How to File a FOIA Request and Get a Federal Agency to Answer You

Here is a secret that Washington would prefer you did not know: you own the paperwork. Not all of it, not every page, and not on demand, but a great deal more of it than you have been led to believe. The federal government is, in the end, your government, and the records it keeps about what it does with your money and your authority are presumed to be yours to see.

The tool for seeing them is the Freedom of Information Act, which every citizen can use and almost no citizen does. I am going to give you the playbook, in plain steps, from the first sentence of a request to the last resort of a lawsuit. This is general information about how the statute works, not legal advice about your own situation. If you have a real dispute with a real agency, a lawyer who handles FOIA cases is the person to call. But the first steps cost you a stamp or a click, and you should know how to take them.

A Short History

The Freedom of Information Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966, on the Fourth of July, and it took effect the following year. It lives in Section 552 of Title 5 of the United States Code, as part of the Administrative Procedure Act. Its first version had a famous weakness: it gave the agencies wide latitude to say no and gave citizens little power to make them say yes. Many requests went nowhere.

In the aftermath of Watergate, Congress tightened it. The 1974 amendments set deadlines for agencies to respond, limited the fees they could charge, allowed courts to review withheld documents in private and to order disclosure, and provided for attorney's fees when a citizen won. President Gerald Ford vetoed the bill, with objections about national security and the burden on agencies, and in November 1974 Congress overrode his veto. Later amendments added electronic records in 1996, created a mediation office in 2007 and, in 2016, required agencies to release records unless they could show a foreseeable harm.

The principle behind it is older than any of those. James Madison wrote in 1822, in a letter to W. T. Barry, that "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both." He went on: "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." Madison was talking about public education, but the logic runs straight to FOIA. A self-governing people must be able to find out what its servants are doing.

Who Can Ask, and What Can You Ask For

Any person may file a FOIA request. You do not need to be a citizen, a journalist or a lawyer, and you do not have to say why you want the records. The Act applies to federal executive branch agencies: the departments, the independent regulatory commissions and the government corporations. It does not apply to Congress, to the federal courts or to the President's immediate personal staff, and it does not apply to state or local governments, which have their own public records laws. If your question is about your city or state, look to your state's law.

You may ask for existing records. A record can be a document, an email, a spreadsheet, a photograph or a database entry. An agency is not required to create a record, answer questions or conduct research for you. "Why did the agency do this?" is not a FOIA request. "All memoranda explaining the decision to do this, dated between these two days" is.

If you want records about yourself, the Privacy Act of 1974 is a companion tool, and many agencies treat a request for your own file as both a Privacy Act and a FOIA request.

Step by Step

1. Find the right agency. Decide which agency is likely to have the records. If you are not sure, ask which one makes the decisions in the area you care about. You can send a request to the wrong agency, which should route it or tell you, but you will save weeks by choosing well.
2. Find the right office. Every agency has a FOIA office or a FOIA officer, and most have a public liaison to answer questions. The federal government runs a central FOIA website that lists the contact information for every agency and lets you submit requests to many of them. Large agencies often have separate FOIA offices for their components, and a request sent to the component that holds the records moves fastest.
3. Call or email the FOIA liaison first. Before you file, ask the liaison whether the records exist, what they are called and where they are kept. It is the cheapest piece of advice in this column. A five-minute conversation can turn a vague request into a precise one.
4. Write a narrow request. This is the most important step. See the next section.
5. State your fee category and ask for a waiver if you qualify. See the section on fees.
6. File it in writing. Most agencies accept requests by their online portal, by email or by mail. Keep a copy and note the date.
7. Watch the clock. Note the tracking number the agency gives you, and the deadlines described below.
8. Read the response. If you get documents, check what was redacted and what exemption is cited for each redaction.
9. Appeal if you disagree. See the section on appeals.
10. Use mediation or court if appeals fail. See the last sections.

Writing a Narrow Request

A request must "reasonably describe" the records sought, which means that a professional employee who is familiar with the subject could find them with a reasonable amount of effort. A good request is specific about five things.

• The subject. Name the program, the contract, the rule or the event.
• The type of record. Email, memorandum, report, contract, inspection record, meeting calendar.
• The date range. Give the first and last dates. A request for "everything" ever written on a subject invites a delay or a denial.
• The people or offices. If you know which office or official handled the matter, name them. Give the title, not just a guess.
• The format. Ask for electronic copies, in a searchable format if possible.

Here is a hypothetical sample, with invented details, to show the shape. The request reads: "Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, I request copies of the final inspection reports for the Example County landfill, dated January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2023, and any correspondence between the regional office and the landfill's operator about those reports. I request electronic copies. I am a member of the public with no commercial interest and request a fee waiver. If any part is withheld, please cite the exemption and release the segregable remainder." It is short, it is dated, and it says what the requester wants.

A broad request is not rejected for being broad, but it is slow, and it is often cut down by the agency. A narrow request is faster, cheaper and harder to refuse. If you want more, file a second narrow request, and a third. A series of precise requests is better than one sprawling one.

Fees and Waivers

The statute sets up fee categories, and the one you fit into determines what you pay.

• Commercial use requesters pay for search time, review time and copying. This category applies when you want the records for a commercial purpose.
• Educational institutions, noncommercial scientific institutions and representatives of the news media pay only for copying, and they get the first 100 pages free.
• All other requesters, which is most individuals, pay for search time beyond the first two hours and for copying beyond the first 100 pages.

