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.
Based on 3,570 real attempts across 60 outlets. Updated continuously · free to cite with a link.
| # | Outlet | Attempts | Success | Wall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stern | 23 | 0% | hard |
| 2 | kicker | 6 | 0% | hard |
| 3 | la Repubblica | 24 | 8% | hard |
| 4 | Heilbronner Stimme | 14 | 14% | hard |
| 5 | De Tijd | 11 | 18% | hard |
| 6 | de Volkskrant | 21 | 19% | hard |
| 7 | Forbes | 9 | 22% | hard |
| 8 | Financial Times | 148 | 23% | hard |
| 9 | Het Laatste Nieuws | 43 | 28% | hard |
| 10 | AD | 43 | 30% | hard |
| 11 | Medium | 48 | 33% | metered |
| 12 | Hamburger Abendblatt | 15 | 33% | hard |
| 13 | Bloomberg | 189 | 34% | hard |
| 14 | De Telegraaf | 39 | 36% | hard |
| 15 | The Economist | 199 | 38% | hard |
| 16 | WAZ | 13 | 38% | metered |
| 17 | Der Spiegel | 151 | 40% | metered |
| 18 | Libération | 10 | 40% | metered |
| 19 | WirtschaftsWoche | 5 | 40% | metered |
| 20 | The Times | 175 | 41% | hard |
| 21 | Die Welt | 69 | 42% | metered |
| 22 | The Buffalo News | 24 | 42% | metered |
| 23 | Le Parisien | 40 | 43% | hard |
| 24 | Business Standard | 9 | 44% | metered |
| 25 | Le Monde | 32 | 47% | hard |
| 26 | The Wall Street Journal | 219 | 50% | hard |
| 27 | The Washington Post | 90 | 50% | metered |
| 28 | Süddeutsche Zeitung | 68 | 50% | metered |
| 29 | La Stampa | 10 | 50% | metered |
| 30 | Gazeta Wyborcza | 6 | 50% | hard |
| 31 | Die Zeit | 61 | 51% | hard |
| 32 | The Indian Express | 21 | 52% | metered |
| 33 | BILD | 51 | 53% | metered |
| 34 | Der Tagesspiegel | 20 | 55% | metered |
| 35 | Il Fatto Quotidiano | 5 | 60% | metered |
| 36 | The New York Times | 322 | 61% | metered |
| 37 | The Guardian | 46 | 67% | soft |
| 38 | Ouest-France | 16 | 69% | soft |
| 39 | Rzeczpospolita | 10 | 70% | metered |
| 40 | Daily Mail | 313 | 77% | soft |
| 41 | Handelsblatt | 31 | 77% | hard |
| 42 | El País | 300 | 78% | metered |
| 43 | AP News | 30 | 80% | soft |
| 44 | L'Équipe | 10 | 80% | metered |
| 45 | Mediapart | 22 | 82% | hard |
| 46 | Manager Magazin | 6 | 83% | metered |
| 47 | L'Humanité | 6 | 83% | soft |
| 48 | Le Figaro | 44 | 86% | metered |
| 49 | Rolling Stone | 8 | 88% | metered |
| 50 | El Confidencial | 60 | 90% | metered |
| 51 | Estadão | 20 | 90% | metered |
| 52 | Business Insider | 86 | 91% | metered |
| 53 | elDiario.es | 11 | 91% | soft |
| 54 | The Australian | 13 | 92% | metered |
| 55 | Les Échos | 42 | 95% | hard |
| 56 | Harvard Business Review | 23 | 96% | hard |
| 57 | The Atlantic | 106 | 97% | metered |
| 58 | El Mundo | 62 | 97% | metered |
| 59 | O Globo | 36 | 97% | metered |
| 60 | HotNews | 36 | 97% | metered |
Method
Success = the tool returned a readable article (a clean reader view or a working full-page render) rather than a block. Figures 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.
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 12 Sep 2026 from https://removepaywall.co/hardest-paywalls