Making requests

A domain has a number of records associated with it, a DNS server can be queried to determine the IP address of the primary domain (A record), mail servers (MX records), DNS servers (NS nameservers) and other items such as SPF records (TXT records).

WhoisXmlApi.com provides RESTful APIs. It is designed for server-to-server communication between your system and the WhoisXmlApi.com network using standard HTTP or HTTPS protocols. Query responses are delivered in either XML or JSON format based on your requests which are made via GET/POST methods.

To get started you need an account with WhoisXmlApi.com. Authentication is required each time in order to use the API.
The first 500 DNS lookups are complimentary when you register for a free account.

API endpoint

GET https://www.whoisxmlapi.com/whoisserver/DNSService?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY&domainName=bbc.com&type=_all

It takes up to a minute to activate your account after the registration.

Postman collection

Postman is a desktop and web application that allows you to make requests to an API from a graphical user interface. We recommend using Postman with WhoisXML APIs endpoints when exploring the APIs functionality, as well as when you are troubleshooting issues with your application.

The WhoisXML API Postman collection is available at the following links:

The collection includes a preconfigured environment. You will need to set up the api_key variable to fire each request. Get your personal API KEY on the My products page. If you have questions related to the API, contact us.

Input parameters

apiKey	Required. Get your personal API KEY on the My products page.
domainName	Required. The target domain name.
type	Required. DNS type: A, NS, SOA, MX, etc. You can specify multiple comma-separated values, e.g., A,SOA,TXT; all records can be retrieved with type=_all. Acceptable values: A, NS, SOA, MX, etc.;
outputFormat	Optional. Response output format. Acceptable values: JSON \| XML Default: XML
callback	Optional. A javascript function used when outputFormat is JSON; this is an implementation known as JSONP which invokes the callback on the returned response.

Free access

After Sign Up you automatically get a free subscription plan limited to 500 queries.

Usage limits and requests throttling

The maximum number of requests per second is 30. In case that the limit is breached, your subsequent requests will be rejected until the next second.

This API is also available with a dedicated load balancer and premium endpoint to enable faster querying as part of our Premium API Services and Enterprise API Packages.

Supported DNS Types

We support around fifty DNS types. You can use type codes or names from the table below:

Name	Code	Name	Code
A	1	GPOS	27
NS	2	AAAA	28
MD	3	LOC	29
MF	4	NXT	30
CNAME	5	EID	31
SOA	6	NIMLOC	32
MB	7	SRV	33
MG	8	ATMA	34
MR	9	NAPTR	35
NULL	10	KX	36
WKS	11	CERT	37
PTR	12	A6	38
HINFO	13	DNAME	39
MINFO	14	APL	42
MX	15	DS	43
TXT	16	SSHFP	44
RP	17	IPSECKEY	45
AFSDB	18	RRSIG	46
X25	19	NSEC	47
ISDN	20	DNSKEY	48
RT	21	DHCID	49
NSAP	22	NSEC3	50
NSAP_PTR	23	NSEC3PARAM	51
SIG	24	TLSA	52
KEY	25	ANY	255
PX	26	DLV	32769

WHOIS / WHOIS History

DNS / DNS History

IP Geolocation / IP Netblocks

Domain Research Suite (DRS)

Domain/WHOIS

DNS/IP

Intelligence

Other

Domain/WHOIS

DNS/IP

Intelligence

Other

Domain/WHOIS

DNS/IP

Intelligence

Other

Domain Research Suite (DRS)

Research

Monitoring

White-Label

Enterprise API Packages

Security Intelligence (SI) Suite

Premium API Services

Making requests

API endpoint

Postman collection

Input parameters

Free access

Usage limits and requests throttling

Supported DNS Types

Have questions?