# Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)

> A bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury that collects federal excise taxes on
> alcohol, tobacco, firearms and ammunition, permits the businesses that make and import
> those products, and approves alcohol beverage labels. TTB publishes open data as static
> XML, CSV and JSON files plus one query-string lookup on the public label registry. It
> publishes NO OpenAPI, GraphQL, AsyncAPI, MCP server or A2A agent card, and issues no API
> keys. Everything below is anonymous, free and in the public domain under CC0 1.0.

Generated by the API Evangelist enrichment pipeline on 2026-09-01 from apis.yml, live probes
of TTB hosts, and the Department of the Treasury Project Open Data catalog. Not published by
TTB.

## Read this first

- TTB has no API. Do not look for one, and do not trust a source that names
  `data.ttb.gov` — that host does not resolve (NXDOMAIN) and TTB runs no Socrata portal.
- `ttbonline.gov` answers HTTP 200 with an HTML application shell for *every* path,
  including paths that cannot exist. A 200 from that host proves nothing.
- TTB reorganised www.ttb.gov without redirects. Many published TTB URLs — including
  landing pages still cited by the live Treasury data catalog — now 404. Verify before use.

## Machine-readable data (live, verified 2026-09-01)

- [Label application processing times (XML, daily)](https://www.ttb.gov/images/foia/cola_stats.xml): `application/xml`. Carries an embedded `creation_date`; use it to detect a new vintage instead of polling.
- [Beverage alcohol formula processing times (CSV, daily)](https://www.ttb.gov/images/foia/form_stats.csv): `text/csv`.
- [Tobacco products production and operations (JSON)](https://www.ttb.gov/system/files/2024-08/Tobacco_Products_Data.json): `application/json`, ~1.8 MB.
- [Beer national report (JSON)](https://www.ttb.gov/system/files/2025-05/Beer_National_Report_JSON.json)
- [Brewers production 2022 (JSON)](https://www.ttb.gov/system/files/2025-05/BrewersProduction_22-MAY-2025.json)
- [Wine data (JSON)](https://www.ttb.gov/system/files/2024-08/Wine_Data.json)
- [Distilled spirits data (JSON)](https://www.ttb.gov/system/files/2024-08/Distilled_Spirits_Data.json)
- [Distilled spirits producers 2012-2024 (JSON)](https://www.ttb.gov/system/files/2025-06/2012-2024_Report_DistillersProduction_13-JUN-2025_JSON.json)
- CSV siblings of each of the above exist under the same `/system/files/<YYYY-MM>/` prefix.

Caution: the `<YYYY-MM>` segment is part of a file's identity. When TTB posts a new vintage it
appears under a new dated path; the old URL keeps serving stale data rather than redirecting.

## The one query interface

- [COLA Public Registry lookup](https://www.ttbonline.gov/colasonline/publicSearchColasBasic.do): `GET ?action=publicDisplaySearchBasic&ttbid=<14-character TTB ID>`. Returns rendered HTML, not structured data — a consumer must scrape. Documented in DCAT-US record 015-TTB-54.

## Dataset catalog

- [TTB slice of the Treasury Project Open Data catalog](https://www.treasury.gov/data.json): 34 dataset records with `publisher.name` = `TTB`, conforming to Project Open Data Metadata Schema v1.1 (DCAT-US). TTB serves no `/data.json` of its own.

## Docs and portals

- [Open Data at TTB](https://www.ttb.gov/data)
- [TTB Statistics and Data](https://www.ttb.gov/statistics)
- [Reports and Data](https://www.ttb.gov/statistics/reports-and-data)
- [Researcher Resources](https://www.ttb.gov/public-information/researcher-resources)
- [COLA Public Registry](https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/labeling/cola-public-registry)
- [TTB Online Services](https://www.ttb.gov/online-services)
- [Permits Online Help Center](https://www.ttb.gov/online-services/ponl/permits-online-help)
- [Laws, Regulations and Public Guidance](https://www.ttb.gov/laws-regulations-and-public-guidance)
- [Freedom of Information at TTB](https://www.ttb.gov/public-information/foia)
- [Open Government](https://www.ttb.gov/about-ttb/other/open-government)
- [Privacy Policy and Legal Notice](https://www.ttb.gov/about-ttb/privacy-policy)
- [Contact TTB](https://www.ttb.gov/about-ttb/contact-us)

## Authentication, cost and limits

- Authentication: none. No API key, token, OAuth or OIDC. Permits Online, COLAs Online and
  Formulas Online use form-based session login and expose no programmatic interface.
- Cost: free. Data is CC0 1.0 public domain; there is no fee at the federal level to apply for
  or maintain a TTB permit either.
- Rate limits: none published, and no `RateLimit-*`, `X-RateLimit-*` or `Retry-After` header on
  any observed response. The daily refresh cadence, not a quota, is the practical ceiling.
- Errors: a missing file returns a ~58 KB HTML 404 page, never a structured error body. Check
  the status code and the content type — a 404 here looks like a successful page fetch to
  anything that only tests for a non-empty response.
- Writes: none. The public surface is read-only, so idempotency, dry-run and reversibility are
  all not applicable.

## Repository artifacts

- apis.yml
- json-ld/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-dcat-us.jsonld
- conformance/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-conformance.yml
- conventions/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-conventions.yml
- authentication/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-authentication.yml
- lifecycle/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-lifecycle.yml
- rate-limits/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-rate-limits.yml
- plans/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-plans-pricing.yml
- packages/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-packages.yml
- mcp/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-mcp.yml
- well-known/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-well-known.yml
- security/alcohol-and-tobacco-tax-and-trade-bureau-domain-security.yml