name: GovTrack Rate Limits
description: GovTrack does not publish formal rate limits for its public API. The API is free and open with no authentication required. Reasonable use is expected; aggressive scraping or bulk downloading should use the congress project scrapers or the unitedstates/congress GitHub repository instead.
url: https://www.govtrack.us/developers/api
limits:
  - tier: Public (Unauthenticated)
    requests_per_second: unspecified
    requests_per_minute: unspecified
    requests_per_day: unspecified
    authentication: none
    notes: >
      No API key or authentication is required. GovTrack uses django-simplegetapi
      to expose read-only API endpoints. Filtering is restricted to indexed fields
      to prevent runaway queries. For bulk data needs, the recommended approach is
      to use the unitedstates/congress open-source scrapers.
pagination:
  type: offset
  default_limit: 20
  max_limit: 6000
  parameters:
    - name: limit
      description: Number of results to return per page
    - name: offset
      description: Number of results to skip
response_formats:
  - json
  - jsonp
  - csv
  - xml
guidelines:
  - Avoid high-frequency polling; use webhooks or scheduled fetches where possible
  - For bulk data access use github.com/unitedstates/congress scrapers
  - Cache responses to reduce repeated identical requests