JWT Token is set in cookies but is always undefined in Next.js middleware

Question

I'm facing an issue in my Next.js 15 application.

I am setting the jwtToken in the cookies when a user logs in. I have verified this through the browser's Application tab in the developer tools, where I can see the jwtToken properly set in the cookies. However, when I try to read the jwtToken in my middleware, it always returns undefined.

In rare cases, it doesn't return undefined and works as expected, but this is inconsistent and unreliable.

Here's the code for my middleware:

     import { NextResponse, NextRequest } from "next/server";

     export async function middleware(request: NextRequest) {

     const jwtToken = request.cookies.get("jwtToken");
     const token = jwtToken?.value as string;

     console.log(token);  // Logs 'undefined' most of the time

     if (!token) {
         return NextResponse.json(
          { message: "no token provided, access denied from middleware" },
          {
             status: 401,
          }
        );
      }
     }

     export const config = {
       matcher: ["/api/invoices/:path*"],
     };

raas · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-07 05:28:58Z

0

Your issue is likely caused by the jwtToken cookie not being included in the request to the path specified in your matcher.

In Next.js, middleware runs on the Edge runtime and can only access cookies that are sent along with the incoming request.

If the cookie was set without the proper path, secure, or sameSite attributes, it might not be attached to requests—especially those made to routes like /api/invoices/*.

Also, if you’re using fetch() within an API route or a React Server Component and trying to access cookies on the server side, middleware is not the right place to do so.

Instead, you should use:

import { cookies } from 'next/headers';
const cookieStore = cookies();
const token = cookieStore.get('jwtToken');

This will allow you to reliably access cookies from the server side in Next.js 13+ and 14+.

answered May 7 at 5:28

raas

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