How to Fix a 403 Forbidden Error

The HTTP error 403 blocks site access, use these steps to find out why

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Photo of Tim Fisher, Lifewire GM and Writer
Tim Fisher
General Manager, VP, Lifewire.com
Tim Fisher has 30+ years' professional technology support experience. He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.
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Tim Fisher
Updated on November 13, 2020

The 403 Forbidden error is an HTTP status code that means that accessing the page or resource you were trying to reach is absolutely forbidden for some reason.

Different web servers report 403 Forbidden errors in different ways, the majority of which we've listed below. Occasionally a website owner will customize the site's error, but that's not too common.

How the 403 Error Appears

Illustration of a person and a laptop with a 403 error onscreen
Alex Dos Diaz / Lifewire 

These are the most common incarnations of 403 Forbidden errors:

  • 403 Forbidden
  • HTTP 403
  • Forbidden: You don't have permission to access [directory] on this server
  • Forbidden
  • Error 403
  • HTTP Error 403.14 - Forbidden
  • Error 403 - Forbidden
  • HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden

The error displays inside the browser window, just as web pages do, and like all errors of this type, it can be seen in any browser on any operating system.

In Internet Explorer, The website declined to show this webpage message indicates a 403 Forbidden error. The IE title bar should say 403 Forbidden or something similar.

These errors, when received while opening links via Microsoft Office programs, generate the message Unable to open [url]. Cannot download the information you requested inside the Office software.

Windows Update might also report an HTTP 403 error but it will display as error code 0x80244018 or with the following message: WU_E_PT_HTTP_STATUS_FORBIDDEN.

Cause of 403 Forbidden Errors

They're almost always caused by issues where you're trying to access something that you don't have access to. The error is essentially saying "Go away and don't come back here."

Microsoft IIS web servers provide more specific information about the cause of 403 Forbidden errors by suffixing a number after the 403, as in HTTP Error 403.14 - Forbidden, which means Directory listing denied.

How to Fix the 403 Forbidden Error

  1. Check for URL errors and make sure you're specifying an actual web page file name and extension, not just a directory. Most websites are configured to disallow directory browsing, so a 403 Forbidden message when trying to display a folder instead of a specific page, is normal and expected.

    This is, by far, the most common reason for a website to return the 403 Forbidden error. Be sure you fully explore this possibility before investing time in the troubleshooting below.

    If you operate the website in question, and you want to prevent 403 errors in these cases, enable directory browsing in your web server software.

  2. Clear your browser's cache. Issues with a cached version of the page you're viewing could be causing 403 Forbidden issues.

  3. Log in to the website, assuming it's possible and appropriate to do so. The error message could mean that you need additional access before you can view the page.

    Typically, a website produces a 401 Unauthorized error when special permission is required, but sometimes a 403 Forbidden is used instead.

  4. Clear your browser's cookies, especially if you typically log in to this website and logging in again (the last step) didn't work.

    While we're talking about cookies, be sure you have them enabled in your browser, or at least for this website if you do actually log in to access this page. The 403 Forbidden error, in particular, indicates that cookies might be involved in obtaining proper access.

  5. Contact the website directly. It's possible that the 403 error is a mistake, everyone else is seeing it, too, and the website isn't yet aware of the problem.

    See our Website Contact Information list for contact information for lots of popular websites. Most sites have support-based accounts on social networking sites, making it really easy to get a hold of them. Some even have support email addresses and telephone numbers.

    Twitter is usually abuzz with talk when a site goes down completely, especially if it's a popular one. The best way to focus in on talk about a downed site is by searching for #websitedown on Twitter, as in #amazondown or #facebookdown. While this trick certainly won't work if Twitter is down with a 403 error, it's great for checking on the status of other downed sites.

  6. Contact your internet service provider if you're still getting the 403 error, especially if you're pretty sure that the website in question is working for others right now.

    It's possible that your public IP address, or your entire ISP, has been added to a blocklist, a situation that could produce this error, usually on all pages on one or more sites. If that's the case, and your ISP can't help you, connecting to a VPN server from a region of the world that does permit access, should be enough to resolve the error.

    See How to Talk to Tech Support for some help on communicating this issue to your ISP.

  7. Come back later. Once you've verified that the page you're accessing is the correct one and that the HTTP error is being seen by more than just you, just revisit the page on a regular basis until the problem is fixed.

Errors Like 403 Forbidden

The following messages are also client-side errors and so are related to the 403 Forbidden error: 400 Bad Request, 401 Unauthorized, 404 Not Found, and 408 Request Timeout.

Several server-side HTTP status codes also exist, like the popular 500 Internal Server Error, among others that you can find in this HTTP Status Code Errors list.