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The Scale of the Federal Backlog
US federal FOIA requests reached 1.5 million in FY2024 — a 25% increase from the prior year. Pending request backlogs grew 33% to 267,056 requests. The federal government spent an estimated $723 million processing FOIA requests in FY2024.
These numbers reflect a fundamental capacity problem. There are approximately 5,638 FOIA staff across federal agencies. At 1.5 million requests per year, each FOIA professional is responsible for roughly 266 re...