Agencies may not charge fees if the cost of collecting them would be more than the fee itself, and they typically set a small threshold in their regulations below which they do not bill. You may also ask for a fee waiver. The statute provides that records are to be furnished without charge, or at a reduced charge, if disclosure is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester. If you want a waiver, say why. Explain what the records will show about government operations, how you will share them, and why you are not seeking them for profit. State what fee you are willing to pay in case the waiver is denied, so the agency does not stall to ask you.

The Clock

This is the part that surprises people. The statute gives an agency 20 working days after receiving a proper request to determine whether it will comply, and to tell you its decision and your right to appeal. Working days exclude weekends and legal holidays. An agency may extend that period by 10 working days in "unusual circumstances," such as when it must search field offices or consult other agencies, and it must tell you in writing. The clock may be paused once if the agency needs information from you, and again for fee questions.

The statute also provides for expedited processing where there is a compelling need, such as a threat to life or safety, or an urgent need for a person primarily engaged in disseminating information to inform the public about actual or alleged federal government activity. If you ask for expedition, the agency must decide that request within 10 calendar days.

Here is the honest truth: the deadlines are routinely missed. Backlogs at large agencies are long, and a "determination" that the agency will comply is not the same as getting the documents. But the deadline matters for two reasons. It marks the point at which you may escalate, and, as we will see, an agency that misses it may lose some of its power to charge fees and may find that you can go straight to court.

The Nine Exemptions

An agency must release records unless one of nine exemptions applies. Learn them, because every denial will cite one.

1. Exemption 1: information properly classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.
2. Exemption 2: information related solely to an agency's internal personnel rules and practices.
3. Exemption 3: information that another statute specifically exempts from disclosure.
4. Exemption 4: trade secrets and confidential commercial or financial information obtained from a person.
5. Exemption 5: inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda that would be privileged in litigation, including the deliberative-process, attorney-client and work-product privileges.
6. Exemption 6: personnel, medical and similar files, the disclosure of which would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
7. Exemption 7: certain records compiled for law enforcement purposes, if release would cause one of several listed harms, such as interfering with an enforcement proceeding or revealing a confidential source.
8. Exemption 8: matters relating to the examination or supervision of financial institutions.
9. Exemption 9: geological and geophysical information and data, including maps, concerning wells.

Three things to know. First, an exemption allows withholding, but it does not require it, and the 2016 amendments direct agencies to withhold only when they reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest the exemption protects, or when disclosure is prohibited by law. Second, the agency must release any "reasonably segregable" part of a record, so a record with one sensitive paragraph should come back with that paragraph blacked out, not withheld whole. Third, Exemption 5 is the one most often used to withhold documents that show how a decision was reached, so if you are after the reasoning behind an agency action, expect to argue about it.

Administrative Appeals

If the agency denies your request in whole or in part, or says that no records exist and you think they do, you have a right to an administrative appeal. The agency's denial letter must tell you how. Under the statute, you have at least 90 days from the date of the adverse determination to file an appeal. The agency has 20 working days to decide it.

A good appeal is short. State the request, the denial and why you disagree. If an exemption was cited, say why it does not apply. If you think the search was inadequate, point to a record that must exist. Attach the denial and your original request. Keep it civil and specific.

Mediation: The Office of Government Information Services

Congress created the Office of Government Information Services in the 2007 amendments, and it sits within the National Archives. Its job is to review agency compliance with FOIA and to offer mediation services as a nonexclusive alternative to litigation. If your request or your appeal has stalled, you can ask it to help. It cannot order an agency to release a record, but it can broker an understanding, and a call from the National Archives to a FOIA office has been known to jog a file loose. Mediation is free.

When People Go to Court

If the appeal fails, or if the agency misses the deadline for its determination or its appeal decision, you may file a lawsuit in federal district court, in the district where you live, where the records are kept, or in the District of Columbia. The court reviews the agency's decision from the beginning, which lawyers call de novo review, and the burden is on the agency to justify what it withheld. Courts may inspect the documents privately, and in a contested case the agency is often required to file an index describing each withheld item and the exemption claimed. If you "substantially prevail," the court may award you reasonable attorney's fees and costs, and that provision is why public-interest lawyers can afford to take FOIA cases.

A lawsuit is not a casual step. It takes time, and it is the point at which professional help is worth having. But the right to sue is what gives the rest of the statute its force. A law that tells the government to produce records, and has no remedy if it does not, would be a polite suggestion.

Where Records Fit in the Larger Fight

A records request is one tool among several. An inspector general's report, which I explain in How to Read an Inspector General Report and Use It to Hold an Agency to Account, often names the documents that would prove a point, and a FOIA request can then ask for them by name. The paperwork side of the same relationship, the forms the government hands you, is in That Little Number on a Federal Form Can Protect You From a Penalty. Congress uses records for oversight too, and the Oversight page follows that work. And if the problem is a rule rather than a record, Congress Changes Hands, but Citizens Can Still Petition to Cut Red Tape shows how a citizen can petition for change.

The Case in Brief

1. FOIA, signed in 1966 and strengthened by the 1974 amendments passed over President Ford's veto, gives any person the right to request records from federal executive agencies.
2. A good request is narrow, specific about subject, record type and date range, and states a fee category and a waiver request when you qualify.
3. Agencies have 20 working days to determine whether they will comply, with a possible 10-day extension, and they often miss the deadline.
4. Nine exemptions allow withholding, but the agency must release segregable portions and, since 2016, show foreseeable harm.
5. Appeal within the agency, use the Office of Government Information Services for mediation, and go to federal court if you must, where the agency bears the burden.

What you can do: choose one federal decision you care about, call that agency's FOIA liaison, and file a narrow, dated request for the records behind it.