Microsoft Azure · Rate Limits

Azure Rate Limits

Azure rate limits and quotas are defined per-service rather than at the platform level. Azure Resource Manager (ARM) enforces a default control-plane throttle of 12,000 read and 1,200 write requests per hour per subscription per region (with bursting), and each individual Azure service publishes its own data-plane and control-plane limits (e.g., Storage 20-40k req/s per account, Key Vault 2,000-4,000 per 10s per vault). See per-service quota pages for specifics.

Azure Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for Microsoft Azure on the APIs.io network, conforming to the API Commons Rate Limits specification.

It captures 4 rate-limit definitions, measuring requests_per_hour and varies.

The profile also includes 4 backoff/retry policies defined and response codes documented for throttled and serviceUnavailable.

Tagged areas include Rate Limiting, Cloud Computing, Infrastructure, and Platform as a Service.

4 Limits Throttle: 429
Rate LimitingCloud ComputingInfrastructurePlatform as a Service

Limits

ARM read requests (control plane) subscription/region
requests_per_hour · hour
12000
Token-bucket; bursts allowed. Refill rate enforces sustained throughput.
ARM write requests (control plane) subscription/region
requests_per_hour · hour
1200
Tenant-level read requests (Microsoft Graph / Entra) tenant
varies
see service-specific quotas
Per-service data-plane limits account/region/service
varies
see service-specific quota pages (Storage, Cosmos DB, Key Vault, AKS, etc.)

Policies

Token-bucket throttling
Most Azure services use token-bucket throttling with a burst size and a refill rate. Returns 429 with Retry-After when the bucket is empty.
Quota request
Subscription-level quotas (cores, IPs, storage accounts, etc.) can be raised via the Azure portal Quotas blade or by support ticket.
Backoff
Honor Retry-After header. Use exponential backoff with jitter for transient 429/503 responses.
Per-service variation
Each Azure service publishes its own throttling matrix; consult the service-specific limits page (e.g. /azure/{service}/quotas, /azure/{service}/service-limits).

Sources