What HTTP status response code should I use if the request is missing a required parameter?

I am thinking 412 (Precondition Failed) but there may be a better standard?


Status 422 seems most appropiate based on the spec.

The 422 (Unprocessable Entity) status code means the server understands the content type of the request entity (hence a 415(Unsupported Media Type) status code is inappropriate), and the syntax of the request entity is correct (thus a 400 (Bad Request) status code is inappropriate) but was unable to process the contained instructions. For example, this error condition may occur if an XML request body contains well-formed (i.e., syntactically correct), but semantically erroneous, XML instructions.

They state that malformed xml is an example of bad syntax (calling for a 400). A malformed query string seems analogous to this, so 400 doesn't seem appropriate for a well-formed query-string which is missing a param.

UPDATE @DavidV correctly points out that this spec is for WebDAV, not core HTTP. But some popular non-WebDAV APIs are using 422 anyway, for lack of a better status code (see this).


I'm not sure there's a set standard, but I would have used 400 Bad Request, which the latest HTTP spec (from 2014) documents as follows:

6.5.1. 400 Bad Request

The 400 (Bad Request) status code indicates that the server cannot or will not process the request due to something that is perceived to be a client error (e.g., malformed request syntax, invalid request message framing, or deceptive request routing).


The WCF API in .NET handles missing parameters by returning an HTTP 404 "Endpoint Not Found" error, when using the webHttpBinding.

The 404 Not Found can make sense if you consider your web service method name together with its parameter signature. That is, if you expose a web service method LoginUser(string, string) and you request LoginUser(string), the latter is not found.

Basically this would mean that the web service method you are calling, together with the parameter signature you specified, cannot be found.

10.4.5 404 Not Found

The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent.

The 400 Bad Request, as Gert suggested, remains a valid response code, but I think it is normally used to indicate lower-level problems. It could easily be interpreted as a malformed HTTP request, maybe missing or invalid HTTP headers, or similar.

10.4.1 400 Bad Request

The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications.


You can send a 400 Bad Request code. It's one of the more general-purpose 4xx status codes, so you can use it to mean what you intend: the client is sending a request that's missing information/parameters that your application requires in order to process it correctly.