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 a developer's 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 developer account.

GET https://www.whoisxmlapi.com/whoisserver/DNSService?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY&domainName=bbc.com&type=1

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

Input parameters

apiKey	Required. Get your personal API KEY on 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 per month.

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.

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

Have questions?

We work hard to improve our services for you. As part of that process, we welcome your feedback, questions, and suggestions. Please let us know about your thoughts and feelings, and any way in which you think we can improve our product.

For a quick response, please select the request type that best suits your needs. For more info regarding the request types, see Contact us page.

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