Response

HTTP Retry-After Header

Indicates how long the client should wait before making a follow-up request. Commonly used with 429 Too Many Requests and 503 Service Unavailable.

Purpose

Tells the client when to retry after rate limiting or during server maintenance, preventing unnecessary requests.

Retry-After: <seconds> Retry-After: <http-date> Example: Retry-After: 120 Example: Retry-After: Wed, 20 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

See how to use the Retry-After header in different tools and languages.

curl -I https://api.example.com/resource
# After rate limit hit:
# HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
# Retry-After: 60

Specifies caching directives for both requests and responses. Controls how and for how long content is cached by browsers and intermediate caches.

Contains the date and time when the message was originated. Every HTTP response should include this header.

Test your APIs and inspect response headers in real-time

Complete reference of all HTTP request and response headers

retry-after headerhttp retry-afterhttp headers guide