201 Created

What 201 means

The usual answer to a successful POST or PUT that made something new. The response should include a Location header pointing at the new resource and may include its representation.

Clients often rely on 201 specifically to know that a follow-up GET will work, so returning 200 for creation breaks that expectation.

Common causes

• A resource was created by the request.

How to fix it

• Return Location with the new URL and keep the response body consistent with a later GET.

What it looks like

A typical response:

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Location: /api/orders/8f3a
Content-Type: application/json

{"id":"8f3a","status":"pending"}

The same event in an nginx access log (the status is the number after the request line):

203.0.113.7 - - [10/Sep/2026:10:12:01 +0000] "POST /api/orders HTTP/1.1" 201 153 "-" "Mozilla/5.0"

Check it with curl

-i prints the status line and headers, and -w '%{http_code}' prints only the number, which is handy in scripts and health checks. Replace the URL with yours:

curl -sS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{time_total}s\n' https://example.com/api/orders

Compare what curl sees with what the browser sees. A different status from the same URL usually means a cache, a CDN edge or a cookie is in the way.

Investigating a run of 201s? Paste the log excerpt into Log Share to get line numbers, highlighting and an expiring link for whoever is on call with you.

Related status codes

• 200OK: The request succeeded and the response carries the result.
• 202Accepted: The request was accepted for processing, but processing has not finished.
• 409Conflict: The request conflicts with the current state of the resource.

FAQ