The API reference section contains information on all aspects of the APIs irrespective of your access rights.
To help you getting started using your key we have prepared Quick Start documents for the following licence types:
Noticed anything incorrect or missing? Please contact us to report this.
All your requests to any FT API should use the following base URL:
https://api.ft.com
You must supply a valid API Key with each request. This should be done with an X-Api-Key request header:
X-Api-Key: yourApiKey
Your API key identifies your application as a legitimate user of the FT API. It may only be shared in accordance with the terms of your license.
In particular, you must not include your API key in any app, Web site or script which is served to unlicensed users. For example, if you are building a browser-based app, the browser should only make requests to a service under your control, which would be responsible for authorizing the app, making FT API calls as necessary, and building an appropriate response.
Your API key may be throttled if it makes too many requests. To ensure your application continues to function, you should agree an appropriate traffic level with us beforehand, taking into account any opportunities you will have to cache data.
You can also supply an API key in a query parameter apiKey
GET /{endpoint}/?apiKey=yourApiKey
If you use this method, you should make sure your client correctly supplies this parameter to all requests, including in response to redirects.
If you want specific guidance on how best to use the FT API in your application, please contact us
The Content API and Enriched Content API provide access to information about FT articles, blogs and FastFT posts. The Notifications API and Notifications Push API provide a way to find out when content is published or updated.
We do not expect to make changes that break existing integrations, but you should make sure your code is flexible, for example able to cope with new fields being included in responses.
For notifications resource details, see Content Notifications
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| GET /content/notifications | Get a list of content that has been created, changed or deleted. |
For notifications resource details, see Content Notifications
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| GET /content/notifications-push | Streaming notifications of content that has been created, changed or deleted |
For content item resource details, see Content Items
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| GET /content/{itemId} | Get an item of content. |
For enriched content item resource details, see Enriched Content Items
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| GET /enrichedcontent/{itemId} | Get an item of enriched content. |
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| POST /content/search/v1 | Search all items of content. This will return a list of content items. Some item properties are not available using this method. Full details can be retrieved using the Get method for a particular item of content. |
| Entity class/type | Subclass of | Definition | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thing | - | The most generic Class: anything which can be given an ID is a Thing. | |
| Concept | Thing | A SKOS concept: an idea or notion; a unit of thought. | |
| Content | Concept | Free text, normally presented above the article, which identifies the author of the article and may also include their location or other identifying information. | You may see these items referenced in Articles occasionally, but it is mainly used as a superclass. Referenced items will almost always declare a more specific type. |
| Article | Content | A type of Content, mostly text-based and always contains a headline and body text. | The standard notifications feed only includes Articles. |
| Video | Content | A type of MediaResource that has moving images. | You may see these items referenced in Articles. Used internally. |
| Image | Content | A type of MediaResource that represents an image. | You may see these items referenced in Articles. Used internally. |
| ImageSet | Content | A type of Content that contains semantically similar images but whose sizes and quality may differ for use in specific contexts. | You may see these items referenced in Articles. Used internally. |
| ContentPackage | Content | Represents a collection of Content items that can exist separately from the Collection but whose grouping together conveys an editorial point of view or some other journalistic or commercial purpose. The ContentPackage may contain a Title and Body that defines why the Content is grouped together. | You may see these items referenced in Articles. |
| Organisation | Concept | Represents a collection of people organised together into a commercial, social or political structure. The group has some common purpose or reason for existence which goes beyond the set of people belonging to it. | More information about a given company at Organisation endpoint api.ft.com/organisations. This might not be visible for certain clients. |
