Articles/HTTP

HTTP 406 Not Acceptable — What It Means

What HTTP status code 406 Not Acceptable means, when servers return it, and how to handle it correctly.

Published September 24, 2026

HTTP 406 Not Acceptable — The server can't produce a response matching the Accept headers sent by the client.

Key points

  • Returned when the server can't match the client's requested response format (its Accept header)
  • Rare in practice, since most APIs support a single format and largely ignore the Accept header
  • Distinct from 415, which is about the request's content type, not the desired response format
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