413 Content Too Large
The request body is larger than the server is willing or able to process.
Status
HTTP/1.1 413 Content Too Large
Details
- Category: 4xx
- Status: Standard. Registered with IANA and defined by a current standards-track RFC.
- Specification: RFC 9110 §15.5.14
- Cacheable: Only with explicit cache headers
- Response body: Allowed
- Retry: Retry only after changing the request
413 (previously called Payload Too Large, and before that Request Entity Too Large) means the body exceeded a configured limit. The limit is frequently enforced by infrastructure rather than the application: nginx client_max_body_size, an ingress controller default, or a serverless platform's payload cap.
If the condition is temporary, the server may include Retry-After. Usually it is not temporary, and the fix is either a smaller upload or a raised limit.
Note: Body limits are usually enforced by infrastructure rather than the application. Raising the app limit changes nothing while nginx, an ingress controller, or a platform cap still rejects the request.
Headers
- Retry-After: Optional. Present only when the restriction is temporary.
Common causes
- An upload larger than the web server or proxy body limit, commonly 1MB on nginx defaults.
- A JSON payload that grew past an application-level limit.
- Base64 encoding inflating a binary payload by roughly a third past the cap.
- A platform limit on request size for functions or edge workers.
How to fix it
As the client
- Split the upload into chunks, or use a multipart or resumable upload API if one exists.
- Compress the body and set Content-Encoding, where the server supports it.
- Upload large files directly to object storage with a presigned URL rather than through the API.
As the server
- Raise the limit at every hop. Raising it in the application while nginx still caps at 1MB changes nothing.
- Reject early using the Expect: 100-continue handshake so clients do not transfer a body that will be discarded.
- State the maximum size in the error body.
Examples
Uploading a file over the size limit
An upload larger than the configured limit:
HTTP request
POST /api/uploads HTTP/1.1 Host: api.example.com Content-Length: 26214400
The request is rejected before the body is processed, and the response states the maximum:
HTTP response
HTTP/1.1 413 Content Too Large
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
{"error":"payload_too_large","max_bytes":10485760}