specification: API Commons Plans
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/Plans
provider: Foreign Agricultural Service
providerId: foreign-agricultural-service
generated: '2026-09-10'
method: searched
source: https://apps.fas.usda.gov/opendataweb/home
created: '2026-05-04'
modified: '2026-09-10'
tags:
  - Agriculture
  - Federal Government
  - Open Data
description: >-
  Plans and pricing for the USDA FAS Open Data Services. There is exactly one tier and it is
  free.
supersedes: >-
  REPLACES the 2026-05-04 bulk-sweep scaffold, which invented a Free / Professional /
  Enterprise ladder with a 1,000-request monthly quota, a 100,000-request Professional tier,
  "TBD" overage pricing, contractual SLAs and a dedicated account manager. None of that exists
  and none of it ever did — FAS is a US federal agency publishing open data under a free API
  key. The scaffold was written by the sweep, not harvested, and it described a commercial
  product a government agency does not sell. Replaced with what the provider actually
  publishes.
plan_count: 1
pricing_model: free
currency: null
billing_period: null
plans:
  - id: foreign-agricultural-service-open-data
    name: Open Data (free, API key required)
    type: free
    price: '0.00'
    currency: USD
    billing_period: none
    signup: https://apps.fas.usda.gov/opendatawebv2/#/signup
    onboarding: self-serve
    description: >-
      The only tier. Access to all three datasets — ESR, GATS and PSD, 35 read-only
      operations — at no cost, in exchange for a free API key sent as the API_KEY header. The
      key is minted through the api.data.gov signup widget embedded in the FAS portal.
    quota: null
    overage: null
    limits: []
    limits_note: >-
      No quota, rate limit or fair-use ceiling is published anywhere on the portal or in the
      contract, and none was observed in response headers. See
      rate-limits/foreign-agricultural-service-rate-limits.yml — limit_count is an honest 0,
      not an unmeasured one.
    elements:
      - name: ESR — weekly US export sales
      - name: GATS — US Census and UN ComTrade trade flows
      - name: PSD — world production, supply and distribution forecasts
      - name: Swagger 2.0 contract and Swagger UI reference
      - name: JSON or XML by content negotiation
paid_tiers: false
paid_tiers_note: >-
  There is no paid tier, no enterprise tier, no "contact sales" path and no commercial
  relationship of any kind. FAS Open Data Services are a public good funded by
  appropriation; the data is US Government work in the public domain.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com