---
title: "Upcoming Change to Cato API Gateway"
slug: "upcoming-change-to-cato-api-gateway"
updated: 2026-11-02T13:13:34Z
published: 2026-11-02T13:13:34Z
canonical: "knowledge.catonetworks.com/upcoming-change-to-cato-api-gateway"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://knowledge.catonetworks.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Upcoming Change to Cato API Gateway

Cato plans to introduce a new API gateway on December 1, 2026, to improve API performance and provide additional API responses with information to help you optimize your integrations. This infrastructure update also changes how Cato API rate limiting works. **IMPORTANT:** This is not a breaking change. There is no degradation to your existing integrations, and no action is required.

## **What Are the Benefits of the New API Gateway?**

The new gateway gives you more flexibility to use your account’s API capacity and provides guidance to help your integrations handle rate limiting. Based on tests, we do not expect performance degradation for your current API usage.

## How Rate Limiting Changes

Currently, Cato applies a separate rate limit to each API query or mutation, expressed as a number of calls per time interval. All API keys accessing the same account share the limit for that operation. The new model uses points-based budgets:

- Each operation has a cost in points, which can vary depending on the data you request
- Operations consume points from a shared account budget, with additional budgets for specific operations
- Budgets replenish over time

## API Responses and Retry Guidance

<editor360-custom-block data-preprocessing="true" data-sanitizationtags="code"><p>Rate-limited requests return HTTP status code <code></code><code>429</code> with a reason that helps your integration determine how to proceed:</p></editor360-custom-block><editor360-custom-block data-preprocessing="true" data-sanitizationtags="code"><ul><li><code></code><code>BUDGET_EXHAUSTED</code>: The available budget is temporarily insufficient. The <code></code><code>Retry-After</code> header and <code></code><code>retryAfter</code> extension field indicate how many seconds to wait before retrying</li><li><code></code><code>REQUEST_EXCEEDS_CAPACITY</code>: Simplify or split the request, because the request is so large, waiting and retrying will not help</li></ul></editor360-custom-block><editor360-custom-block data-preprocessing="true" data-sanitizationtags="code"><p>The gateway accepts or rejects the entire request rather than partially executing fields that fit within the available budget.<br>You can also request optional <code></code><code>extensions.rateLimit</code> response details containing <code></code><code>cost</code> and <code></code><code>retryAfter</code>. These details help you understand a request’s point cost and determine when to retry. Retry timing does not reserve capacity, so other requests using the same budget can impact your next attempt.</p></editor360-custom-block>

## **What Action Do I Need to Take?**

No action is required. This is not a breaking change. Your existing integrations, including their rate limiting detection, will continue to work. After the update, you can optionally use the additional response information to optimize how your integrations handle rate limiting.

## **For More Information**

See [FAQ: Upcoming API Gateway and Rate Limiting Changes](https://knowledge.catonetworks.com/docs/faq-upcoming-api-gateway-and-rate-limiting-changes).

Please use the [Cato Ask AI agent](https://knowledge.catonetworks.com/v1/docs/what-is-cato-s-ask-ai-agent) in the CMA for questions about API rate limiting. Take me to the [CMA AI Workspace](https://externallink.cc.catonetworks.com/#/account/me/aiWorkspace).