How do I know which institution holds the documents I’m interested in?

There are different ways in order to detect which EU body might hold the information you are interested in. First thing you can do is check on our website whether someone else already filed a request on the documents you want to gain access to. Simply make use of our search function here.
You can check the EU institutions’ competence and find out if their scope of responsibility covers the area of the topic you want to research on. If you don’t know exactly which institution holds the documents, just file a request to all that might have some information on it.

Thus, questions which may guide you towards finding the right institution:

• Do you have a topic you want to research on in mind and need more information to make it feasible? Think of documents which might reveal these information
• Is it a document created by the institution itself? 
• Do you already know whether a member state / several member states play a role too? Can it be a document which the institution might have received from an external body?
• Have you read or heard about the documents through media channels? Can you find more indicators through these channels? 
• Does the issue you want to get informed on have to do something with lobbyism? Can you attribute it to an industry? Do you think details can be extracted from EU documents? Think of correspondence or contracts

Important to have in mind is that it is not a problem if you are not completely sure about it. You can just file the request to the institution which you deem to be most likely appropriate. According to the law, they have to assist you in their response, by giving guidance on where and how you can apply for access to documents. Additionally, you can send us an email if you’re not sure.