| Company | Organisation | An organisation that makes or sells goods or services in order to make a profit. | More information about a given company at Organisation endpoint api.ft.com/organisations. This might not be visible for certain clients. |
| PublicCompany | Company | A company that has issued shares to the public through a stock exchange or traded over-the-counter. | More information about a given company at Organisation endpoint api.ft.com/organisations. This might not be visible for certain clients. |
| Person | Concept | A person, whether alive or dead. | More information about a given person available at People endpoint api.ft.com/people. This might not be visible for certain clients. |
| Membership | Concept | Represents a relationship between a Person and an Organisation and the Role that the Person holds within the Organisation. | These are shown in the People endpoint api.ft.com/people. This might not be visible for certain clients. |
| Location | Concept | A named geographical location. | Only available at isAnnotatedBy/about or /majorMention pre Sept 2018. |
| Topic | Concept | An editorially defined Concept that represents subject areas in the news that are important to the FT editorial team; for example a conceptual area, industry, or storyline. | More information about topics related to a given topic available at api.ft.com/things. This might not be visible for certain clients. |
| Classification | Concept | A Classification is a grouping together of similar Concepts that can exist within a hierarchically transitive classification scheme within the FT domain. | |
| Genre | Classification | Identifies the journalistic genre of FT content. | For example, “news”, “interview”, “comment”, “analysis”. |
| Brand | Classification | The Brand identifies content that has a distinct personality or voice. | Expect predominantly internal FT brands, such as FastFT. |
| Graphic | Content | A visual representation of content, like a diagram or chart. | |
| StoryPackage | ContentCollection | Story packages are a type of content collections which do not have a meaning on their own, instead they are always associated to a holding (“lead”) content, like articles, videos or content packages. Story packages are viewed as a subcategory of Content Collections and - as the name suggests - they are like lists. | Deprecated. |
| Subject | Classification | A topic-like classification, the ancestor of the current Topics. | Deprecated in 2017 and mapped to Topics. |
| IPTC | - | A news categories taxonomy for the media, developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council. | Introduced in 2008. Deprecated in 2015. |
| Industry (ICB) | - | The Industry Classification Benchmark is an industry classification taxonomy launched by Dow Jones and FTSE in 2005 and now used by FTSE International and STOXX. It is used to segregate markets into sectors within the macroeconomy. | Introduced in 2008. Deprecated in 2015. |
| Media Type | - | Taxonomy for type of content (e.g. video, audio). | Introduced in 2008. Deprecated in 2015. |
| FT.com Section | Classification | Taxonomy covering different types of content, corresponding to different “Sections” in the FT site. | Introduced in 2008. Deprecated in 2015. Sections were reclassified as either Topics, Locations or Genres, depending on what they actually represent. “ |
| Special Reports | Concept | Special Reports provide in-depth FT coverage of countries around the world, as well as industries from tech to luxury, and themes ranging from workplace health to entrepreneurship. They appear in a variety of formats, from magazines and broadsheets, to video and interactive stories. | Introduced in 2008. Annotated with the isClassifiedBy predicate. Deprecated in 2015. |
| Alphaville-Series | Classification | The FT markets and finance blog. | Introduced in 2008. Deprecated in 2015. Currently a brand. |
| Authors | Content |
The Authors taxonomy allows content writers to be uniquely tagged on content. | Introduced in 2008. Deprecated in 2015. |
| Predicate | Domain and range | Definition | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| isAnnotatedBy or annotations | Content isAnnotatedBy Concept | Used to indicate that a Content item has attached Concepts as metadata. | |
| about | Content about Concept | A type of annotation; it describes the primary subject matter of a Content item and the main actors identified within. | Manually added by newsroom. If an article has majorMentions annotations (see below), then it will only have one about annotation. EXPECT MULTIPLE ABOUTS SINCE 2018. |
| majorMentions | Content majorMentions Concept | A type of annotation; it describes concepts that are relevant to a Content item. | Manually added by newsroom. The level of relevance is roughly: “If somebody following the concept would expect to be notified about the content”. Expect a few annotations of this type per article that has them. NOW DEPRECATED SINCE OCTOBER 2018. |
