Commonwealth FOI: How to Request Federal Government Documents

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) gives every person a legally enforceable right to documents held by an Australian Government agency or minister, free to apply for, with no application fee, and with the first 5 hours of decision-making time free on a non-personal request.

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) is the Commonwealth's own access-to-information law, current as compilation No. 121, in force from 1 January 2026. It reaches only Australian Government agencies and ministers. A state department, a local council, a state hospital or a state police force is never covered by this Act; that request goes to the relevant state or territory's own FOI, RTI or GIPA regime instead, covered on the Australian freedom of information hub.

Who Decides, and Under What Right

Section 11(1) states the right directly: "Subject to this Act, every person has a legally enforceable right to obtain access in accordance with this Act to: (a) a document of an agency, other than an exempt document; or (b) an official document of a Minister, other than an exempt document." Section 11(2) adds that this right does not depend on why the applicant wants the document, or on what the agency believes the applicant's reasons might be. There is no standing test and no motive test built into the Act.

"Agency" is defined narrowly, at s4(1), as a Department, a prescribed authority, or a Norfolk Island authority. Courts are deemed prescribed authorities, but only for documents relating to matters of an administrative nature; s5(1) states plainly that the Act "does not apply to any request for access to a document of the court unless the document relates to matters of an administrative nature." A judgment, a transcript or a case file still before the court sits outside this Act entirely. See court records in Australia for the actual route to that material.

Schedule 2 Part I lists agencies excluded from the Act outright: the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Office of National Intelligence, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation and the Defence Intelligence Organisation. The whole national intelligence community sits outside the Act, not merely exempt document by exempt document. The Auditor-General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and a handful of other bodies are also listed. Schedule 2 Part II lists agencies that are exempt only for particular classes of document, such as the Attorney-General's Department for its commercial-activities documents.

Ask an Agency First: Informal Release

The Act's own objects clause anticipates that agencies will release information outside the formal FOI process. Section 3A confirms an agency's power to publish or give access to information, including an exempt document, apart from a formal FOI application, and states that the Act is not intended to limit or discourage that power. OAIC's own guidance for the public advises exactly this: "try contacting the agency first and asking for access," naming the ATO and Centrelink as agencies that routinely hand over records this way, and confirms that doing so "doesn't prevent you from making an FOI request later." An informal request costs nothing to try and does not use up any statutory rights.

How to Make a Valid Application

Section 15(2) sets the validity checklist for a formal request. It must be in writing, state that it is an application under the Act, provide enough information about the document for a responsible officer to identify it, and give details of how notices may be sent to the applicant. It goes to the agency or minister directly, never to the OAIC, whether by delivery, pre-paid post, or a specified electronic address (s15(2A)). If a request doesn't yet comply, the agency has a duty under s15(3) to take reasonable steps to help the applicant fix it.

A separate, narrower path exists for employees or former employees seeking their own personnel file: s15A lets an agency handle that through its own established internal procedure instead of the general s15 process, where one exists.

Fees and Processing Charges

There is no charge to make a request at all. OAIC's current guidance states this directly: "There is no charge to make a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act). However, an agency or minister may charge you for them to process it and you to access the information you requested." That absence of an up-front fee is also confirmed by s15(2) itself, whose validity checklist contains no fee-payment requirement.

A request limited to your own personal information is entirely free, both to make and to process. The FOI Guidelines state the source directly: "There is no charge for providing access to an applicant's personal information... (s 7(1) of the Charges Regulations)," referring to the Freedom of Information (Charges) Regulations 2019.

For a non-personal-information request, current processing charges under the Charges Regulations are:

• Search and retrieval: $15 per hour.
• Decision-making: the first 5 hours are free, then $20 per hour.
• Photocopying: 10 cents per page.
• Supervised inspection: $6.25 per half hour.
• Transcript preparation: $4.40 per page.
• Delivery: the actual cost of postage or delivery.

