5 U.S.C. § 552 (FOIA) Explained: Requests, Fees, Appeals

5 U.S.C. § 552, better known as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), gives any person the right to request records from federal executive branch agencies. Congress enacted FOIA in 1966 and has amended it several times since, including the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016.

This article covers the federal FOIA statute, 5 U.S.C. § 552, which reaches only federal executive branch agencies. It does not cover Congress, the federal courts, or state and local government, each of which runs on separate rules. For a state's own public-records law, see Public Records Laws by State.

Information last verified against primary federal sources on August 11, 2026. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

What FOIA Covers, and What It Doesn't

FOIA applies only to federal executive branch agencies. The statute's definition, at 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(1), incorporates 5 U.S.C. § 551(1) and reaches any executive department, military department, government corporation, government-controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch, including the Executive Office of the President, plus any independent regulatory agency.

FOIA does not reach several categories that requesters commonly assume it covers:

• Congress and legislative-branch agencies. Legislative records are outside FOIA entirely.
• The federal courts. Judicial records run on their own access rules; see are court records public for how that works.
• The President's immediate personal staff. The Executive Office of the President's outer components are covered, but the President's closest advisers are not, per Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980).
• State, local, and tribal governments. Each state has its own public-records statute. See the Public Records Laws by State hub, or a specific state's version such as the Texas Public Information Act, the Illinois FOIA, or the Washington Public Records Act.
• Private businesses and individuals. FOIA is a government-transparency statute; it creates no right to demand records from a private company or person.

This distinction matters most for local records readers actually want day to day. Most police reports and body camera footage, for example, are held by state or local law enforcement, not a federal agency, so a FOIA request to a federal agency will not reach them. See are police reports public record and how to request body cam footage for the state-law process that actually applies.

The Nine FOIA Exemptions in Plain English

Disclosure is FOIA's default rule. The nine exemptions in 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) let an agency withhold specific categories of records, but an exemption is a discretionary basis to withhold, not a mandate to withhold.

1. National security. Properly classified information concerning national defense or foreign policy.
2. Internal personnel rules and practices. Matters related solely to an agency's internal personnel rules and practices, narrowed by the Supreme Court in Milner v. Department of the Navy, 562 U.S. 562 (2011), to genuine human-resources matters.
3. Information exempted by other statutes. Records specifically exempted from disclosure by another federal statute that meets Exemption 3's own criteria.
4. Trade secrets and confidential business information. Trade secrets and privileged or confidential commercial or financial information obtained from a person.
5. Inter-agency and intra-agency privileged communications. Deliberative-process, attorney-work-product, and attorney-client privileged material.
6. Personal privacy. Personnel, medical, and similar files whose disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
7. Law enforcement records. Records compiled for law enforcement purposes, withholdable only if disclosure would cause one of six specific harms, such as interfering with proceedings, revealing a confidential source, or invading personal privacy.
8. Financial institution supervision. Reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of an agency that regulates or supervises financial institutions.
9. Geological and geophysical well information. Geological and geophysical information and data, including maps, concerning wells.

Exception 7's personal-privacy subpart, Exemption 7(C), and Exemption 6 are the two most frequently litigated grounds for withholding, discussed further below.

How to File a FOIA Request

There is no official government-wide FOIA form. A request only needs to be in writing and reasonably describe the records sought, so the agency can locate them with a reasonable amount of effort. Most agencies accept requests by web form, email, or fax through their own FOIA office, which is why finding the right agency component matters as much as writing the request itself. For a full walkthrough, see How to File a FOIA Request.

Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i), an agency generally has 20 working days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays, to determine whether it will comply with a request and to notify the requester of that determination and the reasons for it. That determination deadline is not a guarantee that records arrive within 20 days. Agencies facing unusual circumstances can extend the deadline, and in practice, complex or high-volume requests at busy agencies routinely take considerably longer than the statutory window, sometimes stretching to months or longer.

Fees fall into two buckets: search time and duplication. Fee schedules are set by each agency's own regulations, so exact rates vary, but most requesters in the general, or "other," category receive the first two hours of search time and the first 100 pages of copies free, then pay search and duplication costs beyond that. Fee treatment also depends on who is asking:

• Commercial-use requesters pay search, review, and duplication fees.
• Educational or noncommercial scientific institutions, and news-media requesters, pay only duplication costs after the first 100 free pages, with no search or review fees.
• All other requesters get the standard two free search hours and 100 free pages, then pay search and duplication, with no review fee.

Fees must be waived or reduced if disclosure is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of government operations or activities, and is not primarily in the requester's commercial interest. Expedited processing is available in two situations: when failing to expedite could reasonably be expected to pose a threat to someone's life or physical safety, or when the requester is primarily engaged in disseminating information and there is urgency to inform the public about actual or alleged federal government activity.

