# OpenAQ

An open platform that collects air-quality measurements (PM2.5, PM10, ozone, NO2 and more) from government monitors and low-cost sensors worldwide and serves them through a free keyed REST API and a key-less daily CSV archive on AWS S3.

- Category: Weather and climate · by OpenAQ (non-profit)
- Website: https://openaq.org/
- Live data: yes
- Checked on the official pages: 2026-10-23

## API

- Official API: yes, docs https://docs.openaq.org/
- Key needed: yes
- Price: Free tier; limits: Free key: 60 requests/minute and 2,000/hour; higher limits under a custom agreement with pricing on request
- Base URL: https://api.openaq.org/v3/
- Formats: json, csv

Example request:

```
https://openaq-data-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/records/csv.gz/locationid=2178/year=2022/month=05/location-2178-20220503.csv.gz
```

## Data and license

- Download: https://openaq-data-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/ (csv.gz)
- License: per-source licences (OpenAQ Terms of Use) (https://docs.openaq.org/about/terms); covers Air-quality data aggregated from many providers; each source's licence (exposed via the /v3/licenses resource) decides commercial use and attribution; OpenAQ must also be credited
- Commercial use with conditions
- Credit required
- Embedding with conditions
- Quote (api_official): "Our open API allows applications to connect directly to OpenAQ data." (https://openaq.org/)
- Quote (api_key): "Include your API key in the X-API-Key header of each request." (https://docs.openaq.org/using-the-api/api-key)
- Quote (api_key_signup): "Sign up at explore.openaq.org/register to get your API key." (https://docs.openaq.org/using-the-api/api-key)
- Quote (api_price): "General use Custom use Free Contact us for pricing Rate limits 60 / minute 2,000 / hour Rate limits Higher limits available depending on needs" (https://docs.openaq.org/using-the-api/rate-limits)
- Quote (limits): "Rate limits 60 / minute 2,000 / hour" (https://docs.openaq.org/using-the-api/rate-limits)
- Quote (license): "OpenAQ users must therefore review and comply with any terms published by data providers." (https://docs.openaq.org/about/terms)
- Quote (commercial): "Each license details permissions and restrictions, such as whether attribution is required and whether commercial use, modifications, or redistribution are allowed." (https://docs.openaq.org/resources/licenses)
- Quote (attribution): "Attribution to OpenAQ as the source data is also required when using OpenAQ services for accessing the data." (https://docs.openaq.org/about/terms)
- Quote (attribution_source): "When required, OpenAQ users must acknowledge the original source(s) of any data they use, following the provider’s terms" (https://docs.openaq.org/about/terms)
- Quote (embed): "we provide no assurance that the data provided may be used free of any third-party claims." (https://docs.openaq.org/about/terms)
- Quote (download): "The bucket root url is https://openaq-data-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/" (https://docs.openaq.org/aws/about)
- Quote (download_latency): "Files are written 72 hours after the end of day" (https://docs.openaq.org/aws/about)
- Quote (terms_rate): "Do not leave requests running in perpetuity if data are no longer needed. Adherence to OpenAQ Terms of Use is required, including source attribution." (https://docs.openaq.org/using-the-api/rate-limits)

## Rules for an agent

- The v3 API returns 401 without an X-API-Key header (free key from explore.openaq.org); for bulk history skip the API and read the key-less S3 archive (records/csv.gz/locationid=/year=/month=), and check each location's license via /v3/licenses before commercial use.
- Get a free API key and send it as X-API-Key; stay within 60 requests/minute and 2,000/hour, and stop jobs you no longer need.
- Credit OpenAQ and the original data provider(s) as their terms require.
- Check each source's licence (commercialUseAllowed, attributionRequired) before commercial use.

Human page: https://agentgid.com/resources/openaq/
Source: AgentGid (agentgid.com). Facts are quoted from the site's own pages; check the license page before you ship.