HTTP 429 Too Many Requests
What a 429 Too Many Requests response means, why it happens, and the fastest ways to fix it.
You are being rate-limited. The Retry-After header (when present) says how long to back off.
- Exceeding an API's requests-per-window quota.
- Burst traffic from retries without backoff (retry storms).
- Shared IPs (CI, proxies) pooling many clients into one limit.
- Honor Retry-After; implement exponential backoff with jitter.
- Cache responses and batch requests where possible.
- Check the API's rate-limit headers (X-RateLimit-*) and spread load.
Notes
HTTP status codes are defined in RFC 9110 (which replaced RFC 7231). The first digit is the class: 1xx informational, 2xx success, 3xx redirection, 4xx client error, 5xx server error.
Same class: 400 · 401 · 403 · 404 · 405 · 408 · 409 · 410 · 412 · 413 · 415 · 418 · 422 · 425 · 431 · 451
All codes: HTTP status code reference
Frequently asked questions
What does HTTP 429 mean?
HTTP 429 Too Many Requests: You are being rate-limited. The Retry-After header (when present) says how long to back off.
How do I fix a 429 error?
Honor Retry-After; implement exponential backoff with jitter. Cache responses and batch requests where possible. Check the API's rate-limit headers (X-RateLimit-*) and spread load.
Is a 429 my fault or the server's?
429 is a client error — the request itself needs to change, though server misconfiguration can also trigger it.