More FOIA processing left disclosure questions

Historical report — DOJ’s Office of Information Policy announced its fiscal 2025 FOIA summary on July 2, 2026. Agencies received 1,707,197 requests and processed 1,635,055, both government-wide records. These workload totals do not count unique requesters or measure how much material was released. ^[1]

An earlier May 29, 2026 ombudsman report used a defined group of 15 Cabinet departments and 10 independent agencies. In that group, full-time FOIA staffing fell 16% and backlogs rose 27% between fiscal 2024 and 2025. Those concurrent changes did not isolate a staffing effect on any particular request. ^[2]

Processing also differs from full disclosure. FOIA.gov describes reviewing records for exemptions and releasing portions that can be disclosed. It separately describes agency appeals and mediation through the Office of Government Information Services. Those processes concern access disputes; a closure count alone does not show what a requester received. ^[3]

FOIA.gov’s undated reporting page describes annual comparisons by agency and year, with downloadable data. Quarterly reports add received, processed and backlogged requests, plus the ten oldest pending requests. Comparing those series keeps the agency, period and metric visible when assessing access, rather than relying on one federal total. ^[4]

About this item: Retrospective report. No first-hand reporting or independent testing is claimed. Corrections policy.