ClinicalTrials.gov website screenshot

ClinicalTrials.gov

ClinicalTrials.gov is the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. Operated by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), it provides a modern REST API (data-api v2) that returns study records, study metadata, search areas, and field definitions in JSON. The predecessor classic API remains available for legacy consumers but is being phased out in favor of the v2 API. Data is in the public domain and freely accessible without authentication.

ClinicalTrials.gov publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network: Stats API, Studies API, and Version API. Tagged areas include Clinical Trials, Government, Health, NIH, and Open Data.

The ClinicalTrials.gov catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

ClinicalTrials.gov’s developer surface includes documentation, developer portal, API reference, getting-started guide, support, FAQ, release notes, and 24 more developer resources.

40.8/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 27/100 agent aware saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
AccessFreeOpen⚡ Free to try
1 APIs 1 MCP Servers
Clinical TrialsGovernmentHealthNIHOpen DataPublic HealthResearch

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.
Create-or-Update Ergonomics does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to upsert.
The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/clinical-trials-gov: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 6

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

ClinicalTrials.gov Classic API

RETIRED. The Classic API was withdrawn in June 2024 and its endpoints now return HTTP 404 (probed 2026-09-06: /api/query/full_studies and /api/info/data_vrs both 404). It is ret...

ClinicalTrials.gov Bulk Downloads

ClinicalTrials.gov provides bulk CSV and JSON downloads of the full study registry through the data-api download endpoints. These artifacts support large-scale analytics, archiv...

AACT Database

AACT (Aggregate Analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov) is a publicly available relational database of all ClinicalTrials.gov study content maintained by the Clinical Trials Transformat...

ClinicalTrials.gov Stats API

The Stats API from ClinicalTrials.gov — 3 operation(s) for stats.

ClinicalTrials.gov Studies API

The Studies API from ClinicalTrials.gov — 5 operation(s) for studies.

ClinicalTrials.gov Version API

The Version API from ClinicalTrials.gov — 1 operation(s) for version.

Open Collections 5

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

ClinicalTrials.gov Data API v2 (candidate MCP surface)

A CANDIDATE tool list derived from the ClinicalTrials.gov Data API v2 OpenAPI operations. The National Library of Medicine does not publish an MCP server for ClinicalTrials.gov ...

MCP SERVER

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Clinical Trials Gov Rate Limits

0 limits

RATE LIMITS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Clinical Trials Gov Context

0 classes · 7 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

ClinicalTrials.gov API Rules

9 rules · 3 errors 5 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Clinical Trials Gov Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Clinical Trials Gov Agentic Access

