Foursquare has long partnered with the developer community, providing access to our API since 2009. In order for us to continue to serve more than 125,0000 developers and companies, we ask that you help us maintain our platform, and follow the rules listed below.
Please note: We reserve the right to terminate access to the Places API if you violate these rules or any of the terms listed in our Platform & Acceptable Use Policy, our Privacy Policies, or the agreement or subscription you have with Foursquare.
As used herein, an "Enterprise Customer" means only those customers with a duly executed agreement that expressly provides 'enterprise access' to the Places API is permitted. All other customers shall be subject to the 'Pay as You Go & Sandbox' terms below.
Data Retention
We understand that caching Foursquare data may increase the speed of your application. However, you must abide by the following rules around retaining data from the Places API:
- FSQ_ID: unlimited caching (solely to improve the performance of your application).
- Photo IDs: unlimited caching
- fsq_addr_id: unlimited caching
All Other Attributes:
- Enterprise Customers: 24-hour local-device caching only (no server-based caching is permitted); or
- Pay as You Go & Sandbox Customers: no caching permitted.
Your Privacy Policy
If your application accesses Foursquare user data, you must publish a privacy policy that complies with applicable law. Please be explicit in your privacy policy on how you use, store, and disclose user information.
For instance, if your app displays your users’ current location or contact information on a public page, they should know this before they authenticate and agree to use your app.
Visual Crediting Policy
If your application uses our Places API, you must credit Foursquare as the source of your data through either visual credit (i.e., buttons, our developer logo, etc.) or contextual credit (i.e., woven into copy, etc.).
View Visual Crediting Policy
View Trademark Guidelines
Rate Limits
These rate limits pertain solely to the most current version of the Places API. If you are using the previous version of the Places API (which includes any endpoints beginning with
/v2/), please refer to our Rate Limits guide that outlines the rate limitations applicable to that version.
Usage of the Places API is subject to rate limits. The applicable queries per second (QPS) rate limit, calculated across all endpoints in total, is as follows:
- Enterprise Customers: 100 QPS; or
- Pay as You Go & Sandbox Customers: 50 QPS.