| mentions | Content mentions Concept | A weaker association between Content and Concepts than ‘about’ which identifies passing references to the Concepts contained within. | Autofilled by machine. Expect many annotations of this type per article. Some maybe relevant, some may not. |
| implicitlyAbout | Content implicitlyAbout Concept | An association made between Content and Concepts as a result of inferences from “about” annotations made using the concept graph. | For example, if the Concept that a Content is about has a broader Concept, then we infer the Content is implicitlyAbout the broader Concept. The Content is relevant to that Concept insofar as it is about a narrower (more specific) Concept. |
| hasAuthor | Article hasAuthor Person | Indicates that the Content was written by the annotated Person. | A content may have zero, one or multiple hasAuthor annotations. |
| isClassifiedBy | STH isClassifiedBy Classification | A type of annotation which classifies a Content item according to a classification scheme, such as Genre or Brand. | In the current API you will see some isClassifiedBy annotations to non-classifications such as Topic or Location. This is a temporary arrangement. Clients are advised not to make use of these annotations if there is another source for the information they need. |
| implicitlyClassifiedBy | Content implicitlyClassifiedBy Classification | An association made between Content and Classifications as a result of inferences made using the concept graph. | For example, if the Brand of a Content has a parent Brand, then we infer the Content is implicitlyClassifiedBy the parent Brand. |
| primarilyClassifiedBy | Content primarilyClassifiedBy Concept | This was used to assign Content to sections of the previous web site. It is semantically close to “about”. | |
| hasDisplayTag | Content hasDisplayTag Concept | This determines the one concept to be associated with an article when displayed on FT.com | Started in October 2018. |
| Data Property | Type | Definition | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| id | URI | Proprietary unique FT identifier. | All articles and concepts have a unique ID (UUID). |
| title | XML | The text contained in the article headline. | |
| byline | string | Free text, normally presented above the article, which identifies the author of the article and may also include their location or other identifying information | For example, “Mure Dickie in Edinburgh”. |
| bodyXML | XML | The text contained in the main body of the article. | |
| standout | object | Groups additional tags in boolean format that convey an editorial point of view about why the Content item warrants special recognition. | |
| scoop | true or false | A field within “standout”. Identifies a story that is not yet reported by any other media organisations, which only the FT has knowledge of and and is breaking ahead of other news providers. | Applied manually by our journalists. If TRUE, immense precision has been used. However, as this is not automated, some actual scoops may appear FALSE. |
| exclusive | true or false | A field within “standout”. Identifies a piece of journalism only available through the FT (e.g., interview, comment). Not necessarily a scoop and can be about an event or subject that has been previously reported. | Rarely tagged TRUE because of similarity to “scoop”. |
| editorsChoice | true or false | A field within “standout”. Identifies an in-depth piece of analysis on a specific subject that is judged by editorial as particularly worthy of attention. | Always FALSE because it is not used |
| firstPublishedDate | ISO 8601 timestamp (UTC) | The time the article was first published in the content management system (CMS). | |
| publishedDate | ISO 8601 timestamp (UTC) | The time of the most recent major update to the article in the CMS. | Major updates include changes in fact or sentiment. |
| canBeSyndicated | string | The conditions under which syndication customers can republish the article. One of “yes”, “with-contributor-payment”, “verify”, or “no”. | |
| FIGI Code | string identifier | Connects FT.org ID for public companies to Financial Instrument Global Identifier - www.openfigi.com. | This is the composite-level FIGI code for the primary traded stock of the company, as judged by our data provider. |
| LEI Code | string identifier | Connects FT.org to Legal Entity Identifier for public and privately owned companies. | LEI codes are widely and increasingly supported, but are not universal. |
| NAICS identifier | numeric identifier | Connects FT.org to an industry sector according to NAICS. | NAICS stands for North American Industry Classification System. |
| NAICS prefLabel | string | The name of the above industry sector in NAICS. | |
| NAICS rank | numeric | The rank of the above industry sector for the particular company. | Shows whether this is the primary or secondary (or tertiary and so on) industry sector for this company. |
Search is a flexible and powerful tool for finding FT content. For full details of how to use it, see the Search Tutorial.