While technology has greatly expanded the availability of Scripture, a perfect storm of calamities has kept the Bible out of the hands of half a billion Christians around the globe.
According to just-released data from the 2026 Bible Access List, the second such analysis from the Bible Access Initiative, 125 million believers are unable to access God’s Word in any format, even in countries where Scripture is technically allowed and safe to possess.
The report evaluates 106 countries and pinpoints where Christians face the greatest obstacles to accessing the Bible, some entirely and others in part.
“We often hear that the Bible is more accessible than ever, but we must not confuse availability with access,” Wybo Nicolai, co-founder of the Bible Access List, said in a statement about the latest data. “Persecution-related Bible access restrictions can make accessing Scripture difficult or dangerous, while socioeconomic barriers can put a Bible beyond people’s reach. Even where Scripture is available digitally, limited internet coverage or unsafe online environments can still prevent people from accessing it.”
Key barriers to access include persecution-related restrictions, social hostility toward Christians, threats from extremist groups, failing infrastructure, and socioeconomic issues, like poverty, lack of access to the internet, limited electricity, and illiteracy.
The top five countries on the coalition’s restrictions list (in order) are: Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea, and Eritrea.
“In Afghanistan, God’s Word is the most dangerous book any Afghan can possess,” the researchers stated. “And discovery can cost them their life. In North Korea, every dimension of Bible access is prohibited. Christians are treated as enemies of the state, and a Bible discovered in a routine house search can mean execution or a life sentence in a forced labor camp.”
The analysis looked at places, too, where believers don’t face legal restrictions but are suffering shortage of Bible access. Those top five countries (in order) are: the Democratic Republic of Congo (>10 million), Ethiopia (>10 million), Nigeria (>10 million), India (>10 million), and Uganda (5-10 million).
For context, there are more than 107 million Christians living in the DR Congo, but not even half — fewer than 33% — of believers there own a Bible in a country where it is legal to possess one.
“No law restricts access,” according to the report. “[But] the DRC is among the poorest countries in the world. Only about one in five people have electricity, and poor roads make remote communities difficult to reach in a country the size of Western Europe.”
