New York FOIL: Freedom of Information Law Requests (2026)

New York's records law is the Freedom of Information Law, Public Officers Law Article 6. FOIL requires an agency to answer within five business days, but that duty is to grant, deny, or acknowledge with a date, not necessarily to produce. Understanding that distinction is the difference between a request that moves and one that sits.

FOIL is a state law, not the federal FOIA

New York's law shares initials with the federal statute and is not the same thing. The federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. section 552, reaches federal agencies only. FOIL reaches New York state and local agencies only. A request to the NYPD, a school district, or the DMV is a FOIL request; a request to the FBI or the Social Security Administration is a federal FOIA request, and our guide to filing a federal FOIA request covers that process.

Article 6 opens with a legislative declaration that government is the public's business and that access to records should be granted broadly, with exemptions construed narrowly. Section 87(2) then lists the exemptions, including records specifically exempted by state or federal statute, records that would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, records compiled for law enforcement purposes where disclosure would interfere with an investigation or judicial proceeding, and inter-agency or intra-agency materials that are not statistical or factual tabulations, instructions to staff affecting the public, final agency policy, or external audits.

Who can file a FOIL request

Anyone. Section 87(2) requires each agency to make available for public inspection and copying all records, subject to the exemptions, and nothing in Article 6 conditions that on residency, citizenship, or purpose.

Agencies must accept requests submitted by email where they have the capacity to do so, and many New York agencies now run online portals. New York City's OpenRecords portal is the single most heavily used, covering city agencies including the NYPD.

The five-day rule, read precisely

The single most repeated error about FOIL is "New York answers in five days." Section 89(3)(a) says something more specific.

Within five business days of receiving a written request for a record reasonably described, the agency must do one of three things: make the record available, deny the request in writing, or furnish a written acknowledgment of receipt that includes an approximate date by which the request will be granted or denied, which must be reasonable under the circumstances of the request.

The third option is what most requesters actually receive, and it is fully compliant. The acknowledgment is not a stall in itself; the statute contemplates it.

The follow-on rule is where the real leverage sits, and it carries a precondition worth knowing. Section 89(3)(a) reaches the case where an agency determines to grant a request in whole or in part and circumstances prevent disclosure within twenty business days of the acknowledgment. In that situation the agency must state in writing both the reason for the inability to grant the request within that period and a date certain, within a reasonable period, by which it will be granted in whole or in part. An outright written denial is a different path; that one goes straight to the administrative appeal.

Two things follow. First, if your acknowledgment gave a date far out and the agency has not denied the request outright, the twenty-business-day mechanism entitles you to a written reason and a date certain. Second, the failure to provide the reason and date certain, or an unreasonable date, can itself be treated as a constructive denial that opens the appeal route, which is often faster than waiting.

When you write to the agency, ask specifically for a date certain and cite section 89(3)(a). Vague answers tend to firm up when the statutory language is quoted.

What FOIL costs, and what it does not offer

Two paragraphs set the fees. Section 87(1)(b)(iii) fixes the rates, and section 87(1)(c) defines what "actual cost" may include.

• 25 cents per photocopy not in excess of 9 by 14 inches, unless a different fee is prescribed by statute, or the actual cost of reproducing any other record. That is section 87(1)(b)(iii)(1).
• No fee for an electronic copy where an identical record was prepared for a previous request within the past six months and an electronic copy is available, except the actual cost of a storage device if one is provided. That is section 87(1)(b)(iii)(2).
• Actual cost is a closed list. Section 87(1)(c) says that in determining the actual cost of reproducing a record an agency may include only the hourly salary attributed to the lowest-paid agency employee who has the necessary skill to prepare the copy, the actual cost of the storage devices or media provided, and the actual cost of an outside professional service, and that last item only where the agency's own information technology equipment is inadequate. That limit applies to any record, not only to electronic copies, and it does not depend on how long the copying takes.
• No fee at all unless at least two hours of employee time is needed to prepare the copy, and preparing a copy does not include search time or administrative costs. Separately, the agency must inform you of the estimated cost if more than two hours of employee time is needed or if it would retain an outside professional service. Both rules are in section 87(1)(c)(iv).

FOIL has no fee waiver. We looked for one, section by section, in the current text of Public Officers Law section 87, and there is no indigency provision, no public-interest reduction, and no discretionary waiver clause anywhere in the fee text. This surprises requesters who know the federal FOIA, where a public-interest waiver is a standard ask. In New York, the equivalent protections are structural rather than discretionary: the 25-cent cap, the six-month duplicate rule, and the two-hour floor.

