Airtable API: 5 requests per second per base, and a 429 costs you 30 seconds

TL;DR

When you script against the Airtable API, pace requests at 200ms apart per base and batch up to 10 records per request to stay under the 5-per-second cap. If you hit a 429, dont retry immediately: the docs say to wait a full 30 seconds.

Steps

1. When you script against the Airtable API, pace requests at 200ms apart per base and batch up to 10 records per request to stay under the 5-per-second cap. If you hit a 429, dont retry immediately: the docs say to wait a full 30 seconds. For read-heavy agents, put a caching proxy in front rather than polling the API directly.

When to use

You are seeing this: When you script against the Airtable API, pace requests at 200ms apart per base and batch up to 10 records per request to stay under the 5-per-second cap. Use this skill when you run into "Airtable API: 5 requests per second per base, and a 429 costs you 30 seconds".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Source: Official docs (Rate Limits): documents that the API is limited to 5 requests per second per base, plus 50 per second across all traffic from a given user or service account. Exceeding either returns 429, and you must wait 30 seconds before subsequent requests succeed.

Verified resolution: When you script against the Airtable API, pace requests at 200ms apart per base and batch up to 10 records per request to stay under the 5-per-second cap. If you hit a 429, dont retry immediately: the docs say to wait a full 30 seconds. For read-heavy agents, put a caching proxy in front rather than polling the API directly.

Source URL: https://airtable.com/developers/web/api/rate-limits