Qualified Exemption
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, an exemption from disclosure that only applies if the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it — unlike an absolute exemption, which requires no such balancing.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
Not every FOIA exemption operates in the same way. Some are 'absolute' — if they apply, the information simply need not be disclosed. Others are 'qualified', meaning the public authority must go on to weigh competing public interests before deciding whether to withhold the information. The ICO's guidance explains that qualified exemptions divide further into two types: 'you can further divide the qualified exemptions into 'class-based' and 'prejudice-based' exemptions', with prejudice-based ones (such as sections 26 to 29, covering defence, international relations, relations within the UK, and the economy) requiring the authority to show that disclosure would, or would be likely to, cause the relevant harm.
Even once a prejudice-based qualified exemption is shown to be engaged, that is not the end of the analysis: the ICO's guidance confirms that 'once you have established that the exemption is engaged because the test of prejudice is met, the next stage is to consider the public interest', and that the authority 'must consider whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption, and so in withholding the information, outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.' Only if that balance favours withholding can the qualified exemption actually be relied upon to refuse the request.
Related terms
Official sources
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