The hardest paywalls to bypass in 2026
Ranked from our own logs — real removal attempts, not opinion. The lower the success rate, the harder the wall. Hard subscription walls (WSJ, FT, Bloomberg) sit at the bottom because the article text is never sent without a login; only an existing public archive recovers those.
📊 New: the Paywall Index, September 2026 — which news sites are hardest to read for free, by outlet and language.
2,694
attempts analysed
60
outlets ranked
7%
average success
Success rate by outlet
De Morgen0%
kicker0%
The Business Journals0%
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)0%
WirtschaftsWoche0%
NBC News0%
Heraldo de Aragón0%
Leipziger Volkszeitung0%
Göttinger Tageblatt0%
Hannoversche Allgemeine0%
Full leaderboard
| # | Outlet | Attempts | Success | Wall type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | De Morgen | 79 | 0% | hard |
| 2 | kicker | 57 | 0% | hard |
| 3 | The Business Journals | 37 | 0% | hard |
| 4 | The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) | 34 | 0% | hard |
| 5 | WirtschaftsWoche | 29 | 0% | metered |
| 6 | NBC News | 20 | 0% | soft |
| 7 | Heraldo de Aragón | 19 | 0% | hard |
| 8 | Leipziger Volkszeitung | 18 | 0% | hard |
| 9 | Göttinger Tageblatt | 15 | 0% | hard |
| 10 | Hannoversche Allgemeine | 15 | 0% | hard |
| 11 | Dagblad van het Noorden | 13 | 0% | hard |
| 12 | Krant van West-Vlaanderen | 13 | 0% | hard |
| 13 | NJ.com | 12 | 0% | hard |
| 14 | Helsingin Sanomat | 11 | 0% | hard |
| 15 | Finansavisen | 10 | 0% | hard |
| 16 | La Lettre | 10 | 0% | hard |
| 17 | Stylist | 8 | 0% | hard |
| 18 | MLive | 8 | 0% | hard |
| 19 | BusinessDesk | 7 | 0% | hard |
| 20 | The New Criterion | 7 | 0% | hard |
| 21 | L'Union | 6 | 0% | hard |
| 22 | De Telegraaf | 224 | 3% | hard |
| 23 | Heilbronner Stimme | 62 | 3% | hard |
| 24 | Aftonbladet | 29 | 3% | hard |
| 25 | Project Syndicate | 28 | 4% | hard |
| 26 | Humo | 23 | 4% | hard |
| 27 | Libération | 44 | 5% | metered |
| 28 | L'Echo | 22 | 5% | hard |
| 29 | shz.de | 21 | 5% | hard |
| 30 | Sächsische Zeitung | 20 | 5% | hard |
| 31 | Nikkei Asia | 36 | 6% | hard |
| 32 | De Standaard | 16 | 6% | hard |
| 33 | Mediapart | 509 | 7% | hard |
| 34 | Thüringer Allgemeine | 13 | 8% | hard |
| 35 | Stern | 82 | 9% | hard |
| 36 | BILD | 76 | 9% | metered |
| 37 | The Buffalo News | 23 | 9% | metered |
| 38 | La Voix du Nord | 22 | 9% | hard |
| 39 | AP News | 10 | 10% | soft |
| 40 | Saarbrücker Zeitung | 10 | 10% | hard |
| 41 | Bloomberg Law | 18 | 11% | hard |
| 42 | Ostthüringer Zeitung | 18 | 11% | hard |
| 43 | Forbes | 49 | 12% | hard |
| 44 | The Times | 240 | 13% | hard |
| 45 | Die Welt | 67 | 13% | hard |
| 46 | The Canberra Times | 8 | 13% | hard |
| 47 | Mitteldeutsche Zeitung | 21 | 14% | hard |
| 48 | De Tijd | 21 | 14% | hard |
| 49 | Eindhovens Dagblad | 13 | 15% | hard |
| 50 | Het Parool | 30 | 17% | hard |
| 51 | The Information | 24 | 17% | hard |
| 52 | The Wall Street Journal | 299 | 18% | hard |
| 53 | Het Nieuwsblad | 17 | 18% | hard |
| 54 | Barron's | 11 | 18% | hard |
| 55 | Geelong Advertiser | 16 | 19% | hard |
| 56 | Ruhr Nachrichten | 16 | 19% | hard |
| 57 | TVN24 | 16 | 19% | hard |
| 58 | Der Tagesspiegel | 82 | 20% | metered |
| 59 | Westfalenpost | 15 | 20% | hard |
| 60 | Jeune Afrique | 15 | 20% | hard |
Method: success = the tool returned the readable article text in its reader view. A full-page view or a publisher's free preview is shown to the reader but not counted. Figures cover the last 7 days (the last 30 for outlets with fewer than 30 reads a week) and come from our own server logs of real usage — no outlet is contacted to build this page — and blend passive results with user 👍/👎. Only outlets with at least 5 recorded attempts are listed. Free to cite with a link back. Full methodology →
Cite this data
Free to reuse and quote with a link back — CC-BY 4.0.
RemovePaywall (2026). “The hardest paywalls to bypass in 2026.” Retrieved 2 Oct 2026 from https://removepaywall.co/hardest-paywalls