.
What is not on this page, and why
Widely repeated figures such as “trillions of PDFs in existence” have no primary source we could check, so they are left out. The dates of the PDF standards are also missing for now: the ISO and Library of Congress pages that record them could not be read and checked when this page was built. They will be added when they can be verified at the source.
Citing these numbers
You are welcome to use these figures. Please cite the original source and this page, with the date:
Common Crawl, MIME type statistics for CC-MAIN-2026-39, via DocuGrip, “PDF statistics 2026”, https://docugrip.com/pdf-statistics (retrieved 2026-09-28).