diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 5ad64e4..bdbffc2 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: ows4R
 Version: 0.4
-Date: 2024-02-13
+Date: 2024-02-23
 Title: Interface to OGC Web-Services (OWS)
 Authors@R: c(person("Emmanuel", "Blondel", role = c("aut", "cre"), email = "emmanuel.blondel1@gmail.com", comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-5870-5762")),
              person("Alexandre", "Bennici", role = c("ctb"), comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0003-2160-3487")),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 9157c6e..a49f6b9 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 
 - [#122](https://github.com/eblondel/ows4R/issues/122) Service exceptions are not always handled in status code 400
 - [#123](https://github.com/eblondel/ows4R/issues/123) Missing axis labels handling for WCS coverage envelope
+- [#124](https://github.com/eblondel/ows4R/issues/124) Optimize WFS getFeatures depending on the outputFormat
 
 ## [ows4R 0.3-6](https://github.com/eblondel/ows4R) | [![CRAN_Status_Badge](https://img.shields.io/badge/CRAN-published-blue.svg)](https://github.com/eblondel/ows4R)
 
diff --git a/R/WFSFeatureType.R b/R/WFSFeatureType.R
index 7192316..20b6a47 100644
--- a/R/WFSFeatureType.R
+++ b/R/WFSFeatureType.R
@@ -366,6 +366,9 @@ WFSFeatureType <- R6Class("WFSFeatureType",
         }
       }
       
+      read_features = TRUE
+      validate_features = TRUE
+      
       #write the file to disk
       tempf = tempfile()
       if(is.null(outputFormat)){
@@ -384,19 +387,32 @@ WFSFeatureType <- R6Class("WFSFeatureType",
           "application/json" = {
             destfile = paste0(tempf,".json")
             write(obj, destfile)
+            validate_features = FALSE
           },
           "json" = {
             destfile = paste0(tempf,".json")
             write(obj, destfile)
+            validate_features = FALSE
           },
           "csv" = {
             destfile = paste0(tempf,".csv")
             lcolnames = tolower(colnames(obj))
-            sf::st_write(obj[,!duplicated(lcolnames)], destfile)
+            if(self$getGeometryType() %in% colnames(obj)){
+              sf::st_write(obj[,!duplicated(lcolnames)], destfile)
+              validate_features = FALSE
+            }else{
+              readr::write_csv(obj[,!duplicated(lcolnames)], destfile)
+              read_features = FALSE
+            }
           }
         )
       }
       
+      if(!read_features){
+        self$features = obj
+        return(self$features)
+      }
+      
       #read features
       if(!is.null(outputFormat)){
         ftFeatures <- switch(tolower(outputFormat),
@@ -418,7 +434,7 @@ WFSFeatureType <- R6Class("WFSFeatureType",
       }
         
       #validating attributes vs. schema
-      for(element in self$description){
+      if(validate_features) for(element in self$description){
         attrType <- element$getType()
         if(!is.null(attrType) && !element$isGeometry()){
           attrName = element$getName()