HTTP 200 OK

HTTP 200 OK — The request succeeded and the response contains the result.

Class

2xx Success

Defined in

RFC 9110 §15.3.1

Official

Yes (IANA registry)

Cacheable by default

Yes (heuristically, per RFC 9110)

What does HTTP 200 mean?

200 OK is the standard response for a successful HTTP request. What the body contains depends on the method: for GET it's the requested resource, for HEAD only the headers, for POST the result of the action, and for PUT/PATCH typically the updated resource.

It's by far the most common status on the web — usually well over 90% of a healthy site's responses. If a response "worked" and has a body, 200 is the default answer.

When is 200 used?

• A page, image, script or API resource is returned successfully (GET).
• A POST action succeeded and the response describes the result (e.g. a search, a calculation, a login returning a token).
• A PUT or PATCH updated a resource and the response includes the new version.

Why you're seeing 200

• The request was valid and the server fulfilled it — nothing is wrong.
• Beware "soft errors": some APIs return 200 with {"error": …} in the body. That breaks HTTP caching, monitoring and clients that check response.ok; use a proper 4xx/5xx instead.
• A "soft 404": a missing page that returns 200 with a "not found" message. Google flags these in Search Console because the URL looks like real content.

What to do about 200

If you're visiting the site

1. Nothing to fix — 200 means the request succeeded. If the page still looks wrong, the issue is in the page's content or scripts, not the HTTP response.

If you run the site or API (developers)

1. Return 201 instead when a POST creates a resource, and 204 when there's deliberately no body.
2. Never return 200 for errors; clients, CDNs and crawlers rely on the status code.
3. Add caching headers (Cache-Control, ETag) to 200 responses so repeat requests can be answered with 304.

Sending 200: server examples

location /health {
    default_type application/json;
    return 200 '{"status":"ok"}';
}

app.get("/api/users/:id", async (req, res) => {
  const user = await db.users.find(req.params.id);
  if (!user) return res.status(404).json({ error: "not_found" });
  res.json(user); // 200 is the default status
});

// app/api/example/route.ts (Next.js App Router)
export async function GET() {
  const users = await getUsers();
  return Response.json(users); // status 200 by default
}

Example 200 response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 48
Cache-Control: private, max-age=60
ETag: "a1b2c3"
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2026 10:00:00 GMT

{"id":1,"name":"Ada Lovelace","role":"admin"}

Related status codes

• 201 CreatedThe request succeeded and created a new resource, usually identified by the Location header.
• 204 No ContentThe request succeeded and there is intentionally no response body.
• 304 Not ModifiedThe cached copy the client already has is still valid, so no body is sent.

Related tools

• HTTP status codes — full list
• HTTP headers reference
• cURL converter
• Mock API — fake REST endpoints with custom status codes
• Webhook tester — inspect incoming requests