How to file a FOIA request — and what to do when it is denied

A Freedom of Information Act request is not a question. It is a demand for documents that already exist, addressed to one specific federal agency. Most requests that come back empty were written as questions, or sent to the wrong place. This guide covers both problems.

What FOIA reaches, and what it does not

FOIA (5 U.S.C. § 552) applies to agencies of the federal executive branch: departments, independent agencies, regulatory commissions, government-owned corporations. It does not reach Congress, the federal courts, or the President’s immediate personal staff. It does not reach state, county or city governments either — every state has its own public records law, and those run on different deadlines and different exemptions.

An agency only has to hand over records it holds. It does not have to answer questions, do research, create a new table for you, or explain a decision. Ask for the emails, the inspection report, the contract, the database export.

Before you file: check what is already public

Agencies publish frequently requested records in a FOIA library, and many publish their full request logs. If the document you want has already been released to someone else, you can download it today instead of waiting weeks. Start at the agency’s own FOIA page and at FOIA.gov, which lists every agency’s request portal and its most recent processing statistics — including the median days each agency takes, which tells you what to expect before you write a word.

Writing a request that cannot be misread

Four things make the difference between a fulfilled request and a “no responsive records” letter:

1. Name records, not subjects. “All emails between the Office of the Administrator and Acme Corp.” beats “information about Acme Corp.”
2. Bound it in time. A date range keeps the request out of the “unduly burdensome” pile.
3. Name the format. Ask for the native electronic format — a spreadsheet as a spreadsheet, a database as a delimited export. An agency that sends you a scanned PDF of a table has technically complied and practically wasted your month.
4. State your fee category. Commercial, educational or non-commercial scientific institution, news media, or “all other”. The category sets what you pay for search and duplication. Ask for a fee waiver in the same paragraph if the records serve public understanding rather than your own commercial interest, and say why in one sentence.

If the information is urgently needed to inform the public about actual government activity, you can also request expedited processing — and you will have to certify the urgency.

Where it goes, and how long it takes

File through the agency’s portal where one exists; several agencies share the FOIA.gov submission system. Keep the tracking number: it is the only reliable way to check status later.

The agency has 20 business days to determine whether it will comply — not to deliver the records. It can extend that by 10 more working days in “unusual circumstances” (records held in another office, a volume that needs consultation). In practice, complex requests at large agencies run months, and the FOIA.gov statistics for that agency are a better forecast than the statute.

Two answers surprise people. “No responsive records” means the search found nothing, and is worth challenging when you can name a reason the records must exist. A Glomar response refuses to confirm or deny that the records exist at all, and it appears mostly in national-security and law-enforcement matters.

The exemptions you will actually meet

The Act has nine exemptions. Three of them account for most withholdings: (b)(5), the deliberative-process privilege that covers internal pre-decisional discussion; (b)(6), personal privacy; and (b)(7), law enforcement records. A redaction must be justified exemption by exemption, and the agency must release any portion that is reasonably segregable — so a wholly withheld document with a single exemption cited is a good appeal candidate.

Appealing a denial

An administrative appeal goes to the agency, not to a court, and the deadline lives in that agency’s own regulations — commonly 90 days from the denial letter. Appeal a fee category, a fee-waiver refusal, an inadequate search and a withholding: they are separate grounds and you can raise them together.

If the appeal fails, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), the FOIA ombudsman inside the National Archives, offers free mediation. Litigation in federal district court is the last step, and it is also the only step with real leverage over an agency that has simply stopped answering.

What to do with what you get

Records released under FOIA come with no licence attached; they are government works, and federal works are generally outside copyright in the United States. That is not automatically true of the third-party material inside them — a contractor’s report or a copyrighted map attached to a filing keeps its own protection. Our guide on what licence public data carries covers the difference before you republish, and how to read a statistic before you quote it covers the figures inside.

Asking in Spain, Mexico or Argentina works nothing like this: the deadlines, the authority and the appeal route all change. The Spanish version of this guide is at Cómo pedir información pública.