The number of freedom of information requests received by government departments and agencies continues to rise to record highs.
The latest statistics, published by the Cabinet Office on Wednesday, show that monitored bodies received 94,526 FOI requests in 2025, up from 83,041 in 2024. This is a 14% increase in one year and represents the largest number of requests during a year since monitoring began in 2005.
FOI request numbers have risen in each of the last five years, and are now more than double those made in 2020, when monitored government organisations received 44,195 requests.
The current figures are also far higher than pre-Covid figures. From 2015 to 2019, the annual number of requests made each year fell in the range of 47,000 to 49,000.
Of the 94,526 FOI requests received in 2025, The National Archives received the most (33,634), followed by the Home Office (8,702), the Ministry of Defence (5,578), the Ministry of Justice (5,144), the Health and Safety Executive (4,683), and the Department for Work and Pensions (4,097).
The Home Office had the largest increase in requests (+2,382) amongst all monitored bodies compared to 2024, followed by the Department for Work and Pensions (+1,118). HM Land Registry was the only department with a decrease in requests amongst all bodies compared to 2024 (-46).
Of the 94,526 FOI requests received in 2025, 62,515 were considered to be resolvable. Of these, 36% were granted in full, up from 29% in 2024.
Of the 34,807 requests withheld in full or in part, 26.6% were withheld as the cost of responding was considered to exceed the limit; 2.7% were withheld as “vexatious or repeated”, and the remaining 70.7% due to other exemptions.
The data release also shows an improvement in the timeliness of government bodies’ responses to FOI requests. Across all monitored bodies, 87% of requests were responded to in time in 2025, up from 76% in 2024.