New York FOIL Law: Requests, Deadlines, and Appeals

New York’s Freedom of Information Law, known as FOIL, lets any person ask a state or local government agency in New York for copies of its records. You file a written request with the agency’s Records Access Officer, the agency has five business days to respond, and if it denies you or ignores you, you can appeal within thirty days and, if that fails, sue in state court within four months.¹

Who Can File and What You Can Request

FOIL is open to anyone. The statute refers only to “any person” and “the public,” with no requirement that you live in New York, pay taxes there, or hold U.S. citizenship.² You do not have to explain why you want the records, with one narrow exception discussed below.

The definition of a “record” under Section 86 is deliberately broad: any information kept, held, filed, produced, or reproduced by or for an agency, regardless of format.³ Paper files, emails, digital documents, audio, photographs, maps, and data on disks all qualify. The coverage extends across state agencies, public authorities, and local bodies like town boards and school districts.

There is one important limit. FOIL only reaches records that already exist. An agency does not have to create a new document, compile data it has never compiled before, answer questions, or agree to an interview. If what you want has never been put into a record, FOIL cannot force the agency to produce it.

Every agency must also keep a subject matter list cataloging the types of records it holds. State agencies with websites post the list online, and it is updated yearly.⁴ Checking that list before you file helps you confirm the records exist and describe them in terms the agency will recognize.

How to Write and Submit a Request

Every agency designates a Records Access Officer, and that person’s name and contact information should be on the agency’s website. Some agencies post a request form; a plain email or letter works equally well.

The description of the records is the part that most often determines whether your request moves quickly or gets kicked back. The legal standard is “reasonably described,” meaning agency staff must be able to locate the records without an unreasonably broad search.⁵ Specific dates, names, file numbers, and subject references help. “All records about pollution” sent to the Department of Environmental Conservation is likely to fail; “inspection reports for facility permit #12345 from January through June 2025” gives staff something concrete.

State the format you want. Agencies can send paper copies, emailed electronic files, or files on a storage device. Choosing email, when the record exists in electronic form, sidesteps per-page copy fees and speeds delivery.

For state agencies, you can file through the Open FOIL NY portal at ny.gov, which routes your request to the right office.⁶ Some agencies now use the GovQA platform, and the portal will redirect you. You can also file directly on the agency’s website, by email, or by certified mail. Certified mail gives you a dated delivery receipt, useful later if you need to prove the agency missed its deadline.

What It Costs

For standard-size photocopies (up to nine by fourteen inches), the ceiling is twenty-five cents per page.⁴ For oversized documents, unusual formats, or records that require electronic extraction, the agency may charge the “actual cost” of reproduction, but that phrase is narrower than it sounds.

Actual cost covers only three things: the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee with the skill to prepare the copy, the cost of a storage device the agency provides, and the cost of an outside service if the agency’s own equipment cannot do the job.⁷ Search time and administrative overhead cannot be added. A labor fee applies only when preparation takes more than two hours, and the agency must tell you the estimated cost before starting the work.⁴

If the agency prepared an identical record for someone else within the past six months and still has an electronic copy, it cannot charge you a reproduction fee at all. Only the cost of a storage device, if you need one, is allowed.⁴

The Response Clock

Once the agency receives your written request, it has five business days to do one of three things: grant access, deny access in writing, or send a written acknowledgment stating an approximate date for a decision. That date generally must fall within twenty business days of the acknowledgment.⁵

If the agency needs more time, it must send a written explanation and a specific new date, and that date must still be reasonable given what you asked for. Open-ended extensions are not allowed.

When an agency misses these deadlines, the request is treated as a constructive denial. That happens if the agency never responds within five business days, blows past its own stated date without explanation, or gives a date that is unreasonable on its face.⁵ A constructive denial gives you the same appeal rights as a written denial, so silence does not protect the agency.

