Stellar · Rate Limits

Stellar Rate Limits

The SDF-hosted Horizon instance (horizon.stellar.org) enforces per-IP rate limits on all REST endpoints. The default ceiling is 3,600 requests per hour per IP address (effectively 1 request/second averaged). The X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, and X-RateLimit-Reset headers are returned on every response. Operators self-hosting Horizon may configure custom limits. Streaming SSE connections count against the same bucket. Transaction submission (POST /transactions) is subject to the same IP-based limit.

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

It captures 2 rate-limit definitions, measuring requests_per_hour.

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

Tagged areas include Rate Limiting, Blockchain, Horizon, and Stellar.

2 Limits Throttle: 429
Rate LimitingBlockchainHorizonStellar

Limits

Horizon REST — all endpoints (SDF public instance) IP
requests_per_hour · hour
3600
Equivalent to ~1 request/second averaged over an hour. Applies to all GET and POST endpoints on the SDF-hosted horizon.stellar.org. Self-hosted Horizon operators may set higher limits.
Horizon REST — testnet (SDF public instance) IP
requests_per_hour · hour
3600
Same ceiling applies to horizon-testnet.stellar.org.

Policies

Backoff
Honor 429 responses with exponential backoff before retrying.
Self-hosting
Teams requiring higher throughput should run their own Horizon instance; no published paid tier exists for elevated SDF-hosted limits.
Streaming connections
SSE streaming connections share the same IP rate limit bucket as REST requests.

Sources