9 operations

9 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Agent Surfaces 3

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Design & Contract 7

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Scroll for all 7

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Operate 7

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Scroll for all 7

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: clinical-trials-gov
name: ClinicalTrials.gov
description: ClinicalTrials.gov is the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) registry and results database of publicly
  and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. Operated by the National Library
  of Medicine (NLM), it provides a modern REST API (data-api v2) that returns study records, study metadata, search areas,
  and field definitions in JSON. The predecessor classic API remains available for legacy consumers but is being phased out
  in favor of the v2 API. Data is in the public domain and freely accessible without authentication.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: open
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: true
  label: Free · Open access
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - rate-limits
  - security
  generated: '2026-09-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/clinical-trials-gov.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/clinical-trials-gov/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2024-01-01'
modified: '2026-09-06'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
kind: government
tags:
- Clinical Trials
- Government
- Health
- NIH
- Open Data
- Public Health
- Research
apis:
- aid: clinical-trials-gov:classic-api
  name: ClinicalTrials.gov Classic API
  tags:
  - Clinical Trials
  - Legacy
  - REST
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  baseURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api
  humanURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  properties:
  - url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api/api-migration
    type: Deprecation
  - url: lifecycle/clinical-trials-gov-lifecycle.yml
    type: Lifecycle
  description: 'RETIRED. The Classic API was withdrawn in June 2024 and its endpoints now return HTTP 404 (probed 2026-09-06:
    /api/query/full_studies and /api/info/data_vrs both 404). It is retained here only so consumers of the legacy surface
    can find the migration path. Originally the legacy ClinicalTrials.gov interface that preceded the Data API v2 and exposes
    full-study, brief-study, and field-values endpoints with XML, JSON, and CSV responses. It is being deprecated in favor
    of the v2 REST API and remains online for backward compatibility while consumers migrate.'
- aid: clinical-trials-gov:bulk-downloads
  name: ClinicalTrials.gov Bulk Downloads
  tags:
  - Bulk
  - Datasets
  - Open Data
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api/csv-download
  baseURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2
  properties:
  - url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api/csv-download
    type: Documentation
  description: ClinicalTrials.gov provides bulk CSV and JSON downloads of the full study registry through the data-api download
    endpoints. These artifacts support large-scale analytics, archival, and offline mirrors of the registry without making
    per-record API calls.
- aid: clinical-trials-gov:aact
  name: AACT Database
  tags:
  - Analytics
  - Database
  - Postgres
  - Research
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://aact.ctti-clinicaltrials.org/
  properties:
  - url: https://aact.ctti-clinicaltrials.org/
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://aact.ctti-clinicaltrials.org/data_dictionary
    type: DataModel
  description: AACT (Aggregate Analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov) is a publicly available relational database of all ClinicalTrials.gov
    study content maintained by the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) at Duke University. It is updated daily
    and is widely used by researchers as a SQL-friendly mirror of the registry.
- aid: clinical-trials-gov:clinical-trials-gov-stats-api
  name: ClinicalTrials.gov Stats API
  description: The Stats API from ClinicalTrials.gov — 3 operation(s) for stats.
  humanURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  baseURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2
  tags:
  - Stats
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/clinical-trials-gov-stats-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  - type: About
    url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api
  - type: Overlay
    url: overlays/clinical-trials-gov-stats-api-overlay.yaml
- aid: clinical-trials-gov:clinical-trials-gov-studies-api
  name: ClinicalTrials.gov Studies API
  description: The Studies API from ClinicalTrials.gov — 5 operation(s) for studies.
  humanURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  baseURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2
  tags:
  - Studies
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/clinical-trials-gov-studies-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  - type: About
    url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api
  - type: Overlay
    url: overlays/clinical-trials-gov-studies-api-overlay.yaml
- aid: clinical-trials-gov:clinical-trials-gov-version-api
  name: ClinicalTrials.gov Version API
  description: The Version API from ClinicalTrials.gov — 1 operation(s) for version.
  humanURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  baseURL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2
  tags:
  - Version
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/clinical-trials-gov-version-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
  - type: About
    url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api
  - type: Overlay
    url: overlays/clinical-trials-gov-version-api-overlay.yaml
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/clinical-trials-gov-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/clinical-trials-gov-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/
- type: About
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/about-site
- type: Documentation
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
- type: Portal
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api
- type: X-Glossary
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study-basics/glossary
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/privacy.html
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/about-site/terms-conditions
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/clinical-trials-gov-context.jsonld
- type: Spectral
  url: rules/clinical-trials-gov-rules.yml
- type: APIReference
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api
- type: Support
  url: https://support.nlm.nih.gov/
- type: FAQ
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/policy/faq
- type: Newsroom
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/about-site/news-and-updates
- type: ReleaseNotes
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/about-site/release-notes
- type: ChangeLog
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/about-site/release-notes
- type: ChangeLog
  url: changelog/clinical-trials-gov-changelog.yml
- type: Deprecation
  url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/about-api/api-migration
- type: Packages
  url: packages/clinical-trials-gov-packages.yml
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/clinical-trials-gov-mcp.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/clinical-trials-gov-conformance.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/clinical-trials-gov-problem-types.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/clinical-trials-gov-lifecycle.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/clinical-trials-gov-authentication.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/clinical-trials-gov-conventions.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/clinical-trials-gov-data-model.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/clinical-trials-gov-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/clinical-trials-gov-rate-limits.yml
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kinlane@gmail.com
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-09-06'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 18
  pass: local-v3

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