Whois API Documentation

Our Hosted Whois API Web Service provides registration details, also known as WHOIS Records, of a domain names.

Whoisjsonapi.com provides a RESTful API to get access to the whois data. It is designed for server-to-server communication between your system and the whoisjsonapi.com network using HTTPs protocol. Query responses are delivered in JSON format based on your requests which are made via GET method.

The following data is included:

• Important Dates (i.e. Expiration, Creation)
• Owner and contact information if available
• Nameservers
• Registrar information

Single domain request

By making a single domain request, you can obtain only the whois information for the specific domain you are querying. This request operates swiftly as it doesn't necessitate additional resources.

API endpoint

Input parameters: required

Example

curl --location 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/twitter.com' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-api-token}'

Bulk request

Bulk WHOIS API gives you parsed domain WHOIS ownership information for a list of domains

API endpoint

Input parameters: required

Example

curl --location 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/domains?d=facebook.com,twitter.com,bbc.com' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-api-token}'

Domain availability

The domain availability method checks the availability status of a single domain name. It accepts one argument: domain

The response will contain a JSON array of status objects with keys: domain and status*. The status key contains the status for the given domain.

There are two statuses provided by the API: active and inactive. INACTIVE domains indicate that they are available for purchase.

API endpoint

Input parameters: required

Example

curl --location 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/status/whois.com' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-api-token}'

Response

{
    "domain": "whois.com",
    "status": "active"
}

DNS records

The DNS records endpoint returns grouped DNS records for a hostname. It is available to Premium and Enterprise plans and uses the same shared request allowance as WHOIS: each accepted DNS lookup consumes one request, regardless of the number of requested record types.

Send your API token in the Authorization header using the bearer token scheme. Successful responses include X-Requests-Remaining when the shared allowance value is available.

API endpoint

Input parameters

Default lookup example

curl --location 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/dns/example.com' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-api-token}'

Type-filtered lookup example

curl --location 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/dns/example.com?types=A,MX,TXT' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-api-token}'

Response fields

Success response example

{
    "domain": "example.com",
    "domain_ascii": "example.com",
    "status": "success",
    "resolver_policy": "default",
    "requested_types": [
        "A",
        "AAAA",
        "MX",
        "NS",
        "TXT",
        "CNAME",
        "SOA",
        "CAA"
    ],
    "fetched_at": "2026-07-01T12:00:00+00:00",
    "expires_at": "2026-07-01T12:05:00+00:00",
    "records": {
        "A": [
            {
                "name": "example.com.",
                "type": "A",
                "ttl": 120,
                "value": "93.184.216.34"
            }
        ],
        "AAAA": [
            {
                "name": "example.com.",
                "type": "AAAA",
                "ttl": 120,
                "value": "2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946"
            }
        ],
        "MX": [
            {
                "name": "example.com.",
                "type": "MX",
                "ttl": 300,
                "priority": 10,
                "exchange": "mail.example.com."
            }
        ],
        "NS": [
            {
                "name": "example.com.",
                "type": "NS",
                "ttl": 86400,
                "target": "a.iana-servers.net."
            }
        ],
        "TXT": [],
        "CNAME": [],
        "SOA": [
            {
                "name": "example.com.",
                "type": "SOA",
                "ttl": 3600,
                "mname": "ns.icann.org.",
                "rname": "noc.dns.icann.org.",
                "serial": 2026070101,
                "refresh": 7200,
                "retry": 3600,
                "expire": 1209600,
                "minimum": 3600
            }
        ],
        "CAA": []
    },
    "warnings": []
}

Status and error behavior

Authentication, subscription access, feature access, and quota failures use the standard API error behavior for authenticated endpoints.

Authorization

When making a request to our REST API, send your API token in the Authorization header using the bearer token scheme. Keep API tokens out of URLs, browser code, public repositories, and logs.

Example: API key in headers

curl --location 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/whois.com' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-api-token}'

Response

Query responses are delivered in JSON format.

Domain

Registrar

Registrant

Administrative

Technical

Response example

{
    "domain": {
        "id": "2320948_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN",
        "domain": "facebook.com",
        "punycode": "facebook.com",
        "name": "facebook.com",
        "extension": "com",
        "whois_server": "whois.registrarsafe.com",
        "status": [
            "clientdeleteprohibited",
            "clienttransferprohibited",
            "clientupdateprohibited",
            "serverdeleteprohibited",
            "servertransferprohibited",
            "serverupdateprohibited"
        ],
        "name_servers": [
            "d.ns.facebook.com",
            "a.ns.facebook.com",
            "b.ns.facebook.com",
            "c.ns.facebook.com"
        ],
        "created_date": "1997-03-29T05:00:00Z",
        "created_date_in_time": "1997-03-29T05:00:00Z",
        "updated_date": "2023-04-26T19:04:19Z",
        "updated_date_in_time": "2023-04-26T19:04:19Z",
        "expiration_date": "2032-03-30T04:00:00Z",
        "expiration_date_in_time": "2032-03-30T04:00:00Z"
    },
    "registrar": {
        "name": "RegistrarSafe, LLC",
        "phone": "+1.6503087004",
        "email": "abusecomplaints@registrarsafe.com",
        "referral_url": "https://www.registrarsafe.com"
    },
    "registrant": {
        "name": "Domain Admin",
        "organization": "Meta Platforms, Inc.",
        "street": "1601 Willow Rd",
        "city": "Menlo Park",
        "province": "CA",
        "postal_code": "94025",
        "country": "US",
        "phone": "+1.6505434800",
        "email": "domain@fb.com"
    }
}

Rate limits

A rate limit is the number of API calls an app or user can make within a given time period. If this limit is exceeded or if CPU or total time limits are exceeded, the app or user may be throttled. API requests made by a throttled user or app will fail.

Platform rate limits

Errors

When you request information about a domain, you may receive a message that the domain was not found. This means that the domain has not yet been registered and might be available for purchase.

Code Examples

curl --location \
--request GET 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/youtube.com' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {your token}'

use GuzzleHttp\Client;

$client = new Client([
    'base_uri' => 'https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1',
    'timeout'  => 2.0,
]);
$response = $client->request('GET', '/youtube.com', [
    'headers' => [
        'Accept'        => 'application/json',
        'Authorization' => 'Bearer {your token}'
    ]
]);

$response->getStatusCode();
$response->getBody();

const axios = require('axios');

const config = {
    headers: {
        "Content-type": "application/json",
        "Authorization": `Bearer {your token}`,
    },
};

axios
  .get('https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/youtube.com', null, config)
  .then(res => {
    console.log(`statusCode: ${res.status}`);
    console.log(res);
  })
  .catch(error => {
    console.error(error);
  });

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/http"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    client := &http.Client{
        Timeout: time.Second * 5,
    }

    req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://whoisjsonapi.com/v1/youtube.com", nil)
    if err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("Got error %s", err.Error())
    }

    req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer {your token}")

    response, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("Got error %s", err.Error())
    }
    defer response.Body.Close()
}