Many of the biggest news stories of the past decade started the same way: someone asked the government for its records and kept asking until they got them. Inspection reports, internal emails, contracts, safety data, travel expenses. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives anyone the right to request records from federal agencies, and you don’t need to be a reporter, a lawyer or a U.S. citizen to use it.

This guide walks through how to file a FOIA request that actually gets results, what to expect while you wait, and how to deal with the files that come back, which are often far messier than people expect.

What FOIA covers (and what it doesn’t)

FOIA, passed in 1966, applies to records held by federal executive branch agencies: departments such as Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, regulators such as the FDA and EPA, and many smaller offices. “Records” is broad. It includes documents, emails, photos, spreadsheets, databases, videos and audio.

FOIA does not cover Congress, federal courts or the White House offices that directly advise the President. It also doesn’t cover state or local agencies, which have their own public records laws with different rules, deadlines and fees. If you want records from a city police department or a state health agency, you’ll file under that state’s law instead.

Step 1: Find the right agency

Every request goes to a specific agency, and sending it to the wrong one is the most common reason requests stall. Ask yourself who actually created or holds the records. A plane crash investigation sits with the NTSB, a drug safety review with the FDA, and a federal contract with the agency that awarded it.

The government’s central starting point is FOIA.gov, which lists agencies, their FOIA contacts and, for many, an online request form through the National FOIA Portal.

Step 2: Search for the records before you request them

Before filing, check whether the information is already public. Many agencies publish frequently requested records in online “reading rooms.” News archives, court filings and earlier FOIA releases posted by journalists and nonprofits may already contain what you need. A quick search can save you months.

Step 3: Write a clear, specific request

There’s no special form of words. A strong request does four things:

• Describes the records precisely. Name the type of record, the subject, the people or offices involved, and a date range. “All emails between the regional director and Company X about the 2025 inspection, from January to June 2025” will move far faster than “everything about Company X.”
• Asks for records, not answers. FOIA gives you access to existing documents. Agencies don’t have to answer questions or create new reports for you.
• States your requester category. Fees depend on who you are. News media requesters, educational and noncommercial scientific institutions, and the general public are treated differently, and media requesters generally don’t pay search or review fees.
• Says what format you want. If you’d like spreadsheets as spreadsheets rather than printouts, or documents as searchable PDFs, ask for it in the request.

Keep it short. One or two paragraphs is usually enough.

Step 4: Ask for fee waivers and expedited processing if they apply

You can request a fee waiver if releasing the records is in the public interest and will meaningfully contribute to public understanding of government activity, rather than serving a mainly commercial purpose. Explain briefly how you’ll share what you find.

You can also request expedited processing if there’s an urgent need to inform the public about government activity, or if delay could threaten someone’s life or safety. Journalists covering fast-moving stories often qualify, but you’ll need to explain the urgency in a short certified statement.

Step 5: Track your request and follow up

Federal agencies are generally required to respond within 20 working days, and can take an extra 10 working days in unusual circumstances. In practice, many agencies take much longer, especially for large or complex requests.

When you file, you should receive a tracking number. Save it. Check status online where the agency offers it, and follow up politely if deadlines pass. Agencies also have FOIA Public Liaisons whose job is to help resolve delays and disputes.

Step 6: Understand denials, redactions and appeals

FOIA has nine exemptions that let agencies withhold information, covering areas such as national security, personal privacy, law enforcement investigations, confidential business information and internal deliberations. That’s why released records often arrive with blacked-out sections.

If your request is denied in full or in part, the agency’s letter should explain why and how to appeal. Under current law you have at least 90 days to file an administrative appeal. Appeals are free and worth filing: they often lead to more records being released, especially when the original search was too narrow. If an appeal fails, you can ask the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) for mediation or, as a last resort, take the agency to court.

Step 7: Make sense of the records you receive

This is where many first-time requesters get stuck. Agencies release records in whatever format their systems produce, and a single response can include:

• PDFs of scanned paper documents, often hundreds of pages long and sometimes not text-searchable.
• TIFF image files, a format many document management and e-discovery systems use for scanned pages. A large release can arrive as thousands of separate single-page TIFFs in a zip file.
• Spreadsheets and database exports for data-heavy requests.
• Email exports, sometimes as individual message files.

TIFF releases are the most frustrating, because flipping through thousands of separate image files is slow and most phones and browsers won’t display them well. The practical fix is to convert TIFF to PDF, combining the pages into one document you can scroll, annotate and share.

A few habits make large releases manageable:

1. Keep an untouched copy of everything you receive. Work from copies so you can always show exactly what the agency released.
2. Log what arrived and when: the tracking number, release date, number of pages and file names.
3. Make scanned documents searchable with OCR (optical character recognition) so you can find names, dates and dollar figures quickly.
4. Read redactions carefully. The exemption code printed on a blacked-out section tells you why it was withheld, which can guide an appeal.
5. Verify before you publish. A record proves what a document says, not necessarily that it’s accurate. Check key facts against other sources.

State and local records requests

Most stories close to home involve state and local records: police reports, school district budgets, restaurant inspections, building permits. Every state has a public records law, sometimes called a sunshine law or open records act, and the rules vary widely. Some states require responses within a few days, others allow weeks, and fees and exemptions differ. Look up your state’s law and the agency’s records officer before you file, and use the same approach: be specific, be polite and keep records of everything.

The bottom line

FOIA works best for people who are specific, patient and organized. Pick the right agency, describe exactly what you want, ask for fee waivers or expedited processing when you qualify, appeal when you’re turned down, and set up a simple system for handling the files that come back. Do that, and you’ll be using the same tool behind some of the most important reporting in the country, whether you’re a journalist, a researcher or simply a citizen who wants to know what the government is doing.