A deposit may be required before an agency proceeds: $20 if the estimated charge is between $25 and $100, or 25% of the estimate above $100. Once an agency issues a charge notice, the applicant has 30 days to agree to pay, dispute it, or withdraw the request, or the request is treated as withdrawn under s29(1). An agency must consider waiving or reducing a charge on financial-hardship or public-interest grounds under s29(5), and applying for a review of a charges decision itself costs nothing. If the agency misses its decision deadline without an extension, the Charges Regulations bar it from imposing any processing charge on that request at all (s7(2)-(3)).

How Long It Takes

The agency or minister must notify a decision within 30 days of receiving the request, under s15(5). A separate 14-day sub-deadline requires the agency to acknowledge receipt of the request, distinct from the decision itself.

Several extensions can apply. An automatic 30 extra days is available where consultation is required, for example on Commonwealth-State relations, business documents, or documents involving a foreign entity (ss15(6)-(8)). The agency can extend by up to a further 30 days with the applicant's written agreement (s15AA). For a genuinely complex or voluminous request, the agency can apply to the Information Commissioner for more time, and the Commissioner can grant "a further period of 30 days, or such other period as the Information Commissioner considers appropriate" (s15AB), meaning this extension is not capped at 30 days the way the applicant-agreed one is.

If no decision notice arrives by the end of the (possibly extended) period, s15AC deems the agency's principal officer to have personally refused access on the last day of that period. This is a softer deemed refusal than it looks: the agency can still apply to the Information Commissioner for further time even after that date, and the Commissioner can allow it.

What You Cannot Get

Part IV splits exemptions into two tiers. Division 2 exemptions are absolute, refused outright with no public-interest balancing: national security, defence and international relations (s33); Cabinet documents (s34); law enforcement and public safety (s37); secrecy provisions of other Acts (s38); legal professional privilege (s42); material obtained in confidence (s45); Parliamentary Budget Office documents (s45A); contempt of Parliament or a court (s46); trade secrets and commercially valuable information (s47); and electoral rolls (s47A).

Division 3 exemptions are conditional, meaning access must be given unless disclosure would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest (s11A(5)): Commonwealth-State relations (s47B); deliberative processes (s47C); the Commonwealth's own financial or property interests (s47D); certain agency operations (s47E); personal privacy (s47F); business information (s47G); research (s47H); and the economy (s47J).

Section 11B sets out the public-interest test itself. Factors favouring access include promoting the Act's objects, informing debate on a matter of public importance, promoting oversight of public spending, and letting a person see their own personal information. Section 11B(4) is a genuine, drafted-in anti-embarrassment safeguard: an agency must not weigh the possibility of "embarrassment to the Commonwealth Government," a risk that disclosure "could result in any person misinterpreting or misunderstanding the document," the seniority of the document's author, or a risk of "confusion or unnecessary debate," against disclosure.

If You're Refused: The Review Ladder

Internal review (Part VI) is free and optional. An applicant has 30 days, or longer if the agency allows it, to apply (s54B), and the agency must decide within 30 days of receiving the application (s54C(3)); silence produces a deemed affirmation of the original decision (s54D).

Information Commissioner review (Part VII) is also free. For most refusal decisions, the deadline to apply is 60 days from the day notice of the decision was given (s54S(1)); OAIC's own guidance table independently confirms 60 days for the same categories: a refusal of access, a charge for access, and a refusal to correct a document. For access-grant decisions affecting a third party, the deadline is 30 days (s54S(2)), matching OAIC's table for that category. The Information Commissioner may extend either deadline under s54T if satisfied that doing so is reasonable in the circumstances.

Appeal to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) is available within 28 days of the Information Commissioner's decision, a period the FOI Act sets by cross-reference rather than in its own text (s57A points to the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024, and the Tribunal's rules fix the 28 days); OAIC's guidance confirms it, stating the applicant has "28 days to appeal to the Administrative Review Tribunal." The ART replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which was abolished on 14 October 2024 under the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 reform; the current Act text already uses "Tribunal"/ART terminology throughout Part VIIA, even though some OAIC pages still link the term to the old aat.gov.au domain.

