URL normalization settings

The Cloudflare dashboard provides the following settings to manage URL normalization:

Normalization type

Default value: RFC-3986

Selects the type of normalization to perform:

• RFC-3986 – Applies URL normalization strictly according to RFC 3986 ↗.
• Cloudflare – In addition to what is defined in RFC 3986, applies extra URL normalization techniques.

Normalize incoming URLs

Default value: On

Configures the URLs of all incoming traffic to Cloudflare:

• When enabled, all incoming URLs are normalized before they pass to subsequent Cloudflare features that can receive a URL as input, such as Page Rules, WAF custom rules, Workers, and Access.
• When disabled, incoming URLs are not normalized before passing to subsequent Cloudflare features.

Normalize URLs to origin

Default value: Off

Configures URLs sent to the origin:

• When enabled, requests sent to the origin are normalized.
• When disabled, requests sent to the origin are not modified.

You can only view and enable this option when Normalize incoming URLs is enabled.

For examples of how these settings affect URL normalization, refer to the URL normalization examples.