Q. Are payments to federal government contractors—e.g., dates, recipient names, and dollar amounts—exempt under FOIA?

A. This will be an unsatisfying response: “maybe, but probably not.” The burden is on the agency, of course, to establish that any exemption applies. Exemption 4 springs to mind as one possible ground for protecting some of the information you’ve inquired about, particularly the “dollar amounts.” Even if that exemption applies, however, the agency would also have to demonstrate that it “reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm” the contractor’s financial interests. That might be difficult because the total amount of a government contract is nearly always published. If the payment amounts could reveal a contractor’s hourly rates or unit prices, the government would have a stronger case for withholding.

As for recipient names, it’s unclear whether you mean the names of the contracting companies or the names of specific individuals who works for the contractors. Disclosing the former information would probably be less complicated. I use the qualifier “probably” because in one notable case that remains pending, contractors that manufactures a drug used in federal executions argue that the names of their companies are protected from disclosure under FOIA. See Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. DOJ (D.C. Cir. 2023).