Does 202 mean my request succeeded?
No. It means the server accepted it for processing. The job can still fail later. Check the status resource the server points to before treating the work as done.
HTTP 202 ACCEPTED
The request was queued but not finished. Common for background jobs. 202 belongs to the 2xx success class and is defined in RFC 9110.
Loading the workbench.
About HTTP 202
What Does HTTP 202 Accepted Mean?
The request was queued but not finished. Common for background jobs. The code is registered with IANA and defined in RFC 9110.
Success: the request was received, understood, and accepted. Every code from 200 to 299 shares that general meaning, so a client that does not recognise 202 must treat it like 200.
When Do You See a 202 Response?
202 Accepted says the request was received and queued, but the work has not finished and may still fail. You see it from APIs that hand jobs to a background worker: video transcoding, report generation, bulk imports, sending email batches, or provisioning cloud resources. Unlike 201, nothing is promised to exist yet. The HTTP exchange ends with the 202; the outcome has to be discovered some other way, such as polling or a webhook.
How Do You Handle a 202?
A server should return something the client can follow: a Location header or a body field pointing at a job status resource, and optionally Retry-After to say when to check. The status resource can later answer 200 with progress, or 303 See Other pointing at the finished result. Clients should poll politely with backoff and never assume the job succeeded just because it was accepted.
What Does a 202 Response Look Like?
HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted
Location: /api/jobs/7f3c
Retry-After: 10
Content-Type: application/json202 is not cacheable by default: a browser or CDN stores it only when Cache-Control or Expires explicitly allows it.
To inspect a real one without sending it anywhere:
- Copy the response headers from your browser Network tab, or from
curl -i. - Paste them into the Header decoder to see every header explained.
- Check caching in the Cache lane.
Which Status Codes Are Related to 202?
- 201 Created: A new resource was created. The Location header usually points to it.
- 303 See Other: Go GET a different URL, typically after a form POST (post/redirect/get).
- 200 OK: The request succeeded. The body depends on the method.
- 102 Processing: WebDAV: the server is still working on a long request. Deprecated in practice.
Browse every code on the HTTP status codes page.
What Other Lanes Are in the Reference Section?
- HTTP status codes: Every IANA-registered status code, with a page per code.
- MIME types: File extensions to Content-Type, searchable both ways, plus a Content-Type parser.
- HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and the rest: safe, idempotent, cacheable.
Elsewhere in 2http: Header decoder, Cookie decoder, Cache-Control decoder, CORS checker, User-agent parser, and all eleven lanes on the 2http home page. Part of the 2suite.io privacy-first ecosystem.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should a client wait for a 202 job to finish?
Poll the URL given in Location or the body, honoring Retry-After, with increasing delays. Many APIs also offer a webhook so the client is told when the job completes.
Is HTTP 202 an error?
No. 202 is a success response, not an error.
Is a 202 response cacheable by default?
No. Caches store a 202 only when Cache-Control or Expires explicitly allows it.
How Can You Verify That Nothing Leaves This Browser?
You do not have to take our word that your headers stay here. Developer tools show every request a page makes, so you can watch this page work and confirm that nothing is sent. The check takes under a minute.
- Open your browser developer tools with
F12, orCmd+Option+Ion a Mac, and select the Network tab. - Reload the page and let it finish. You will see the page's own files, its web fonts, and one anonymous page-view request. Nothing has been typed yet, so none of them can contain your headers.
- Click the clear icon in the Network tab so that the log is empty.
- Paste real headers into any lane and read the result.
- Look at the Network tab again. It is still empty. For extra proof, turn on offline mode after the page loads and every lane keeps working.
Only two things can add a line to that log, and neither carries your headers. Submitting the feedback form sends the vote and comment you typed. Typing characters in a script the page has not displayed yet, such as Cyrillic or Greek, can make the browser fetch the matching font file, and that request names only the font.
2http never sends a request on your behalf: the request builder writes code for you to run, and the meta inspector reads source you paste instead of fetching a URL. The production site also sends a Content-Security-Policy header that tells your browser to refuse connections to anywhere except this site and the anonymous analytics endpoint.