Errors

If an error occurs, the web service will return an HTTP response with the error status code and an XML or JSON body containing the error. For example:

XML

Request

https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/updates

Response

HTTP/1.x 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: text/xml;charset=utf-8
...

<error code="400" message="Bad Request.  Variable api_key has not been set."/>

The message attribute of the error tag contains a description of the error. All errors use standard HTTP status codes. Our API has rate limiting which returns a status code if exceeded. If you have a reason that you need to exceed our limit, please contact us. The following HTTP status code may be returned:

• 400 Bad Request
• 404 Not Found
• 423 Locked
• 429 Too Many Requests
• 500 Internal Server Error

JSON

Request

https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/updates?file_type=json

Response

HTTP/1.x 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: text/xml;charset=utf-8
...

{
    "error_code": 400,
    "error_message": "Bad Request.  The value for variable api_key is not registered.  Read https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html for more information."
}