Uttarakhand's declaration as India's sixth fully literate state in July 2026 completed a sequence that began just over a year earlier. Mizoram became India's first fully literate state on 20 May 2025, reaching a literacy rate of 98.2% under the ULLAS initiative. Goa followed as the second state, declared fully literate on 30 May 2025, during the celebrations marking Goa's 39th Statehood Day.

Tripura became the third state to achieve full literacy in June 2025, with its literacy rate reaching 95.6%, just above the 95% national threshold. Himachal Pradesh followed as the fourth state, declared fully literate on 8 September 2025 with a literacy rate of 99.3%, the highest of any state in the country at the time.

Sikkim became the fifth state to achieve full literacy, declared on 27 May 2026 with an especially high literacy rate of 99.82%, and notably the third state from India's Northeast to reach this status, after Mizoram and Tripura. Uttarakhand completed the sequence as the sixth state, declared fully literate on 8 July 2026 with a literacy rate of 98.7%.

Across all six states, the underlying benchmark used to declare full literacy has remained the same throughout: an adult literacy rate, for those aged 15 and above, of 95% or higher.