Additional Status Codes

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By default, FastAPI will return the responses using a JSONResponse, putting the content you return from your path operation inside of that JSONResponse.

It will use the default status code or the one you set in your path operation.

Additional status codes

If you want to return additional status codes apart from the main one, you can do that by returning a Response directly, like a JSONResponse, and set the additional status code directly.

For example, let's say that you want to have a path operation that allows to update items, and returns HTTP status codes of 200 "OK" when successful.

But you also want it to accept new items. And when the items didn't exist before, it creates them, and returns an HTTP status code of 201 "Created".

To achieve that, import JSONResponse, and return your content there directly, setting the status_code that you want:

Python 3.10+

from typing import Annotated

from fastapi import Body, FastAPI, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse

app = FastAPI()

items = {"foo": {"name": "Fighters", "size": 6}, "bar": {"name": "Tenders", "size": 3}}


@app.put("/items/{item_id}")
async def upsert_item(
    item_id: str,
    name: Annotated[str | None, Body()] = None,
    size: Annotated[int | None, Body()] = None,
):
    if item_id in items:
        item = items[item_id]
        item["name"] = name
        item["size"] = size
        return item
    else:
        item = {"name": name, "size": size}
        items[item_id] = item
        return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, content=item)

🤓 Other versions and variants

Python 3.9+Python 3.8+Python 3.10+ - non-AnnotatedPython 3.8+ - non-Annotated

from typing import Annotated, Union

from fastapi import Body, FastAPI, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse

app = FastAPI()

items = {"foo": {"name": "Fighters", "size": 6}, "bar": {"name": "Tenders", "size": 3}}


@app.put("/items/{item_id}")
async def upsert_item(
    item_id: str,
    name: Annotated[Union[str, None], Body()] = None,
    size: Annotated[Union[int, None], Body()] = None,
):
    if item_id in items:
        item = items[item_id]
        item["name"] = name
        item["size"] = size
        return item
    else:
        item = {"name": name, "size": size}
        items[item_id] = item
        return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, content=item)

from typing import Union

from fastapi import Body, FastAPI, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse
from typing_extensions import Annotated

app = FastAPI()

items = {"foo": {"name": "Fighters", "size": 6}, "bar": {"name": "Tenders", "size": 3}}


@app.put("/items/{item_id}")
async def upsert_item(
    item_id: str,
    name: Annotated[Union[str, None], Body()] = None,
    size: Annotated[Union[int, None], Body()] = None,
):
    if item_id in items:
        item = items[item_id]
        item["name"] = name
        item["size"] = size
        return item
    else:
        item = {"name": name, "size": size}
        items[item_id] = item
        return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, content=item)

Tip

Prefer to use the Annotated version if possible.

from fastapi import Body, FastAPI, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse

app = FastAPI()

items = {"foo": {"name": "Fighters", "size": 6}, "bar": {"name": "Tenders", "size": 3}}


@app.put("/items/{item_id}")
async def upsert_item(
    item_id: str,
    name: str | None = Body(default=None),
    size: int | None = Body(default=None),
):
    if item_id in items:
        item = items[item_id]
        item["name"] = name
        item["size"] = size
        return item
    else:
        item = {"name": name, "size": size}
        items[item_id] = item
        return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, content=item)

Tip

Prefer to use the Annotated version if possible.

from typing import Union

from fastapi import Body, FastAPI, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse

app = FastAPI()

items = {"foo": {"name": "Fighters", "size": 6}, "bar": {"name": "Tenders", "size": 3}}


@app.put("/items/{item_id}")
async def upsert_item(
    item_id: str,
    name: Union[str, None] = Body(default=None),
    size: Union[int, None] = Body(default=None),
):
    if item_id in items:
        item = items[item_id]
        item["name"] = name
        item["size"] = size
        return item
    else:
        item = {"name": name, "size": size}
        items[item_id] = item
        return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_201_CREATED, content=item)

Warning

When you return a Response directly, like in the example above, it will be returned directly.

It won't be serialized with a model, etc.

Make sure it has the data you want it to have, and that the values are valid JSON (if you are using JSONResponse).

Technical Details

You could also use from starlette.responses import JSONResponse.

FastAPI provides the same starlette.responses as fastapi.responses just as a convenience for you, the developer. But most of the available responses come directly from Starlette. The same with status.

OpenAPI and API docs

If you return additional status codes and responses directly, they won't be included in the OpenAPI schema (the API docs), because FastAPI doesn't have a way to know beforehand what you are going to return.

But you can document that in your code, using: Additional Responses.