name: HUD API FinOps
description: >-
  Financial operations guidance for HUD public APIs. All HUD User APIs and the
  Housing Counselor Search API are free government data services with no
  monetary cost. FinOps considerations are limited to infrastructure and
  engineering costs incurred by API consumers.
costModel:
  type: Free Government Service
  directCost: $0.00
  costPerRequest: $0.00
  costPerMonth: $0.00
  notes: >-
    HUD APIs are funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
    as a public data service. There are no fees for registration, token
    issuance, or API usage at any volume within rate limits.
consumerCosts:
  description: >-
    While HUD APIs are free, API consumers should account for their own
    infrastructure and engineering costs.
  categories:
    - name: Engineering Integration
      description: One-time cost to build and maintain API integrations
      costDriver: Developer hours for integration, testing, and maintenance
    - name: Compute
      description: Cloud or on-premises compute to call APIs and process responses
      costDriver: Request volume; HUD data changes infrequently so caching reduces costs
    - name: Storage
      description: Storing cached or archived HUD dataset responses
      costDriver: Minimal; JSON responses are compact
    - name: Monitoring
      description: Observability tooling to detect rate limit hits or API downtime
      costDriver: Standard API monitoring costs apply
optimizationTips:
  - Cache Fair Market Rents and Income Limits data locally; values change only annually
  - Schedule data refreshes at fiscal year boundaries (typically October 1)
  - Use state-level batch endpoints instead of per-county calls where available
  - Share a single HUD User token across services to consolidate rate limit tracking
  - Monitor for HTTP 429 responses and implement exponential backoff
registration:
  url: https://www.huduser.gov/hudapi/public/register
  cost: Free
  tokenManagement: Self-service via HUD User portal dashboard
termsOfService: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/dataset/api-terms-of-service.html
contact: OpenData@hud.gov