Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) · Rate Limits

Department Of Veterans Affairs Rate Limits

The VA API Platform applies a basic platform-wide throttle of 60 requests per minute per API key across both sandbox and production environments. Exceeding the limit returns HTTP 429. Increases may be requested case-by-case via api@va.gov. Per-API exceptions exist (sandbox quotas may be lower for specific APIs such as Benefits Reference Data).

Department Of Veterans Affairs Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on the APIs.io network, conforming to the API Commons Rate Limits specification.

It captures 2 rate-limit definitions, measuring requests_per_minute.

The profile also includes 3 backoff/retry policies defined and response codes documented for throttled and quotaExceeded.

Tagged areas include Federal Government, Healthcare, Veterans, and Rate Limiting.

2 Limits Throttle: 429 Quota: 429
Federal GovernmentHealthcareVeteransRate Limiting

Limits

Platform default (sandbox) api-key
requests_per_minute · minute
60
Some sandbox APIs publish reduced limits (e.g. Benefits Reference Data). Sandbox uses sandbox-api.va.gov.
Platform default (production) api-key
requests_per_minute · minute
60
Production uses api.va.gov. Higher limits available case-by-case via api@va.gov.

Policies

Backoff Strategy
Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter when 429 responses are returned.
Rate-Limit Increases
Increases beyond the default 60 RPM are reviewed case-by-case; email api@va.gov with use-case justification.
Sandbox vs. Production
Sandbox keys are self-service; production keys require an onboarding application reviewed by the VA Lighthouse team, with additional Veteran-data-use review for clinical/PII APIs.

Sources