HTTP 201 Created — What It Means and How to Fix It

Common Causes

• Successful creation of a new resource via a POST request (e.g., creating a new user, product, or document).
• Successful creation or update of a resource via a PUT request where the resource did not previously exist.
• A server-side process successfully generating a new resource based on the client's request.

Code Examples to Handle HTTP 201

curl -I https://httpbin.org/status/201

fetch('https://httpbin.org/status/201')
  .then(response => {
    if (response.status === 201) {
      console.log('Handled Created');
    }
  });

import requests

response = requests.get('https://httpbin.org/status/201')
if response.status_code == 201:
    print("Received Created")

How to Fix It

1. Verify the request method: Ensure a POST or PUT method was used, as 201 is not typically expected for GET or DELETE.
2. Check the response body: The response body should ideally contain a representation of the newly created resource.
3. Inspect the 'Location' header: The server should include a 'Location' header with a URI pointing to the newly created resource.
4. Confirm idempotency (for PUT): If a PUT request resulted in 201, it implies the resource was created. Subsequent identical PUT requests to the same URI should ideally return 200 OK or 204 No Content if the resource already exists and is updated, not 201 again.

Related Status Codes