MarineTraffic vessels API reference

A tile with no vessels is HTTP 200 and is not charged. A block, an upstream failure, or a tile whose rows cannot be read is HTTP 503 with Retry-After and is not charged.

Live AIS vessel positions in the MarineTraffic tile holding a point.

Each vessel carries its latest reported position, speed (knots), course, heading, destination, flag and dimensions. One tile answers per call; lower zooms cover more sea. An empty tile is not charged.

Request

POSThttps://api.scrapercompany.com/v1/maritime/vessels

Authenticate with your API key in the x-api-key header (see Authentication).

Run this request on your own API key from this page, with the values you type. Signed out? Sign in or get an API key.

Body

JSON object. Unknown fields are rejected with 422.

latnumberrequiredmin -90, max 90
Latitude of the point to look up.
lonnumberrequiredmin -180, max 180
Longitude of the point to look up.
zoomintegerdefault 12min 1, max 20
Map zoom (1-20). One tile at this zoom answers; lower zooms cover more sea.

Example request

curl -X POST "https://api.scrapercompany.com/v1/maritime/vessels" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPERCOMPANY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "lat": 10.1375,
    "lon": 107.7525,
    "zoom": 12
  }'

Response

200 — Live vessels in one map tile. Metered responses carry x-credits-charged and x-credits-remaining headers (see credit headers).

200 response

{
  "search_parameters": {
    "engine": "maritime_vessels",
    "lat": 10.1375,
    "lon": 107.7525,
    "zoom": 12
  },
  "lat": 10.1375,
  "lon": 107.7525,
  "zoom": 12,
  "tile": {
    "x": 1636,
    "y": 966
  },
  "vessels": [
    {
      "ship_id": "7605737",
      "name": "SAWASDEE RIGEL",
      "lat": 10.063494,
      "lon": 107.74606,
      "speed_knots": 16.7,
      "course": 228,
      "heading": 228,
      "elapsed_s": 19,
      "destination": "TH LCH",
      "flag": "MH",
      "length_m": 172,
      "width_m": 27,
      "l_fore": 131,
      "w_left": 21,
      "dwt": 22253,
      "ship_type": 7,
      "gt_ship_type": 11
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "skipped_rows": 0
}

Errors

Errors return a JSON body with a detail field. Failed requests are not charged. See Errors for the full list and retry advice.

Status	Meaning	Retry?
`401`Unauthorized	Missing or invalid API key. `{"detail":"missing or invalid API key"}`	No, fix the request
`402`Payment Required	Not enough credits for this request: the account's credits mode is `enforce` (`mode` in `GET /v1/billing`) and the request costs more than the available credits. Nothing is run or charged. `{"detail":"insufficient credits: this request costs 5, 0 available. Credits renew 2026-11-01."}`	No, fix the request
`422`Unprocessable Content	Request validation failed. `detail` is a list of problems for schema errors, or a string for semantic checks performed by the endpoint. `{"detail":[{"loc":["body","name"],"msg":"Field required","type":"missing"}]}`	No, fix the request
`429`Too Many Requests	Too many requests: the key's requests-per-minute limit was exceeded, or (in `enforce` credits mode) the plan's concurrent-request limit. No rate-limit or Retry-After headers are sent; back off and retry. `{"detail":"rate limit 60/min exceeded"}`	Yes, with backoff
`503`Service Unavailable	Temporarily unavailable: a dependency of this endpoint is down, or the upstream source changed its contract. Retry later. `{"detail":"database unavailable: OperationalError"}`	Yes, with backoff

Try it

Press Try it above to run this request on your own key, with the values you type (sign in first). For a no-code walkthrough, use the workspace’s guided Try it.

Export your key: export SCRAPERCOMPANY_API_KEY=sk_... (no key yet? start a free trial).
Copy the cURL example above and run it in a terminal.

Credits

2 credits per successful call (2 when the tile contains vessels (an empty tile and failed requests are free)). Failed, blocked and empty results are free.

Request#

Body#

Example request#

Response#

Errors#

Try it#