If the Agency Says No

A requester who is denied records, in whole or in part, can file a free administrative appeal, typically a letter or email to the agency's designated appeal authority, within the agency's stated appeal window. Like the initial determination, an administrative appeal generally must be decided within 20 working days.

If the appeal is unsuccessful, a requester has two further options. The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives offers non-binding mediation between requesters and agencies. Alternatively, a requester may sue in federal district court, in the district where they reside, have their principal place of business, where the agency records are located, or in the District of Columbia, under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).

FOIA litigation runs differently than most agency-review lawsuits: courts review the agency's withholding de novo, may inspect the disputed records privately, and the agency, not the requester, bears the burden of justifying why it withheld what it withheld. Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E), a court may also order the government to pay a requester's reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs if the requester has substantially prevailed, whether through a court order or consent decree, or through a voluntary change in the agency's position where the underlying claim was not insubstantial.

FOIA vs. the Privacy Act

FOIA and the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) are frequently confused, but they run in opposite directions. FOIA is broad and requester-neutral: any person can request any agency record, and its purpose is government transparency. The Privacy Act is narrow and self-referential: it lets a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident access and correct records about themselves held in an agency's system of records, and it primarily restricts agencies from disclosing personal records to third parties without consent. The two statutes intersect where FOIA's own privacy exemptions, Exemption 6 and Exemption 7(C), come into play, and where the Privacy Act carves out an exception allowing disclosures that FOIA itself requires.

How Courts Have Applied FOIA

FOIA has generated a substantial body of case law; more than 11,000 federal court decisions cite the statute, according to recordinglaw.com's case-law index. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions do most of the work in defining how the exemptions actually operate.

United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749 (1989), is the leading case on the personal-privacy exemption. The Court held that disclosing an individual's FBI "rap sheet," a compiled summary of arrests, indictments, and dispositions, to a third party could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy under Exemption 7(C), even though the underlying records were technically available at their scattered original sources. The Court recognized a "practical obscurity" interest: compiling scattered public records into one accessible summary can itself create a privacy harm that FOIA's exemptions are meant to prevent.

Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U.S. 102 (1980), illustrates Exemption 3, which lets another federal statute override FOIA's general disclosure mandate. The case arose as a lawsuit by a regulated manufacturer trying to block the Commission from releasing its accident reports, not as a FOIA requester suing to compel disclosure. The Court held that a separate provision of the Consumer Product Safety Act governed and restricted the Commission's disclosure of those reports even when release was sought under FOIA, showing how a specific withholding statute can supersede FOIA's default rule.

Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880 (2008), is worth knowing narrowly, for the successive-requester scenario rather than for exemption scope. The Court unanimously rejected a freestanding "virtual representation" theory that would have barred a second FOIA requester from seeking the same records his friend had already unsuccessfully sued for. A judgment in one person's FOIA suit generally does not bind a different requester who neither controlled nor was adequately represented in the earlier case.

Common Misconceptions About FOIA

"FOIA can get me records from Congress, the courts, my state government, or a private company." It cannot. FOIA reaches only federal executive branch agencies. State and local records need that state's own public-records law.

"There's a 20-business-day guarantee, the agency has to hand over records within a month." The 20 working days is the deadline for the agency to determine whether it will comply and notify the requester, not necessarily to produce every record by that date. Agencies facing unusual circumstances can extend, and complex or backlogged requests commonly run well past 20 days in practice.

"Filing a FOIA appeal or lawsuit costs money or requires a lawyer." An administrative appeal is free. A requester who ultimately substantially prevails in court can even have the government pay their attorney fees and litigation costs under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E), though bringing a lawsuit itself typically calls for legal help or substantial pro se effort.

"FOIA and the Privacy Act are the same law." They are not. FOIA is a general transparency statute anyone can invoke for any agency record. The Privacy Act is narrower: only a citizen or lawful permanent resident requesting records about themselves, and it functions mainly as a disclosure restriction on agencies rather than a public access right.

"If an exemption could technically apply, the agency will withhold the record." Disclosure is the default under FOIA, and exemptions are discretionary grounds to withhold rather than withholding mandates. Congress reinforced this in the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 by codifying the foreseeable-harm standard at 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(8)(A), which requires an agency to withhold only where it reasonably foresees harm to an interest an exemption protects, directing agencies to lean toward release even where an exemption could technically apply.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, as in effect and verified against primary federal sources on the date noted above. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Agency fee schedules, backlog levels, and processing times change and vary by agency; confirm current details with the specific agency's FOIA office or a licensed attorney before relying on anything here for a specific request or appeal.

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Last updated: August 11, 2026.