Federal agencies are struggling to keep pace with a record volume of Freedom of Information Act requests, with backlogs continuing to grow even as transparency advocates warn that the delays are undermining public oversight of government decisions. Recent data reviewed by transparency researchers shows the government wide backlog has repeatedly hit new highs in recent years, with tens of thousands of requests left unresolved at any given time.
According to figures compiled by government watchdog groups, the FOIA backlog grew by roughly 97 percent between fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2020, and it has continued climbing since, surpassing 200,000 pending requests government wide for the first time in fiscal year 2022. Analysts who track publicly available agency wait times say a complex FOIA request now takes an average of about 257 days to process, meaning most substantive information requests take longer than eight months to fulfill.
The Department of Homeland Security has emerged as a particular bottleneck, receiving more than 1 million FOIA requests in fiscal year 2025 alone, more than any other federal agency and accounting for roughly 60 percent of all such requests received across the entire federal government that year. The Justice Department and State Department have also been flagged repeatedly as among the slowest performing agencies.
Federal FOIA officers and government auditors point to a combination of factors driving the slowdown, including a sharp rise in the complexity and volume of requests, sustained staffing shortages, and a rising tide of litigation from requesters seeking to force agencies to comply with legal deadlines. Government workforce reductions carried out in 2025 have compounded challenges for FOIA offices that were already stretched thin, according to federal workforce reporting.
The Government Accountability Office has separately concluded that FOIA backlogs hinder government transparency and accountability, and it has called for additional guidance and more reliable agency level data to help identify where the worst delays are occurring and why. Members of Congress from both parties have asked GAO to review FOIA compliance across federal agencies amid mounting frustration from journalists, researchers and watchdog groups.
Transparency advocates argue that the slowdown comes at a particularly consequential moment, as reporters and oversight organizations seek records related to policy changes, personnel decisions and internal communications across the federal government. They say that when responses to legitimate public records requests take the better part of a year or longer, the information often arrives too late to meaningfully inform public debate or hold officials accountable in real time.
Agencies have generally acknowledged the backlog problem but say they are working within existing budget and staffing constraints to prioritize requests, a defense that has done little to satisfy requesters who say the system meant to guarantee timely access to government records is increasingly failing to do so.
Sources: MuckRock, Federal News Network, GAO