Executive Order 13526 was issued on December 29, 2009, by United States President Barack Obama.

[1] It is one of a series of executive orders from US Presidents outlining how classified information should be handled.

As a component of the Obama Administration's initiative to improve transparency and open-access to the Federal Government and the information it produces formally introduced upon taking office in late January 2009[2] and as a result of an agency-wide review and recommendation process ordered in May of that same year,[3] the issuance of EO 13526 was ultimately prompted by several factors.

One factor was the large backlog of documents scheduled to be automatically declassified on December 31, 2009, and how to deal with that reality.

[6][7] [8] EO 13526 restated the authorized list of designees who can originate classification, in effect rescinding any previous designations made by officials or agency heads to subordinates.