United States · Federal FOIA

Federal FOIA, on the 20-business-day clock and in your own tenant

AccessPoint manages Freedom of Information Act requests under 5 U.S.C. § 552 — the 20-business-day determination, the unusual-circumstances extension, and the nine exemptions applied with the foreseeable-harm test — pre-configured for U.S. federal agencies and running inside your own Microsoft 365 tenant.

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United States — Federal at a glance

Response deadline
20 business days to make a determination (5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A))
Extensions
Additional 10 business days for unusual circumstances (§ 552(a)(6)(B))
Filing fee
None; search, review, and duplication fees vary by requester category
Exemptions
Nine, under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b), applied with the foreseeable-harm test
Oversight
OGIS at the National Archives (FOIA Ombudsman, mediation); courts review de novo
Languages
English

Built for United States — Federal

One platform for the whole access-and-privacy mandate, pre-configured for this regime and running in your own Microsoft 365 tenant.

FOIA request lifecycle

Intake to release on the federal clock — the 20-business-day determination under 5 U.S.C. § 552, the unusual-circumstances extension, the nine (b) exemptions, and fee-category tracking — all built on Microsoft 365.

Foreseeable-harm standard

Withhold under an exemption only where disclosure would foreseeably harm a protected interest — the presumption-of-openness test the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 codified — recorded on every redaction decision.

Exemptions and redaction

Apply the nine FOIA exemptions line by line, with a colour-coded catalogue and a defensible, audit-trailed redaction record.

OGIS mediation and appeals

Track administrative appeals on the statutory 90-day window and referrals to the Office of Government Information Services — the FOIA Ombudsman at the National Archives — with its dispute-resolution steps mapped out.

Fees by requester category

Compute search, review, and duplication fees by requester category — commercial, news media and educational, or all others — with the statutory free search and copying allowances applied.

Privacy Act as a companion

Handling first-party requests for a person's own records too? The Privacy Act of 1974 ships as a separate configuration — the US Privacy Act pack — running on the same platform alongside your FOIA caseload.

The foreseeable-harm standard

Under federal FOIA, an exemption isn't enough — disclosure has to foreseeably harm something.

The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 codified a presumption of openness: an agency may withhold information under one of the nine exemptions only if it reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm the interest the exemption protects, or disclosure is prohibited by law. It's no longer enough that a record technically falls within an exemption. AccessPoint records the foreseeable-harm reasoning on every redaction, tracks the minimum 90-day administrative-appeal window and OGIS referrals, and keeps the defensible file that de novo court review demands.

Presumption of openness The 2016 standard — release unless a foreseeable harm is shown.
Harm reasoning on record Every exemption call captured with its foreseeable-harm basis.
90-day appeal window Administrative appeals and OGIS mediation tracked to the day.

Configured out of the box

Installing the us-foia jurisdiction pack seeds your tenant with everything this regime needs — a starting point you can adjust, not a lock-in.

Related guide: FOI Workflow Quick Check
  • The Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552) as the legal-authority and citation spine
  • The federal statutory-holiday calendar and 20-business-day due-date rules
  • The nine FOIA exemptions, colour-coded for redaction, with the foreseeable-harm test
  • Unusual-circumstances extension reasons with citations and limits
  • Requester fee categories — commercial, news media and educational, and all others
  • OGIS dispute-resolution steps and administrative-appeal grounds and dispositions
  • Federal timeliness brackets and Annual FOIA Report data points
  • FOIA correspondence templates with statutory wording

United States — Federal Questions

Does AccessPoint handle Privacy Act requests too?
Yes — as a separate companion configuration. This page covers the Freedom of Information Act pack; first-party access to and amendment of a person's own records under the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a) ships as its own pack. See the US Privacy Act solution page. Both run on the same platform, so an agency that answers both statutes works them in one system.

How does it track the 20-business-day deadline and extensions?
AccessPoint computes business-day due dates from the federal holiday calendar and starts the clock at intake. It also tracks the additional 10-business-day extension for unusual circumstances under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B) — records from field offices, voluminous records, or consultation with another agency — with the notice to the requester on file.

Does it support OGIS mediation and administrative appeals?
Yes. AccessPoint tracks the minimum 90-day administrative-appeal window and referrals to the Office of Government Information Services, the FOIA Ombudsman at the National Archives. OGIS offers voluntary mediation and is not order-making — final enforcement is by de novo review in the U.S. district courts, and AccessPoint keeps the record either path needs.

Where does agency data reside?
Entirely within your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant. Requests, documents, and audit history never leave your control — no third-party cloud, no vendor access, and no cross-border data transfers.

Run Federal FOIA in One Platform

Try AccessPoint free for 30 days, pre-configured for U.S. federal agencies. No credit card required.

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