# HTTP status code: 401 Unauthorized

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/errors/http/401, 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.

As text you can copy:

```
401 Unauthorized
```

- Kind: Status code
- Read from: [RFC 9110, HTTP Semantics, section 15.5.2](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110.html#section-15.5.2)
- Status: verified. Source: [rfc-editor.org](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110.html#section-15.5.2), checked 2026-10-09.

## What does 401 Unauthorized mean in HTTP?

The request was not applied because it lacks valid authentication credentials for the resource. The standard says the reply must carry a WWW-Authenticate header, and that when credentials were sent, 401 means they were refused.

## What it means in trading API work

In trading API work this is nearly always a token or key problem: the token has expired, it was sent in the wrong header, or it belongs to the demo environment while the call went to live, or the reverse.

This part is this site's own explanation, written for people learning to call a trading API. It is not part of the source cited above and it describes no particular broker.

## What should I do about 401 Unauthorized?

Check which environment the credential belongs to and how the API expects it to be sent. If sessions expire, log in again or refresh the token, then repeat the request. Never paste a credential into a forum post or a chat when asking for help.

This page is an independent explanation in plain words. The definition itself is in [the source it was read from](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110.html#section-15.5.2), which is the authority if the two ever differ.

## Where to go next

- [Everything decoded for HTTP](https://openbrokerapi.com/errors/http)
- [Getting started with API trading](https://openbrokerapi.com/guides/getting-started-with-api-trading): What an API is, what you need and how to make a first call safely.
- [Brokers](https://openbrokerapi.com/brokers): The record for each broker: access, limits, endpoints and error codes.
- [Platform APIs](https://openbrokerapi.com/platforms): APIs that belong to trading software offered by many brokers.
- [Error codes](https://openbrokerapi.com/errors): What each error means, and the fix where the source gives one.

## 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: HTTP status code: 401 Unauthorized. Broker API Hub, https://openbrokerapi.com/errors/http/401, newest check 2026-10-09.

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.