HTTP 403 — Forbidden

The server understood the request but refuses to authorize it

When to use it

Use status 403 when this is the correct HTTP response semantic: The server understood the request but refuses to authorize it

Request and response example

DELETE /admin/users/42 HTTP/1.1
Host: api.example.com
Authorization: Bearer <token>

HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden

Related status codes

400, 401, 402, 404

References

MDN · RFC 9110