specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Sterling
providerId: sterling-check
created: '2026-07-03'
modified: '2026-07-03'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Background Screening
- Identity Verification
- Gated API
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  Sterling does not publish fixed numeric rate limits for its API. Access is
  gated behind provisioned OAuth2 credentials (Client ID / Client Secret) issued
  per screening region and per environment (sandbox and production), and any
  request throttling is governed by the customer agreement rather than a public
  per-minute cap. Access tokens obtained from the OAuth token exchange are
  short-lived and must be refreshed. Background screening is an asynchronous,
  long-running process: after a screening is initiated, results arrive over
  minutes to days depending on the products and jurisdictions, so integrations
  should rely on webhook callbacks (the callbackUri on POST /screenings) for
  status changes rather than tight polling.
notes: >-
  No public numeric per-account or per-endpoint request limits are documented as
  of the review date. Confirm any contractual throughput limits with your
  Sterling / First Advantage representative. Prefer webhook callbacks over
  polling; when polling is necessary, use exponential backoff with jitter and
  honor Retry-After on 429 responses.
sources:
- https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: API Requests
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: not published
  notes: No fixed numeric request-rate limit is publicly documented; governed by contract.
- name: Access Token Lifetime
  scope: token
  metric: seconds
  limit: short-lived (refresh required)
  notes: OAuth2 access tokens expire and must be re-requested from the token endpoint.
- name: Screening Result Delivery
  scope: screening
  metric: latency
  limit: asynchronous (minutes to days)
  notes: Results depend on products and jurisdictions; use webhook callbacks rather than tight polling.
policies:
- name: Prefer Webhooks
  description: Use the per-screening callbackUri to receive real-time status updates instead of frequent polling.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: On 429 or transient errors, use exponential backoff with jitter and honor Retry-After.
- name: Environment Separation
  description: Sandbox and production use separate credentials and hosts; validate integrations in sandbox first.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com