The deadline engine
The part that must not be wrong.
A miscalculated appeal deadline forfeits a right. The engine is pure — no database, no clock beyond the date you hand it — and every rule in it exists because a tracker that got it wrong would be worse than a calendar reminder.
Three things most trackers get wrong
- Business days exclude federal holidays, not just weekends. A request filed the day before Thanksgiving is not due twenty calendar days later, and it is not due twenty weekday-days later either.
- Five jurisdictions have no statutory deadline at all. The engine returns
kind: "none"for those and refuses to produce a due date. - Tolling is asymmetric. A clarification request stops the clock once. A fee clarification stops it as many times as the agency needs.
Federal holidays, computed rather than remembered
The eleven federal holidays of 5 U.S.C. § 6103 are computed for whatever year is asked about, so the table does not silently rot the moment the current year ends. The observed-day rules are applied: a holiday falling on a Saturday is observed the preceding Friday, one falling on a Sunday the following Monday.
Fixed dates
- New Year's Day — 1 January
- Juneteenth National Independence Day — 19 June
- Independence Day — 4 July
- Veterans Day — 11 November
- Christmas Day — 25 December
Floating
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day — third Monday in January
- Washington's Birthday — third Monday in February
- Memorial Day — last Monday in May
- Labor Day — first Monday in September
- Columbus Day — second Monday in October
- Thanksgiving Day — fourth Thursday in November
Federal holidays only
State holidays are not modelled. In a state where a deadline lands near a state-specific holiday, verify it by hand. This is a real gap and it is listed with the others on limits.
Where the engine refuses to answer
Five jurisdictions set no numeric deadline: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota for general public data.
For those the engine returns kind: "none". It produces no due date. It offers an advisory follow-up date instead — ten business days out — and labels it, in the record itself, as a practice recommendation that must never be presented to an agency as though it were a legal deadline.
Why this is the refusal that matters most
Inventing a number here would be the single most likely way this system misleads someone. A confident-looking due date on a Florida request would be a fabrication that reads exactly like a fact, and the person relying on it would cite it to an agency that owes them nothing on that date.
What those statutes actually say is a standard, not a count: Florida requires production within a reasonable time, limited only by the time needed to retrieve and redact; North Carolina, as promptly as possible; Ohio, within a reasonable period of time; Wisconsin, as soon as practicable and without delay. Minnesota requires a reasonable time for public data.
The Minnesota branch
Minnesota is the one place where the answer flips on who is asking. If the requester is the data subject, Minn. Stat. § 13.04, subd. 3 imposes a hard ten-business-day rule, and the engine switches to it automatically when the request is created with dataSubject: true. That branch is the strongest hook in the state, and it is the difference between a computed deadline and no deadline at all.
Extensions and tolling
Two ways the clock moves, and only one of them is symmetric.
An extension is the agency taking more time by right. A toll is the clock stopping while the agency waits on you — and how long it stays stopped is up to nobody but you.
Extensions
Where a jurisdiction allows a unilateral extension the engine carries it as a separate field. Federal agencies may take ten additional business days under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B); the configured extension for California is fourteen calendar days, for Illinois five business days, for Michigan ten, for Pennsylvania thirty, for New Jersey twenty-one, for Massachusetts twenty. The original dueOn is kept alongside the extendedTo date, because the fact that an extension was needed is itself worth having in the record.
Tolling
Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(ii) an agency may stop the clock by asking you something. Clause (I) — a request for information to clarify what you are asking for — may be used once. Clause (II) — clarification about fees — may be used as often as necessary.
The API enforces the once-only limit: a second clarification toll is refused with 422. Only completed tolls add days back to the deadline; an open toll means the clock is currently stopped, and the request says so:
"The clock is currently stopped — the agency has an open clarification request from 2026-03-04. It restarts when you reply, so reply immediately: delay while tolled is free for the agency and does not count against it."
That last sentence is the whole reason tolling is surfaced rather than merely subtracted. The clock restarts on your reply, not on their next action, so every day you sit on a clarification request is a day the agency gets at no cost.
Appeal windows are set by regulation, not statute
This is the most common procedural error in FOIA practice, and it is why the windows are computed rather than remembered. There is no single number.
| Route | Window | Counted in | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| DOJ Office of Information Policy | 90 days | calendar | The default most people assume applies everywhere |
| ICE / DHS | 60 days | calendar | Not DOJ's 90. Mark the envelope and letter "Freedom of Information Act Appeal" |
| GAO | 60 days | calendar | To the Comptroller General. GAO is not subject to FOIA — do not cite § 552 to them |
| Massachusetts — Supervisor of Public Records | 90 days | calendar | Secretary of the Commonwealth |
| Illinois — Public Access Counselor | 60 days | calendar | Binding opinions |
| New Jersey — Government Records Council | 45 days | calendar | Denial of Access Complaint |
| New York — DOCCS Records Appeal Officer | 30 days | calendar | The internal appeal is mandatory before an Article 78 proceeding |
| Pennsylvania — Office of Open Records | 15 days | business | Runs from a deemed denial — see below |
Pennsylvania is the trap
Silence past the deadline is a deemed denial, and the fifteen-business-day appeal clock starts running from it. Nobody sends you anything. There is no letter to notice. It is the shortest window in the dataset and it opens in silence, which is why the system calendars it the day you file rather than the day something arrives.
Where a jurisdiction has no administrative appeal at all, the record says so and names what replaces it: in California, a Superior Court petition, with attorney's fees mandatory to a prevailing plaintiff under Cal. Gov't Code § 7923.115; in Michigan, an appeal to the head of the public body in which the word "appeal" must literally appear, then circuit court within 180 days; in Ohio, the Court of Claims under R.C. 2743.75, with a $25 filing fee and mandatory mediation.
When a federal deadline passes
Two things become true at once, and most requesters assert neither.
5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(C)(i)You are deemed to have exhausted your administrative remedies and may seek judicial review immediately. That window closes the moment the agency issues its determination, after which you must appeal administratively instead.
5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(viii)An agency that fails to comply with the applicable time limits may not charge search fees — or, for news media, educational and non-commercial scientific requesters, duplication fees.
The generated overdue letter asserts both, asks the agency to confirm in writing that no such fees will be assessed, and — if unusual circumstances are being claimed — asks for the written notice § 552(a)(6)(B) requires, a date by which a determination is expected, and access to the agency's FOIA Public Liaison.
How this works
0:55 · narrated · captioned · served from this site, and nothing is sent anywhere when you press play. Prefer to read it? The transcript is below.
Transcript
| At | Section | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 0:02 | The stake | A miscalculated appeal deadline forfeits a right. So the engine is pure, tested, and refuses to answer where the law has given it nothing to say. |
| 0:11 | Holidays | Business days exclude federal holidays, not just weekends. All eleven are computed for whatever year is asked, with the observed-day rules applied. |
| 0:20 | Where it stops | Five jurisdictions set no numeric deadline: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota for public data. It produces no due date for them. |
| 0:31 | Appeals vary | Appeal windows come from regulation, not statute. Justice is ninety calendar days, ICE sixty, New Jersey forty-five, Pennsylvania fifteen business days. |
| 0:42 | Overdue | When a federal deadline passes you are deemed to have exhausted remedies, and the agency may not charge search fees. The letter asserts both of those. |