How to File a Federal FOIA Request: The 20 Day Clock, the 100 Free Pages, and the Federal Office That Mediates When Agencies Stall

When Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act, it handed the public a key that works on every federal filing cabinet at once. The Justice Department, which runs the law's public website, puts it this way.

It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government.FOIA.gov, the Justice Department's Freedom of Information Act website

This is the second entry in the Records Desk, a series on using public records law. The first guide covered New York's FOIL statute and a funeral firm inspection file. The federal statute works the same way at larger scale, and this guide walks through it with a different working example: the money records behind Medicare Advantage plans. The two series on this site meet here. Public records law is how the Medicare money reporting gets done.

What the law covers

FOIA has been in effect since 1967. It gives any person the right to request records from any federal agency, and citizenship is not required. The request has to be in writing and it has to reasonably describe the records you want. There is no special form.

Behind those simple rules sits a strong default. Agencies have to disclose what is asked for unless it falls under one of nine exemptions, which protect interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement. The exemptions are the exceptions. An agency that wants to keep a record has to fit it inside one of those nine boxes.

One limit matters just as much as the rights. The law does not require an agency to create new records, conduct research, analyze data, or answer questions. A request asks for documents that already exist. The craft of a good request is describing the existing documents so precisely that the searcher can find them.

Step one: check what is already public

FOIA requests are free to file, but they take time. The first move is always a search of what agencies have already posted. The law requires agencies to proactively publish certain categories of information, including records that get requested often. FOIA.gov has a search tool that covers agency reading rooms, and each agency's site holds its own.

The working example shows why this step pays off. Medicare Advantage insurers file yearly reports showing what came in and what went out as medical care. The floor is 85 percent. Insurers that spend less than that on care have to send money back to Medicare and can be blocked from enrolling anyone new. The numbers behind that rule are already public. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publishes the data as a downloadable file, plan by plan, and this site's Medicare Money series is built on it.

The posted file holds the numbers. What it does not hold is the paper trail around them. When an insurer misses the floor, the follow up happens in letters between the agency and the company. Those records exist. They sit in agency files until someone asks, and asking is what the rest of this guide covers.

Where a request goes and what happens next

There is no central FOIA office. Roughly one hundred agencies are subject to the law, with several hundred offices processing requests among them. A request goes to the FOIA office of the agency that holds the records, and FOIA.gov lists the contact information for each one. Sending it to the right place the first time is the single biggest speed factor.

After the request arrives, the agency sends an acknowledgment letter with a tracking number. If the agency needs more detail before it can search, it will ask. Then the clock is running.

The clock: twenty working days

The baseline response time is twenty working days. In practice the answer often arrives as a grant, a denial, or a letter saying more time is needed.

Three situations let an agency stretch the window, and the law calls them unusual circumstances. The records might sit in field offices away from the office handling the request. The request might seek a voluminous amount of separate records. Or the agency might have to consult another agency before releasing. Each is common with older files or company records that touch other regulators.

Many agencies also sort requests into a simple track and a complex track. A narrowly targeted request for a defined set of letters lands in the simple track and moves faster. A request for everything touching a broad subject lands in the complex queue with everything else. Precision is speed.

What it costs

Filing costs nothing. Beyond that, what an agency may charge depends on who the requester is, and the law sorts requesters into three groups.

Commercial requesters pay search, review, and duplication. Representatives of the news media, along with educational and non-commercial scientific institutions, pay no search fees at all. Everyone else gets the first two hours of search time and the first 100 pages of duplication free.

Two protections are worth building into the request itself. A requester can include a sentence capping what they are willing to pay. If the agency estimates charges above the cap, it has to stop and say so in writing, and offer the chance to narrow the request. And a requester can ask for a fee waiver. Waivers go to requests in the public interest, where disclosure is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of what a government agency is doing. A reporter publishing findings openly makes that case directly in the request letter.

If the agency says no

A denial arrives in writing and names the exemption the agency is relying on. The first answer is rarely the last word, and the appeal is simpler than most people expect.

Typically, all you need to do is send a letter or e-mail to the designated appeal authority of the agency stating that you are appealing the initial decision made on your request. There is no fee or cost involved.FOIA.gov, on filing an appeal

The appeal goes to a different set of eyes inside the agency for independent review. If the appeal also fails, one more free step exists before any courthouse. The Office of Government Information Services, part of the National Archives, mediates disputes between requesters and agencies. Congress created it in 2007. It cannot order an agency to release anything. What it can do is put a dispute in its public reporting to Congress, by agency name, and an agency's FOIA operation answers for that record. For a requester, the practical value is different. The office knows the law, the process, and who to call, and that is often enough to get a stalled file moving.

Records Desk is a regular series on using public records law. It explains statutes and agency publications; it is not legal advice.

Sources: FOIA.gov, Freedom of Information Act Frequently Asked Questions, foia.gov/faq.html (accessed October 22, 2026); National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Government Information Services program pages, archives.gov/ogis (accessed October 22, 2026); Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Medical Loss Ratio program page, cms.gov/medicare/health-drug-plans/medical-loss-ratio (accessed October 20, 2026); CMS Medical Loss Ratio Public Use File, contract year 2023 (public release); Social Security Act section 1857(e), as amended by the Affordable Care Act of 2010; Code of Federal Regulations, Title 42, sections 422.2410 and 423.2410.