This research was encouraged by the demand for every student to possess higher order thinking skills (HOTS). This ability can be assessed when the question instruments require high-level thinking skills. Hence, the present study aimed to analyze the fulfilment and percentage of high-level thinking skill indicators in reading literacy questions at Vocational High Schools (SMK) in Pekanbaru City. The research was qualitative and employed a content analysis methodology. Data were collected using documentation techniques involving reading literacy instruments obtained from teachers in vocational high schools throughout Pekanbaru city. The development of HOTS-based reading literacy questions was expected to reflect students' reading literacy abilities. The findings indicated that the reading literacy questions developed by teachers were predominantly not HOTS-based. However, some questions exhibited HOTS characteristics, such as critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Based on Aiken's test conducted by experts on the three teacher-created instruments, it was concluded that over 50% of the questions were not valid. This conclusion was further reinforced by interviews with teachers who encountered challenges in designing reading literacy questions, including difficulty determining operational verbs and a lack of knowledge in developing reading literacy questions, creating HOTS-based questions, and composing answer choices relevant to the provided rules.