# Deriv contracts_for Independent and unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any broker or platform named here. Educational only: nothing here is advice, and nothing here recommends a broker or a trade. This is the markdown version of https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/messages/contracts-for, written from the same records as that page. Risk warning: CFDs and spread bets are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. You can lose money on these products, and each provider publishes its own loss figure under FCA rules. You should consider whether you understand how they work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Automated and API trading can amplify losses through bugs, connectivity failures and runaway orders. Lists the contracts that can be bought on one symbol now, with the barrier, stake and duration limits of each. On a logged in connection only the contracts that account may trade are returned. - Message: `contracts_for` - Interface: Deriv WebSocket API - Group: Market data - Status: verified. Source: [developers.deriv.com](https://developers.deriv.com/llms/contracts-for.md), checked 2026-10-12. - The definition file it was checked against: https://developers.deriv.com/schemas/contracts_for_request.schema.json This is a message of the Deriv WebSocket API, not an HTTP endpoint. It has no method and no path: it is sent as JSON over an open WebSocket connection. It is in no OpenAPI file on this site and the request builder does not list it. ## The message - Name: `contracts_for` - Direction: Request, sent by the client - Carried by: WebSocket. Deriv's page marks this call as needing no login, so it can be sent on the public connection as well. The demo and real addresses are not opened as printed: POST /trading/v1/options/accounts/{accountId}/otp returns the address for one account with a one time password already in it. - Public market data, no login: `wss://api.derivws.com/trading/v1/options/ws/public` - Demo account: `wss://api.derivws.com/trading/v1/options/ws/demo` - Real account: `wss://api.derivws.com/trading/v1/options/ws/real` ## Fields - `contracts_for` (type string, required): The symbol, by the short name that active_symbols returns. - `passthrough` (type object, optional): Anything you want carried through the call. It comes back unchanged inside echo_req. - `req_id` (type integer, optional): A number of your own that is returned on the answer, so answers can be matched to requests. ## What arrives `contracts_for`: The contracts on offer for the symbol. Each entry of available describes one, and the fields listed here are a selection of what an entry can hold. - `contracts_for.available` (type array of objects, required): One entry for each contract on offer. It holds at least one. - `contracts_for.available[].contract_type` (type string, required): The contract type, in the form proposal and buy take. - `contracts_for.available[].contract_category` (type string, required): The category the contract type belongs to. - `contracts_for.available[].min_contract_duration` (type string, required): The shortest duration the contract can be bought for. - `contracts_for.available[].max_contract_duration` (type string, required): The longest duration the contract can be bought for. - `contracts_for.available[].min_stake` (type number, optional): The smallest stake accepted. - `contracts_for.available[].max_stake` (type number, optional): The largest stake accepted. - `contracts_for.available[].underlying_symbol` (type string, required): The symbol the contract is on. - `contracts_for.hit_count` (type number, optional): How many contracts are on offer. - `echo_req` (type object, required): A copy of the request that was sent. - `msg_type` (type string, required): Names the kind of answer. Here it is contracts_for. - `req_id` (type integer, optional): The number the request carried. Present only where the request had one. ## Sample Written by this site from the fields recorded on this page. It has not been run against a terminal, a server or an account, and the values in it are placeholders. No credential is typed into it: where a field holds one, the placeholder says where it comes from. Nothing is entered on this site. ```json { "contracts_for": "R_50" } ``` ## Limits that apply at Deriv - Headline limit: 80/min per logged in user (REST) - Scope: user, REST - Sources conflict: [developers.deriv.com](https://developers.deriv.com/llms/api-overview.md) states 60 REST requests per minute per token, checked 2026-10-12. Deriv's API overview in the text form it publishes for AI tools gives REST 60 requests a minute per token, where its Limits page gives 80 a minute per logged in user. The same overview also gives 100 WebSocket requests a second per connection, 100 active subscriptions per connection and 5 concurrent WebSocket connections per user, none of which the Limits page mentions. Deriv's own pages disagree; the conflict is labelled, not resolved. Pace against 60. - Status: conflicting. Source: [developers.deriv.com](https://developers.deriv.com/docs/limits/), checked 2026-10-12. - Note: From the Limits page: REST is also capped at 300 a minute and 1,000 per ten minutes per IP address. WebSocket budgets, each shared by the calls in its row, a minute and an hour: proposal, proposal_open_contract, buy and sell 360 and 14,400; balance and statement 100 and 2,000; portfolio and profit table 30 and 1,500; all other calls 220 and 14,400. ping sits outside these budgets at 10 a second per connection. ## Related Deriv messages: Market data - [active_symbols](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/messages/active-symbols): Lists the symbols that can be traded now, with the market each belongs to and whether it is open. The symbol codes it returns are what ticks, ticks_history and proposal expect. - [ticks](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/messages/ticks): Asks for the latest price of one symbol or several. With subscribe set to 1 a new tick message follows each time the price changes, until the stream is stopped with forget. - [ticks_history](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/messages/ticks-history): Returns past prices of one symbol, as single ticks or as candles of a chosen width. With subscribe set to 1 it then keeps sending each new tick or the candle now forming. ## More on Deriv - [All Deriv messages](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/messages): 19 documented here, grouped by what they do. - [Instrument search: the call at each API](https://openbrokerapi.com/endpoints/instrument-search): The same job at every broker and platform API recorded here, HTTP or not. - [Deriv API quickstart](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/quickstart) - [All Deriv error codes](https://openbrokerapi.com/errors/deriv) - [Deriv API page](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv): The full record: access, authentication, limits and the source for each. ## Licence and how to cite The records behind this page are all rights reserved. This file is the page itself, at its own address, in another format. It is not part of the CC BY 4.0 downloads listed at https://openbrokerapi.com/data. Quote from it with a link to the page. Cite as: Deriv contracts_for. Broker API Hub, https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers/deriv/messages/contracts-for, newest check 2026-10-12. Where you rely on a single figure, cite the source and the checked date printed beside it as well. Where this page and a broker's own documentation differ, the documentation wins.