specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: DBnomics
providerId: dbnomics
created: '2026-07-11'
modified: '2026-07-11'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Economic Indicators
- Open Data
- Statistics
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  DBnomics does not publish numeric rate limits for its public Web API. The
  API requires no authentication or API key, so there is no per-account
  quota; access is anonymous and free. Result-set size is governed by
  limit/offset pagination on list endpoints (providers, datasets, search,
  series) rather than by request-rate caps. Series responses default to a
  limit of 1000 series per request. As a community-funded public good, heavy
  bulk consumers are expected to paginate politely and prefer the official
  Python/R clients or bulk downloads over hammering the API.
notes: >-
  No 429 policy, per-IP cap, or Retry-After behavior is documented as of the
  review date. If you need the whole database, the platform is open source
  and self-hostable, which removes any dependence on the shared public
  infrastructure.
sources:
- https://api.db.nomics.world/v22/apidocs
- https://api.db.nomics.world/v22/apispec_1.json
- https://docs.db.nomics.world/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: API Request Rate
  scope: anonymous
  metric: requests
  limit: not published
  notes: No numeric request-rate limit is documented; access is unauthenticated.
- name: List Pagination
  scope: request
  metric: items
  limit: limit/offset per endpoint
  notes: Providers, datasets, search, and series list endpoints page with limit and offset parameters.
- name: Series Per Request
  scope: request
  metric: series
  limit: '1000 (default)'
  notes: Series endpoints default to limit=1000 series per response; paginate with offset for more.
policies:
- name: Anonymous Access
  description: No API key or account exists, so limits cannot be raised per customer; all consumers share the public infrastructure.
- name: Polite Pagination
  description: Iterate with limit/offset and cache responses; prefer the official Python/R clients or bulk downloads for large extractions.
- name: Self-Host Escape Hatch
  description: The full platform is open source on git.nomics.world; self-hosting removes any shared-infrastructure constraint.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com