Free government and science APIs with no API key
Looking for real public data to feed a dashboard, a class exercise or a hackathon project, without signing up for anything? These 24 open-data APIs from government agencies, statistics offices and science projects each returned HTTP 200 JSON with no key when I probed them on 7 Oct 2026. Each row has a test URL you can paste into a browser.
How this was checked: one GET request per endpoint from a single location, then a second try for failures. "CORS yes" means the response carried an allow-origin header, so you can call it from front-end code. Rate limits and terms change, so read each provider's docs before shipping anything.
| API | Test it (no key) | CORS | Latency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eurostat JSON Government | https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/tps00001?format=JSON&geo=DE&time=2023 | yes | 0.43s |
| FDA OpenFDA Food Recalls Government | https://api.fda.gov/food/enforcement.json?limit=1 | yes | 0.62s |
| NYC Open Data Socrata Government | https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/erm2-nwe9.json?$limit=1 | yes | 0.33s |
| Open Government Canada CKAN Government | https://open.canada.ca/data/api/action/package_list?limit=1 | yes | 0.37s |
| SEC EDGAR Government | https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000320193.json | yes | 0.29s |
| UK Gov Bank Holidays Government | https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays.json | yes | 0.17s |
| UK Police Data Government | https://data.police.uk/api/crime-categories | yes | 0.61s |
| UN Comtrade Preview Government | https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?reporterCode=842&period=2022&cmdCode=TOTAL | no | 0.89s |
| World Bank Indicators Government | https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/SG/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?format=json&per_page=2 | yes | 0.37s |
| data.gov.sg Collections Government | https://api-production.data.gov.sg/v2/public/api/collections | yes | 2.29s |
| data.gov.sg Realtime Government | https://api.data.gov.sg/v1/environment/air-temperature | yes | 0.89s |
| data.gov.uk CKAN Government | https://data.gov.uk/api/action/package_search?rows=1 | yes | 1.7s |
| Exoplanet Archive TAP Science | https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/TAP/sync?query=select+top+1+pl_name+from+ps&format=json | no | 1.44s |
| GBIF Species Science | https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/match?name=Puma%20concolor | yes | 0.44s |
| Launch Library 2 Science | https://ll.thespacedevs.com/2.2.0/launch/upcoming/?limit=1 | yes | 0.26s |
| NOAA SWPC Kp Index Science | https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/products/noaa-planetary-k-index.json | yes | 0.24s |
| Open Notify ISS Science | http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json | yes | 5.21s |
| PubChem PUG REST Science | https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug/compound/name/aspirin/property/MolecularWeight/JSON | yes | 0.22s |
| Sunrise-Sunset Science | https://api.sunrise-sunset.org/json?lat=36.72&lng=-4.42&formatted=0 | yes | 0.45s |
| Tides NOAA CO-OPS Science | https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/datagetter?product=water_level&application=test&station=8454000&date=latest&datum=MLLW&time_zone=gmt&units=metric&format=json | yes | 0.4s |
| USGS Earthquakes Science | https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/significant_day.geojson | yes | 0.53s |
| USGS Water Services Science | https://waterservices.usgs.gov/nwis/iv/?format=json&sites=01646500¶meterCd=00060 | yes | 0.85s |
| Where The ISS At Science | https://api.wheretheiss.at/v1/satellites/25544 | yes | 0.65s |
| iNaturalist Science | https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/observations?per_page=1 | yes | 0.47s |
Picking one
- Country-level statistics: World Bank Indicators and Eurostat both answer quickly and allow browser calls, so they suit charts.
- City or national open-data portals: NYC Open Data (Socrata), data.gov.uk, Open Government Canada and data.gov.sg are catalogue APIs. Search for a dataset first, then query it.
- Live science feeds: USGS Earthquakes, NOAA tides and the NOAA space-weather Kp index update continuously, which makes demos feel alive.
- Slow ones: Open Notify ISS took over 5 seconds in my probe. Show a loading state or use Where The ISS At.
Check any other API
Use the free CORS tester to see whether an API works from a browser. The weather list and the front-end demo list cover other categories.
The full Keyless API Atlas ($7) covers all 161 verified APIs with curl and fetch code, JSON keys, rate-limit headers and a list of 35 popular APIs that failed. The 20-row sample CSV is free.