generated: '2026-07-28'
method: searched
source: https://apim-api.apic4e.faa.gov/portal/environments/DEFAULT/apis/{id}/plans
source_note: >-
  Read from the FAA's own Gravitee APIM portal plan objects
  (usage_configuration.rate_limit), fetched anonymously on 2026-07-28. Nothing
  here is inferred from observed behaviour.
summary: >-
  The FAA publishes exactly one quantified rate limit across its whole API estate:
  the Air Carrier PRD API is capped at 1 request per 10 seconds per subscription.
  Every other API — including both open CC0 APIs — carries a plan with an empty
  usage_configuration, so no published quota exists. No FAA API documents
  RateLimit or X-RateLimit response headers, and no 429 response is declared in
  any of the four harvested OpenAPI documents, so a client has no documented way
  to detect throttling other than by observing failures.
rate_limits:
- api: FAA Air Carrier PRD API
  api_id: 51c35874-3873-4124-8358-743873012421
  plan: API Key Plan
  limit_count: 1
  limit_period: 10 seconds
  normalized_per_minute: 6
  scope: per subscription (API key)
  enforced_by: Gravitee APIM gateway
  source: portal plan usage_configuration.rate_limit
- api: FAA Airport Status Web Service (ASWS)
  plan: asws keyless plan
  limit_count: null
  note: No rate limit published. Plan usage_configuration is empty and the plan is KEY_LESS.
- api: FAA Aeronautic Product Release API (APRA)
  plan: default keyless plan
  limit_count: null
  note: >-
    No rate limit published. Plan usage_configuration is empty and the plan is
    KEY_LESS. Note that several APRA operations return whole chart sets — the TPP
    release by US state can return a very large list of download URLs in one call
    — so the practical constraint is response size, not request count.
- api: FAA Safety Assurance System (SAS) API
  plan: SAS APIKey Plan
  limit_count: null
  note: No rate limit published.
- api: FAA DMS Lookup API
  plan: DMS Dev Key Plan
  limit_count: null
  note: No rate limit published; no external entrypoint either.
headers:
  documented: false
  note: >-
    No RateLimit-Limit / RateLimit-Remaining / RateLimit-Reset (RFC 9331 style) or
    X-RateLimit-* headers are documented on any FAA API, and no 429 Too Many
    Requests response is declared in any harvested OpenAPI.
retry_guidance:
  published: false
  note: >-
    No published backoff or retry guidance. APRA and ASWS are read-only GETs so
    retries are safe there; the PRD and SAS write operations have no idempotency
    contract (see conventions/faa-conventions.yml), so blind retries against them
    risk duplicate records.