Developer Resources
The FOIA request Portal is powered by a public API. In order to use the API, you must signup for an API key here. Visit the Swagger page to view the structure of the FOIA API.
If your agency is interested in receiving requests from the Portal via an API, please check out our Agency API spec and get in touch with us.
Agency Components
Agencies of the federal government submit information about their FOIA process in a machine-readable format to the Portal. This information is available through the Agency component API. This API follows the JSON API standard and leverages the Drupal JSON API module. The documentation for the JSON API module is a great resource.
The endpoint for the Agency component API.
https://api.foia.gov/api/agency_components
An agency component payload might look like this.
Examples
Request a list of agency components names.
curl -g -v -H 'X-API-Key: <your-api-key>' 'https://api.foia.gov/api/agency_components?&fields[agency_component]=title'
Fetch a list of agency components with their parent agency.
curl -g -v -H 'X-API-Key: <your-api-key>' 'https://api.foia.gov/api/agency_components?&include=agency&fields[agency]=name,abbreviation&fields[agency_component]=title,abbreviation,agency'
Fetch the Office of Information Policy.
curl -g -v -H 'X-API-Key: <your-api-key>' 'https://api.foia.gov/api/agency_components/8216158f-8089-431d-b866-dc334e8d4758?'
Fetch the Office of Information Policy’s FOIA request form.
curl -g -v -H 'X-API-Key: <your-api-key>' https://api.foia.gov/api/agency_components/8216158f-8089-431d-b866-dc334e8d4758/request_form
The FOIA XML Schema
Federal agencies publish FOIA information in accordance with guidelines prepared by the U. S. Department of Justice Office of Information Policy. These guidelines, available here, describe the format and meaning of FOIA annual report information. In addition, a FOIA Annual Report XML schema has been developed allowing agency FOIA annual report information to be represented and exchanged in a standardized format. This XML schema closely follows the structure and terminology of the guidance document, and conforms to the NIEM standard (http://niem.gov).
All agency data available through reports and graphs on the FOIA.gov website is also available for public download as XML documents conforming to the FOIA Annual Report XML schema at the link below. This enables any kind of offline processing, storage, comparison, or mashup which may be desired.
The entire IEPD package may also be downloaded directly by clicking on the following link [Download IEPD].
Within this IEPD package you can find the XML schema defined in exchange_files/schema/extension/FoiaAnnualReportExtensions.xsd. Note that this definition inherits from others, which can be found in the package as well, under exchange_files/schema/Subset/niem/.
You can download the FOIA Data Set here.
Annual Report XML API
Individual annual reports, in XML format, are available via an API endpoint:
/api/annual-report-xml/[agency abbreviation]/[year]
For example, to receive the Department of Justice (DOJ) annual report for 2021, you could use this:
curl -H 'X-API-Key: <your-api-key>' https://api.foia.gov/api/annual-report-xml/DOJ/2021