Facebook · Rate Limits

Facebook Rate Limits

Facebook (Meta) enforces rate limits at multiple layers — Platform (App + User), Business Use Case (BUC), Pages, Messenger, and Instagram. Platform limits are formula-based and scale with active daily users or active ads. BUC limits depend on the App Review access tier (Development, Standard, Advanced). Limits are documented in the Graph API rate-limiting reference.

Facebook Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for Facebook on the APIs.io network, in the API Commons Rate Limits shape.

It captures 12 rate-limit definitions, measuring calls_per_hour and calls_per_24h.

Limit state is signalled in the appUsage, businessUseCaseUsage, adAccountUsage, and pageUsage response headers, and an exhausted limit returns HTTP 429.

This profile was written by API Evangelist and has not been verified against a page the provider published; treat every limit as unconfirmed until a dated transcription replaces it.

The profile also includes 5 backoff/retry policies defined and response codes documented for appLimitReached, userLimitReached, pagesLimitReached, customRateLimit, and throttled.

Tagged areas include Advertising, Content Publishing, Messaging, Social Media, and Social Networking.

12 Limits Exhausted: HTTP 429 appUsagebusinessUseCaseUsageadAccountUsagepageUsage
Method: generated, dated 2026-05-05.
Written by API Evangelist on 2026-05-05 and not verified against a page the provider published. Treat every limit as unconfirmed until a dated transcription replaces it.
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AdvertisingContent PublishingMessagingSocial MediaSocial NetworkingRate Limiting

Limits

App-level (Platform) app
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 200 * Number of Users
Number of Users is a count of unique daily-active users for the app; throttling triggers when X-App-Usage call_count, total_cputime, or total_time hits 100%.
User-level (Platform) user
calls_per_hour
undisclosed (privacy)
Counted across all apps a user interacts with; specific numeric ceiling not published by Meta.
Ads Insights — Standard Access (BUC) business
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 600 + 400 * Number of Active ads - 0.001 * User Errors
Ads Insights — Advanced Access (BUC) business
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 190000 + 400 * Number of Active ads
Ads Management — Standard Access (BUC) business
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 300 + 40 * Number of Active ads
Ads Management — Advanced Access (BUC) business
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 100000 + 40 * Number of Active ads
Custom Audience — Standard Access (BUC) business
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 5000 + 40 * Number of Active Custom Audiences (capped at 700,000)
Custom Audience — Advanced Access (BUC) business
calls_per_hour
Calls within one hour = 190000 + 40 * Number of Active Custom Audiences
Pages API page
calls_per_24h
Calls within 24 hours = 4800 * Number of Engaged Users
Messenger Platform page
calls_per_24h
Calls within 24 hours = 200 * Number of Engaged Users
Instagram Platform account
calls_per_24h
Calls within 24 hours = 4800 * Number of Impressions
Lead Ads (LeadGen) business
calls_per_24h
Calls within 24 hours = 4800 * Leads Generated

Policies

Tiered access via App Review
Apps default to Development Access. To access Standard or Advanced rate ceilings, submit the corresponding feature for App Review and complete Business Verification.
Header-based observability
Inspect X-App-Usage, X-Business-Use-Case-Usage, X-Ad-Account-Usage, and X-Page-Usage on every response. When call_count, total_cputime, or total_time reaches 100, requests are throttled until the value drops.
Backoff on throttle
When throttled, parse estimated_time_to_regain_access from X-Business-Use-Case-Usage and sleep at least that many minutes. Use exponential backoff with jitter for transient errors.
Error-code dispatch
Code 4 = app limit; code 17 = user limit; code 32 = page-level; code 613 = custom limit; 80001-80014 = BUC-specific. Treat each class with its own backoff window.
Reduce User Errors
The Standard-tier Ads Insights formula subtracts 0.001 * User Errors per hour, so consistently malformed requests permanently lower the ceiling.

Sources

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