There are limits to the number of API calls that your application can make against a particular Xero organisation.
oauth_problem=rate limit exceeded&oauth_problem_advice=please wait before retrying the xero apiYou will also receive an X-Rate-Limit-Problem HTTP header with the value of Daily or Minute to indicate which rate limit you have hit.
If you encounter a limit, do not continue to make requests as this may continue to add to your limitation. The most common issue encountered is the 60 requests/min rate limit. If possible, queue requests and allow a few seconds before attempting to make another request.
A single POST to the Accounting or Payroll APIs has a size limit of 3.5MB. There is no limit to the number of elements within a request, provided the overall request size does not exceed 3.5MB. A single POST to the Files API has a size limit of 10MB.
Note: When posting form-encoded xml to the API, the encoded data will be approx 50% larger than the original xml message.
However, to ensure you receive a timely response from the API (large inserts can take quite a while), we recommend you look to batch elements in bundles of up to 50.
You can create a maximum of 2 private applications against a Xero organisation regardless of the user that created the application.
Xero is not suitable for all types of business, particularly those with very high transaction volumes. Please see our notes on system limits.
Quite often, applications that you might believe would exceed the Xero API rate limits, can in fact work within the limits by analysing the structure of how you intend to use the Xero API:
You can do more than one thing in a single request: For example, you can create more than one Invoice in a single PUT or POST Invoices API call. While there is no upper limit in the number of nodes that can be sent at one time, a ceiling of about 50 nodes per request is practical - this will ensure a request does not exceed the maximum size of 3.5MB. You should also review our notes on summarizing validation errors.
It is recommended that applications queue requests to the Xero API. This will allow you to ensure requests are within the supported limits, and will also allow your application to function even in the event that it cannot reach the Xero API temporarily.
One function which can cause an application to exceed the usage limits is extracting data from Xero eg:
In these situations, it may take some time to extract the required data - it is recommended that an application is structured to schedule or queue this function so there is no user expectation of an immediate response.
Applications that connect to more than one Xero organisation (Public and Partner) have a per organisation usage limit. For example if two separate Xero organisations are connected to an application, each connection would have 5000 API calls available in a given 24 hour period.
While the current API limits are not flexible, we can assist API users with advice on making their calls more efficient. Please contact us and we can advise.
Xero is designed for volumes of up to 1,000 Sales invoices (Accounts Receivables) and 1,000 Purchases bills (Accounts Payables) per month, dependent also on the frequency of invoicing during the month, variability of amounts and the frequency of sales tax reporting requirements.
Xero is designed for volumes of up to around 2,000 bank transactions per month, also dependent on the frequency of transactions during the month and variability of transaction values.
Xero recommends a maximum number of 4,000 tacked inventory items per organisation. Performance issues may occur when the total number of tracked items in an organisation exceeds this limit. We recommend you only create or update 100 items per API request.
Contact lists of greater than 10,000 could cause performance issues.
Xero is designed to support up to 500 fixed assets. Having more assets than this can cause problems trying to work with the assets and with running depreciation. Xero will work with higher levels than this but the performance of some features and reports may become degraded.
Xero organisations using the “Small” pricing plan can enter up to 5 approved Accounts Receivable invoices and 5 approved Accounts Payable invoices per month. The invoice date (not the creation date) is used to determine which month an invoice was entered.
If you exceed this invoice limit when using the Xero API you will receive a HTTP 400 response code with the following error message:
<validationerror> <message>You have reached the limit of invoices you can approve. </message> </validationerror>
Xero partner edition plans such as cashbook and ledger organisations, can be connected to the Xero API.
Authorisation of connections to cashbook or ledger organisations must be done by a member of the practice staff - managed client or cashbook client roles cannot authorise an API connection. Note that as these plans do not include invoicing functionality, any invoices created via the API could not be edited or modified, so this function is recommended to be avoided.