A separate complaint direct to the Commonwealth Ombudsman also remains available under s89F, alongside the review pathway above.

Correcting Your Own Records

Part V, sections 48 to 51, gives a separate right to amend or annotate a document containing your own personal information, distinct from the access right above. Section 48 lets a person apply to amend or annotate a document they claim is "incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading," where the agency uses or makes it available for an administrative purpose. The application must be in writing, and as far as practicable specify the document, the claimed defect, the requested amendment and a return address (s49). The agency can amend the document directly, or add an explanatory note, but s50(3) requires that any alteration not obliterate the original text where practicable, so this is a correction on the record, not a silent rewrite. If the agency refuses to amend, s51 requires it to offer to annotate the record with the applicant's own statement of disagreement instead. OAIC's guidance separately confirms a second, parallel correction right exists under the Privacy Act 1988 for the same personal information.

Proactive Disclosure: The Information Publication Scheme

The Act's own objects clause treats "requiring agencies to publish the information" (s3(1)(a)) as a co-equal object alongside the individual right of access. Part II establishes the Information Publication Scheme (IPS): s8 sets what must be published, s8D how and where (on the agency's own website), and s9 requires each agency to review its own scheme. Section 11C, the disclosure log, requires an agency that has given a person access to a document under an FOI request to also publish that information on its own website, subject to exceptions including personal information about any person, where publishing would be unreasonable.

What This Act Is Not the Route For

This Act only reaches Commonwealth agencies and ministers. A state government department, a local council, a state hospital, or a state police force is out of scope entirely; that request goes to the relevant state or territory's own regime, listed on the freedom of information in Australia hub. A court's judicial records, as distinct from its administrative documents, sit outside this Act under s5(1); see court records in Australia for how to actually get a judgment, transcript or case file. A police check or your own criminal history has a dedicated process, covered at background checks in Australia. Personal information held by a Commonwealth agency can also be accessed through the Privacy Act 1988, a genuinely parallel route to the amendment right described above; see Australia's data privacy laws for how that Act works.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Commonwealth FOI Act let me get records from a state government department?

No. The Act's definition of agency (s4(1)) only covers a Department, a prescribed authority or a Norfolk Island authority, all Commonwealth bodies. A state department, local council, state hospital or state police force is out of scope entirely. That request has to go to the relevant state or territory's own freedom of information, right to information or GIPA regime instead.

How much does it cost to make a Commonwealth FOI request?

Nothing to make the request itself; the Act has no application fee. A request limited to your own personal information stays free at every stage. A non-personal request can attract processing charges, but the first 5 hours of decision-making time are free, and charges beyond that are set by the Freedom of Information (Charges) Regulations 2019, for example $15 an hour for search and retrieval and $20 an hour for decision-making time beyond the free 5 hours.

How long does an agency have to respond to my FOI request?

30 days from receiving a valid request, under section 15(5). This can be extended for third-party consultation, by agreement with the applicant, or by the Information Commissioner for a genuinely complex or voluminous request. If no decision arrives by the end of that period, the agency's principal officer is deemed to have refused the request, though the agency can still seek more time from the Information Commissioner even after that point.

What happens if my FOI request is refused?

You can seek a free internal review from the agency, then apply to the Information Commissioner: within 60 days of the notice for most refusals, or 30 days for a third-party access-grant decision. If still refused, you can appeal to the Administrative Review Tribunal within 28 days of the Information Commissioner's decision.

Can I get my own personal file from a Commonwealth agency for free?

Yes. There is no charge at all, for the application or for processing, when the request is limited to your own personal information. This is confirmed both by the absence of any fee condition in the Act's own application requirements and by the Freedom of Information (Charges) Regulations 2019.

Can I use this Act to get a court document or a police record?

Not for a court's judicial records. The Act only reaches a court's administrative documents, never a document relating to its judicial functions. See court records in Australia for how to actually get a judgment or case file. A police check has its own dedicated process, covered on the background-checks hub, rather than running through an FOI application.