What an Agency Can Withhold

Section 87(2) lists categories the agency may withhold, but any denial has to be tied to the specific record, not asserted as a blanket rule.⁴ The main categories:

Records whose release would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, such as medical records or employment histories.
Law enforcement records, but only to the extent disclosure would interfere with an active investigation, endanger a confidential source, or reveal non-routine investigative techniques.
Trade secrets that would cause substantial competitive harm to the business that submitted them.
Records that would impair pending contract awards or collective bargaining.
Inter-agency and intra-agency deliberative materials, though factual data, final policy decisions, staff instructions, and audit reports within them still have to be released.
Records whose release could endanger a person’s life or compromise agency information technology systems.
Test questions and answers, if requested before the test has been given.

Where a record contains both exempt and non-exempt material, the agency has to redact only the exempt portions and release the rest. A wholesale refusal covering an entire document when only a few lines truly qualify is one of the most common grounds for a successful appeal.

The privacy exemption reaches further than many people expect. Section 89(2) covers disclosure of medical or credit histories, information reported to an agency in confidence, workers’ compensation records, and law enforcement booking photographs unless their release serves a specific law enforcement purpose. It also lets an agency refuse to release lists of names and addresses when the lists would be used for commercial solicitation or fund-raising.⁸ That is the one place your purpose matters. Journalists, researchers, and individuals seeking records for personal reasons are not affected.

Appealing a Denial

If your request is denied in whole or in part, you have thirty days from the written denial to file an administrative appeal. The appeal goes to the head of the agency or a designated appeals officer, who then has ten business days to either release the records or explain the continued denial in writing.⁵ The same thirty-day clock runs from a constructive denial, so do not treat silence as a reason to wait.

An appeal letter should identify the original request, attach the denial (if any), and explain why the withholding is not justified under Section 87(2). Point to specific portions the agency could redact rather than withhold in full, and cite any advisory opinions from the Committee on Open Government that support your position.

Going to Court

If the administrative appeal fails, you can challenge the denial in court by filing an Article 78 proceeding in New York Supreme Court. The statute of limitations is four months from the final agency determination.⁹ Article 78 is the standard vehicle for challenging government decisions, and a court can order the agency to turn over the records.

FOIL’s fee-shifting provision is what gives this step real leverage. If you substantially prevail, the court may award reasonable attorney fees when the agency failed to respond within the statutory deadlines, and the court must award attorney fees when it finds the agency had no reasonable basis for denying access.⁸ That mandatory language changes the math for an agency that stonewalls without justification. If the agency can show its denial was reasonable even though ultimately incorrect, the mandatory piece does not apply.

The Committee on Open Government

Before hiring a lawyer, consider contacting the Committee on Open Government. The Committee oversees FOIL and the Open Meetings Law and issues written advisory opinions on specific factual situations.² Its opinions are not binding on agencies or courts, but they carry persuasive weight and are frequently cited in Article 78 proceedings. Many agencies reverse course once a Committee opinion lands in front of them.

The Committee also maintains an online database of past opinions organized by topic, with opinions from 1993 forward available on its website. Searching that database often shows whether your issue has already been addressed.

Police Disciplinary Records

Until June 2020, Section 50-a of the Civil Rights Law shielded police officer disciplinary records from public disclosure. That provision was repealed, and disciplinary records for law enforcement are now subject to FOIL like any other government record. Agencies can still withhold specific portions under Section 87(2), such as material that would endanger someone’s safety or interfere with an active investigation, but the blanket shield is gone. Requests for these records have become one of the most common uses of FOIL since the repeal.

1
New York State Senate. New York Code PBO Article 6 – Freedom of Information Law
2
New York State Committee on Open Government. Freedom of Information Law
3
New York State Senate. New York Code PBO 86 – Definitions
4
New York State Senate. New York Code PBO 87 – Access to Agency Records
5
New York State Committee on Open Government. Explanation of Time Limits for Response
6
State of New York. Open FOIL NY
7
New York State Committee on Open Government. Freedom of Information Law
8
New York Department of State. Article 6 Sections 84-90 of the NYS Public Officers Law
9
New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules 217