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Request Header

Accept-Encoding

: gzip, deflate, br

Declares what compression algorithms the client supports for the response payload.

DirectionRequest Header
StatusStandardized
Seen with406
Defined inRFC 9110, Section 12.5.3
Updated2026-07-08

What is the Accept-Encoding header?

The Accept-Encoding request header advertises the compression formats (such as gzip, deflate, or br for Brotli) that the client is capable of decoding.

API Usage & Best Practices

  • Enable compression at the gateway: Ensure your API gateway or web server (Nginx, Cloudflare) automatically compresses JSON payloads using the best algorithm supported by the client.
  • Significant performance gains: Compressing JSON responses can reduce payload size by up to 70-80% for large lists.

Examples

GET /v1/leads HTTP/1.1
Host: api.apiguide.dev
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br

Status codes seen with it

1

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