HTTP 204 NO CONTENT

Success with no body. Common for DELETE and for saves that return nothing. 204 belongs to the 2xx success class and is defined in RFC 9110.

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About HTTP 204

What Does HTTP 204 No Content Mean?

Success with no body. Common for DELETE and for saves that return nothing. 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 204 must treat it like 200.

When Do You See a 204 Response?

204 No Content signals success with deliberately nothing in the body. It is the natural answer to a DELETE, to a PUT or PATCH that saves without echoing the result, and to analytics beacons and CORS preflights that only need a yes. Browsers that receive 204 from a form submission or link stay on the current page. Any body bytes a buggy server sends after a 204 are ignored or can corrupt the next response on a reused connection.

How Do You Handle a 204?

Servers must not send a body or a Content-Length other than zero; frameworks that serialize null into the string null break this rule. Headers still matter, so include an ETag after a save to let the client update its cached validator. Clients should not try to parse JSON from a 204; check the status before calling the parser, since response.json() throws on an empty body.

What Does a 204 Response Look Like?

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
ETag: "v42"
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2026 18:00:00 GMT

204 is cacheable by default under RFC 9110: a browser or CDN may store it and reuse it even without explicit freshness headers, using a heuristic lifetime. Send Cache-Control to say exactly how long.

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 204?

200 OK: The request succeeded. The body depends on the method.
205 Reset Content: Success; the client should reset the form or view that sent the request.
202 Accepted: The request was queued but not finished. Common for background jobs.
201 Created: A new resource was created. The Location header usually points to it.

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

Why does response.json() fail on a 204?

A 204 has no body by definition, so there is nothing to parse and the JSON parser throws. Check for status 204, or for an empty body, before reading JSON.

Should a DELETE return 204 or 200?

Use 204 when there is nothing useful to return, and 200 with a body when you want to return the deleted item or a confirmation message. Both are correct.

Is HTTP 204 an error?

No. 204 is a success response, not an error.

Is a 204 response cacheable by default?

Yes. RFC 9110 lists 204 as heuristically cacheable, so caches may store it without explicit headers. Use Cache-Control to control how long.

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, or Cmd+Option+I on 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.

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