The practical consequence is that scope control is your only real cost lever. Bound the date range, name the office, and ask for records in electronic format, which avoids per-page copying charges entirely.

How to file

File with the agency's designated records access officer. Every New York agency is required to have one, and the Committee on Open Government maintains guidance on locating them.

Use the agency's portal where one exists. For New York City agencies, that is OpenRecords, which timestamps the request and tracks the statutory clock for you. For state agencies, most publish a FOIL email address or web form.

Describe the records so the agency can locate them, since section 89(3) keys the response duty to a request for a record "reasonably described." Give the office, the subject, and a date range. Ask for electronic delivery, ask for a cost estimate before any charge is incurred, and ask the agency to acknowledge with an approximate date as section 89(3)(a) requires. Our records request generator builds a New York request with those elements already in place.

If your FOIL request is denied

FOIL has a real two-step appeal, and the first step is free, fast, and internal.

The administrative appeal. Under section 89(4)(a), a person denied access may appeal in writing within thirty days to the head, chief executive, or governing body of the entity, or to a person designated by that official. The agency must determine the appeal within ten business days of receiving it, and must transmit its determination to the requester and to the Committee on Open Government.

Take that step even if you expect to lose. It is a prerequisite to judicial review, it is often decided by someone more senior than the records officer who denied you, and it forces the agency to state its reasoning in writing.

Article 78 review. If the administrative appeal fails, judicial review is a special proceeding under Article 78 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules, filed in state Supreme Court. The agency bears the burden of justifying the withholding.

Attorney fees. Section 89(4)(c) lets a court assess reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs against the agency where the requester has substantially prevailed, and it splits into two branches that are easy to invert. The award is mandatory, the statute says the court "shall assess," where the requester substantially prevailed and the court finds the agency had no reasonable basis for denying access. It is discretionary, the court "may assess," where the requester substantially prevailed and the agency failed to respond to the request or the appeal within the statutory time. So a blown deadline gets you in front of the fee question; it is the absence of any reasonable basis for the denial that makes the award compulsory. Build the record for both: document every missed deadline, and press the agency to state its legal basis in writing so a court can measure whether one existed at all.

The Committee on Open Government. New York's Committee on Open Government issues advisory opinions interpreting FOIL and will often respond to a written question about a specific denial. Those opinions are advisory rather than binding, but agencies take them seriously, and citing an on-point opinion in an administrative appeal is one of the most cost-effective moves available to a FOIL requester.

Police records and body-camera video

New York repealed Civil Rights Law section 50-a in 2020, which had shielded police disciplinary records, and those records are now generally subject to FOIL. Body-worn camera footage is likewise requested through FOIL rather than through a separate access statute.

The contested ground is section 87(2)(b), the unwarranted invasion of personal privacy exemption, and section 87(2)(e), the law enforcement exemption for records that would interfere with an investigation or judicial proceeding, identify a confidential source, or reveal non-routine investigative techniques.

Expect redactions rather than blanket refusals, and hold the agency to the rule that exemptions apply to the portions of a record that qualify, not to entire files. Where a denial is categorical, that is the argument to make in the administrative appeal.

New York City's NYPD publishes some footage through its own release policy, but the FOIL route remains available when the department has not published a given incident. For 911 audio specifically, note that New York County Law section 308(4) restricts E911 records separately from FOIL; our guide to 911 calls and public records explains that interaction.

What FOIL does not cover

New York birth and death certificates are vital records, issued by the State Department of Health, or by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for city records, under eligibility rules that limit certified copies to specified relatives and legal representatives. A FOIL request is the wrong tool. See our guide to New York death records.

Court records are outside FOIL as well. The Unified Court System handles access to case files under its own rules, and the courts are not agencies for FOIL purposes. Property ownership records go through county clerks and city registers; our New York property records guide covers that route.

The response rules, fee schedule, and appeal steps above reflect Public Officers Law Article 6 as published by the New York State Senate and reviewed in August 2026. Individual agencies set their own portals and records access officers, and some records carry separately prescribed statutory fees. This article is general legal information, not legal advice.

For a side-by-side comparison of every state's deadline, fees, and appeal route, see our public records laws by state hub.