name: FoodData Central Rate Limits
description: Rate limiting policies for the USDA FoodData Central REST API
url: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide
created: 2026-06-13
modified: 2026-06-13
rateLimits:

  - name: Demo Key Hourly Limit
    description: >
      The DEMO_KEY allows up to 30 requests per hour per IP address. No registration required.
      Suitable only for evaluation and initial testing.
    plan: Demo Key
    limit: 30
    period: hour
    scope: ip
    enforcement: HTTP 429 Too Many Requests

  - name: Demo Key Daily Limit
    description: >
      The DEMO_KEY is capped at 50 requests per day per IP address in addition to
      the hourly limit.
    plan: Demo Key
    limit: 50
    period: day
    scope: ip
    enforcement: HTTP 429 Too Many Requests

  - name: Standard Hourly Limit
    description: >
      Registered API key holders are allowed 1,000 requests per hour per IP address.
      Exceeding this limit will result in the API key being temporarily blocked for 1 hour.
      Rate limit status is communicated via response headers.
    plan: Standard (Free)
    limit: 1000
    period: hour
    scope: ip
    enforcement: HTTP 429 Too Many Requests; key blocked for 1 hour
    headers:
      - name: X-RateLimit-Limit
        description: Total requests allowed in the current rate limit window
      - name: X-RateLimit-Remaining
        description: Requests remaining in the current rate limit window

  - name: Bulk Lookup Limit
    description: >
      The /v1/foods endpoint (multi-food lookup) accepts a maximum of 20 FDC IDs per request.
    plan: Standard (Free)
    limit: 20
    period: request
    scope: endpoint
    enforcement: Parameter validation error

  - name: Nutrient Filter Limit
    description: >
      The nutrients query parameter is limited to up to 25 nutrient numbers per request
      when filtering nutrient data returned.
    plan: Standard (Free)
    limit: 25
    period: request
    scope: parameter
    enforcement: Parameter validation error

  - name: Page Size Limit
    description: >
      The /v1/foods/list and /v1/foods/search endpoints support a maximum of 200 items
      per page (pageSize parameter). Default page size is 50.
    plan: Standard (Free)
    limit: 200
    period: request
    scope: parameter
    enforcement: Parameter clamped to maximum

notes: >
  Higher rate limits are available upon request by contacting the FoodData Central team at
  https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/contact. All data is freely available under CC0 1.0 Universal
  public domain licensing.