An exception is represented by an instance of the class Throwable (a direct subclass of Object) or one of its subclasses.

Throwable and all its subclasses are, collectively, the exception classes.

The classes Exception and Error are direct subclasses of Throwable:

The unchecked exception classes are the run-time exception classes and the error classes.

The checked exception classes are all exception classes other than the unchecked exception classes. That is, the checked exception classes are Throwable and all its subclasses other than RuntimeException and its subclasses and Error and its subclasses.

Programs can use the pre-existing exception classes of the Java SE platform API in throw statements, or define additional exception classes as subclasses of Throwable or of any of its subclasses, as appropriate. To take advantage of compile-time checking for exception handlers (§11.2), it is typical to define most new exception classes as checked exception classes, that is, as subclasses of Exception that are not subclasses of RuntimeException.

The class Error is a separate subclass of Throwable, distinct from Exception in the class hierarchy, to allow programs to use the idiom "} catch (Exception e) {" (§11.2.3) to catch all exceptions from which recovery may be possible without catching errors from which recovery is typically not possible.

Note that a subclass of Throwable cannot be generic (§8.1.2).

An exception is thrown for one of three reasons:

Most exceptions occur synchronously as a result of an action by the thread in which they occur, and at a point in the program that is specified to possibly result in such an exception. An asynchronous exception is, by contrast, an exception that can potentially occur at any point in the execution of a program.

Asynchronous exceptions occur only as a result of:

The Java SE platform permits a small but bounded amount of execution to occur before an asynchronous exception is thrown.

Asynchronous exceptions are rare, but proper understanding of their semantics is necessary if high-quality machine code is to be generated.

The delay noted above is permitted to allow optimized code to detect and throw these exceptions at points where it is practical to handle them while obeying the semantics of the Java programming language. A simple implementation might poll for asynchronous exceptions at the point of each control transfer instruction. Since a program has a finite size, this provides a bound on the total delay in detecting an asynchronous exception. Since no asynchronous exception will occur between control transfers, the code generator has some flexibility to reorder computation between control transfers for greater performance. The paper Polling Efficiently on Stock Hardware by Marc Feeley, Proc. 1993 Conference on Functional Programming and Computer Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark, pp. 179-187, is recommended as further reading.

A class instance creation expression (§15.9) can throw an exception class E iff either:

A method invocation expression (§15.12) can throw an exception class E iff either:

A lambda expression (§15.27) can throw no exception classes.

For every other kind of expression, the expression can throw an exception class E iff one of its immediate subexpressions can throw E.

Note that a method reference expression (§15.13) of the form Primary :: [TypeArguments] Identifier can throw an exception class if the Primary subexpression can throw an exception class. In contrast, a lambda expression can throw nothing, and has no immediate subexpressions on which to perform exception analysis. It is the body of a lambda expression, containing expressions and statements, that can throw exception classes.

A throw statement (§14.18) whose thrown expression has static type E and is not a final or effectively final exception parameter can throw E or any exception class that the thrown expression can throw.

For example, the statement throw new java.io.FileNotFoundException(); can throw java.io.FileNotFoundException only. Formally, it is not the case that it "can throw" a subclass or superclass of java.io.FileNotFoundException.

A throw statement whose thrown expression is a final or effectively final exception parameter of a catch clause C can throw an exception class E iff:

A try statement (§14.20) can throw an exception class E iff either:

An explicit constructor invocation statement (§8.8.7.1) can throw an exception class E iff either:

Any other statement S can throw an exception class E iff an expression or statement immediately contained in S can throw E.

It is a compile-time error if a method or constructor body can throw some exception class E when E is a checked exception class and E is not a subclass of some class declared in the throws clause of the method or constructor.

It is a compile-time error if a lambda body can throw some exception class E when E is a checked exception class and E is not a subclass of some class declared in the throws clause of the function type targeted by the lambda expression.

It is a compile-time error if a class variable initializer (§8.3.2) or static initializer (§8.7) of a named class or interface can throw a checked exception class.

It is a compile-time error if an instance variable initializer (§8.3.2) or instance initializer (§8.6) of a named class can throw a checked exception class, unless the named class has at least one explicitly declared constructor and the exception class or one of its superclasses is explicitly declared in the throws clause of each constructor.

Note that no compile-time error is due if an instance variable initializer or instance initializer of an anonymous class (§15.9.5) can throw an exception class. In a named class, it is the responsibility of the programmer to propagate information about which exception classes can be thrown by initializers, by declaring a suitable throws clause on any explicit constructor declaration. This relationship between the checked exception classes thrown by a class's initializers and the checked exception classes declared by a class's constructors is assured for an anonymous class declaration, because no explicit constructor declarations are possible and a Java compiler always generates a constructor with a suitable throws clause for the anonymous class declaration based on the checked exception classes that its initializers can throw.

It is a compile-time error if a catch clause can catch checked exception class E₁ and it is not the case that the try block corresponding to the catch clause can throw a checked exception class that is a subclass or superclass of E₁, unless E₁ is Exception or a superclass of Exception.

It is a compile-time error if a catch clause can catch an exception class E₁ and a preceding catch clause of the immediately enclosing try statement can catch E₁ or a superclass of E₁.

A Java compiler is encouraged to issue a warning if a catch clause can catch checked exception class E₁ and the try block corresponding to the catch clause can throw checked exception class E₂, where E₂ <: E₁, and a preceding catch clause of the immediately enclosing try statement can catch checked exception class E₃, where E₂ <: E₃ <: E₁.

import java.io.*;

class StaticallyThrownExceptionsIncludeSubtypes {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            throw new FileNotFoundException();
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            // "catch IOException" catches IOException 
            // and any subtype.
        }

        try {
            throw new FileNotFoundException();
              // Statement "can throw" FileNotFoundException.
              // It is not the case that statement "can throw"
              // a subtype or supertype of FileNotFoundException.
        } catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
            // ... Handle exception ...
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            // Legal, but compilers are encouraged to give
            // warnings as of Java SE 7, because all subtypes of
            // IOException that the try block "can throw" have 
            // already been caught by the prior catch clause.
        }

        try {
            m();
              // m's declaration says "throws IOException", so
              // m "can throw" IOException. It is not the case
              // that m "can throw" a subtype or supertype of
              // IOException (e.g. Exception).
        } catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
            // Legal, because the dynamic type of the exception 
            // might be FileNotFoundException.
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            // Legal, because the dynamic type of the exception
            // might be a different subtype of IOException.
        } catch (Throwable t) {
            // Can always catch Throwable.
        }
    }

    static void m() throws IOException {
        throw new FileNotFoundException();
    }
}

try { ... }
catch (Foo f) { ... }
catch (Bar | SubclassOfFoo e) { ... }