Your first request in five minutes.

apiauto.space is a JSON REST API: used-car catalogs of Korea (Encar), China (Che168) and US auctions (Copart, IAAI) in one record format. The base URL is https://api.apiauto.space/v1.

The full schema is in Swagger UI (you can send requests) and in Redoc; machine-readable at openapi.json.

Quick start

1. Open the bot and take a demo key: one day, 100 data requests, up to 20 cars per request, all three markets.
2. Save the key in the APIAUTO_KEY environment variable: it is shown once.
3. Send a request:

curl -s "https://api.apiauto.space/v1/cars?market=kr&brand=Kia&limit=20" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIAUTO_KEY"

import os
import httpx

client = httpx.Client(
    base_url="https://api.apiauto.space/v1",
    headers={"X-API-Key": os.environ["APIAUTO_KEY"]},
    timeout=30,
)

# Two pages of 20: every car returned counts against the quota.
params = {"market": "kr", "brand": "Kia", "limit": 20}
for _ in range(2):
    page = client.get("/cars", params=params).raise_for_status().json()
    for car in page["items"]:
        print(car["id"], car["title"], car["price"])
    if not page["next_cursor"]:
        break
    params["cursor"] = page["next_cursor"]

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.apiauto.space/v1/cars?market=cn&limit=20",
  { headers: { "X-API-Key": process.env.APIAUTO_KEY } },
);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`${response.status}: ${await response.text()}`);

const { items, next_cursor } = await response.json();
console.log(items.map((car) => car.title));
console.log("records left:", response.headers.get("X-Quota-Remaining"));

<?php
$ch = curl_init("https://api.apiauto.space/v1/cars?market=us&limit=20");
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ["X-API-Key: " . getenv("APIAUTO_KEY")],
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
]);
$body = curl_exec($ch);
$status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE);
curl_close($ch);
if ($status !== 200) {
    throw new RuntimeException("HTTP $status: $body");
}
foreach (json_decode($body, true)["items"] as $car) {
    echo $car["id"], " ", $car["title"], PHP_EOL;
}

The answer is a page of cars and the cursor of the next page. One record looks like this (shortened: two photo links and the first raw fields):

{
  "id": "encar:42795070",
  "market": "kr",
  "source": "encar",
  "source_id": "42795070",
  "title": "2022 BMW 1 Series (F40) M135i xDrive",
  "brand": "BMW",
  "model": "1 Series (F40)",
  "trim": "M135i xDrive",
  "year": 2022,
  "mileage_km": 49000,
  "fuel": "gasoline",
  "transmission": null,
  "engine_cc": null,
  "body_type": null,
  "color": null,
  "vin": null,
  "price": {
    "amount": "30000000.00",
    "currency": "KRW"
  },
  "price_usd": "21920.18",
  "location": {
    "country": "KR",
    "region": "Gyeonggi",
    "city": null
  },
  "photo_count": 4,
  "listing_url": "https://fem.encar.com/cars/detail/42795070",
  "is_active": true,
  "first_seen_at": "2026-09-25T14:04:10.804411Z",
  "last_seen_at": "2026-09-25T14:04:10.804411Z",
  "disappeared_at": null,
  "updated_at": "2026-09-25T14:04:10.804411Z",
  "source_mode": "replica",
  "photos": [
    "https://api.apiauto.space/img/encar:42795070/1.jpg?exp=…&sig=…",
    "https://api.apiauto.space/img/encar:42795070/2.jpg?exp=…&sig=…"
  ],
  "raw": {
    "badge": "M135i xDrive",
    "has_vin": false,
    "form_year": "202209",
    "sell_type": "normal",
    "body_class": null,
    "office_city": "경기",
    "badge_detail": null,
    "has_accident": false
  }
}

Keep the key on your server. The API does not allow browser requests (CORS is off), and a key in page code is visible to every visitor.

Key and headers

Every data request sends the key in the X-API-Key header. We keep only a hash of the key; a lost key is rotated in the bot — the old one works for 24 more hours and the quota is not reset.

Endpoints

GET /v1/cars

Only market (kr, cn, us) is required. Other parameters narrow the selection:

The answer: {"items": [...], "next_cursor": "…" | null, "count": 1834 | null}. count is how many cars match the filters when there are at most 10,000; above that it is null. Pagination is cursor-only, so a page does not shift while the catalog changes. offset is not supported — a request with it gets 400.

The car record

Every market has the same keys. What the source does not provide is null, never a guess. Whatever only the source has is in raw.

Photos

Links in photos are signed and work for about a day — keep the car id, not the link, and fetch a fresh record when needed. Photos are served by our server from a cache; /img requests are free.

GET /v1/changes

Parameters: market, since (required, ISO 8601 with a time zone), type (added, disappeared, price_drop, price_up; repeatable), min_pct (the price change threshold in percent, 0.5 by default), limit, cursor. Each event costs one record. Pro, Max and the demo.

GET /v1/us/live

Search US auctions at the data provider — for lots that are not in the copy. Parameters: make, model, year_min, year_max, price_max, page. A separate monthly counter: Pro — 2,000, Max — 10,000 requests. When the provider is down or out of its own limit, the answer is 503 with retry_after.

Quota and limits

The catalog and the change feed count the cars and events returned, not requests: a response with 37 cars costs 37 records, an empty one costs nothing. The demo counts every data request.

The monthly quota renews on the 1st at 00:00 UTC. After the paid period ends the key works for 3 more days at a fifth of the plan's rate (at least 1 request per second), then answers 401 — renewing within 90 days keeps the same key.

Market boundaries

The age of the market copy comes in the X-Data-Age-Seconds header of every catalog answer. Current market freshness is on the status page and in /v1/references/markets. More about the markets — on the home page.

Errors

An error body is always JSON like {"error": "code", ...} with useful fields.

Versioning

Within /v1 fields are never removed or renamed; new optional fields may appear — do not fail on unknown keys. Breaking changes will ship under /v2 with a transition period announced in the bot.

Changelog

2026-09 · v1

• Catalog, car by id, change feed, references, usage, live US search.
• Signed photo links through /img.
• Makes and models are spelled the same in every market (Ford, Mercedes-Benz, CX-5, XC60); the original spellings stay in raw.source_values.
• /v1/references/markets has data_age_seconds and stale: how fresh each market's copy is.