Error handling in Axios

When a request fails, Axios rejects with an AxiosError that carries the response, the error code and the config, so your catch block can react to each case.

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Error handling in Axios: screenshot of the example below running — The code below, running in Chromium on our server (Oct 12, 2026). Press Run to see it live and change it.

How it works

Simulate a failing request. The notFound adapter rejects with new AxiosError(message, code, config, request, response), giving a 404 response object without any network. [1]
Narrow the error in catch. axios.isAxiosError(error) is true for the 404, so the code can safely read error.response.status, the server message and error.config.url. A plain SyntaxError returns false. [1]
Errors without a response. The timeout-style adapter rejects with code ECONNABORTED and no response, so error.response is undefined and the code is the useful part. [1]
Tell cancellations apart. The last request uses an AbortController that is aborted before the call. axios.isCancel(error) returns true for that error. [1]

Run and edit it

It runs in your browser, in a sandboxed frame that cannot see this site; the packages load from esm.sh only after you press Run.

import axios, { AxiosError } from 'axios';

// Offline adapter that fails like a 404 from a server
const notFound = (config) => {
  const response = { data: { message: 'User not found' }, status: 404, statusText: 'Not Found', headers: {}, config };
  return Promise.reject(new AxiosError('Request failed with status code 404', 'ERR_BAD_REQUEST', config, {}, response));
};

try {
  await axios.get('/users/42', { adapter: notFound });
} catch (error) {
  if (axios.isAxiosError(error)) {
    console.log('1) isAxiosError:', true);
    console.log('   message:', error.message);
    console.log('   code:', error.code);
    console.log('   status:', error.response?.status, error.response?.statusText);
    console.log('   server said:', error.response?.data.message);
    console.log('   url:', error.config?.url);
  } else {
    throw error;
  }
}

// A non-axios error
try {
  JSON.parse('{oops');
} catch (error) {
  console.log('2) SyntaxError isAxiosError:', axios.isAxiosError(error));
}

// A failure with no response at all
const timedOut = (config) =>
  Promise.reject(new AxiosError('timeout of 2000ms exceeded', 'ECONNABORTED', config));

try {
  await axios.get('/slow', { adapter: timedOut, timeout: 2000 });
} catch (error) {
  console.log('3) code:', error.code, '| response:', error.response);
}

// A cancelled request
const controller = new AbortController();
controller.abort();
try {
  await axios.get('/search', { signal: controller.signal, adapter: notFound });
} catch (error) {
  console.log('4) isCancel:', axios.isCancel(error), '| message:', error.message);
}

Ctrl/⌘ + Enter runs

Each block in the console is one failure type; change the status in notFound to 500 and run again. Code written by AgentGid [1].

Checked Oct 12, 2026: it starts without errors in Chromium with axios 1.20.0. Needs WebGL.

More Axios examples

Custom adapters in Axios Creating an instance in Axios Interceptors in Axios transformResponse in Axios

Sources

Docs: docs › api_intro

Explanations written by AgentGid from the official docs; the numbers in brackets point here. The code marked "written by AgentGid" is ours and free to copy.

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