Florida Tax Certificate API Docs

Welcome to the Florida Tax Certificate API documentation.

Florida Tax Certificate API is an independent data platform and is not affiliated with the Florida Department of Revenue (FDOR), any county tax collector or clerk of court, LienHub, RealAuction / RealTaxLien, TaxCertSale, or any government agency. We mirror, normalize, and index public-records data — county tax-collector delinquency rolls and certificate-sale (tax-lien auction) feeds — and serve it through a stable REST + MCP surface so you do not have to scrape 67 separate county systems yourself. The county and sale-channel directory covers all 67 Florida counties. Certificate-level records currently cover 52 counties and 1,267,795 certificates, backed by 9,254,314 property-parcel records for enrichment; per-county depth is exposed on every county row as coverageStatus and certificateCount.

Start Here

• Authentication — API key format, header conventions, key prefixes (fltc_live_... / fltc_test_...), and how to get a key from the account page.
• Errors — Standard error envelope, HTTP status codes, and special codes (rest_disabled, JSON-RPC -32004).
• Rate Limits — Per-tier monthly quotas, requests-per-minute, and the RateLimit-* response headers.
• Billing — Subscriptions, credit packs, overage billing at $5 per 1K credits, and how to find your balance.
• MCP for AI Agents — Connect Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible agent to live Florida tax-certificate data. MCP is bundled with every paid plan (shared credit bucket); a standalone $5 MCP Starter add-on exists for MCP-only workflows.
• Webhooks — Webhook delivery format and HMAC signing (planned v2 shape).

Endpoints

All endpoints live under https://fltaxcerts.com/api/v1. Every request returns the standard { data, pagination, meta } envelope, where meta carries a request_id and the dataset_status.

Certificates

• Search Certificates — GET /api/v1/certificates/search — tax certificates by county, status, tax year, holder, vendor, face-amount range, sale-date range, and redemption flag. This is the core dataset: 1,267,795 certificates across 52 counties.
• Get Certificate — GET /api/v1/certificates/{id} — full certificate record, including bid rate and holder. The redemption and tax-deed-application fields are part of the record shape but are only sparsely populated today.
• Certificates by Parcel — GET /api/v1/certificates/by-parcel — every certificate tied to one parcel (empty list, never 404, on a coverage gap).
• Certificate Counts — GET /api/v1/certificates/counts — grouped status counts, scopable by county + tax year.
• Field Dictionary — GET /api/v1/certificates/fields — every certificate field, its type, and (for enums) its allowed values.

Auctions, Holders & Lands Available

• Search Certificate Sales — GET /api/v1/certificate-sales/search — annual county certificate-sale (tax-lien auction) summaries: date, vendor, volume, face value, and average bid rate.
• Search Holders — GET /api/v1/holders/search and GET /api/v1/holders/{id} — the certificate holder / fund directory: portfolio size, outstanding face value, and county footprint. Not yet ingested: zero holder records today. The endpoint returns a stable schema with an empty result set and meta.coverage.status = "not_yet_ingested".
• Search Lands Available — GET /api/v1/lands-available/search — certificates struck to the county after an unsold tax-deed sale ("lands available for taxes"). Not yet ingested: zero lands-available records today. The endpoint returns a stable schema with an empty result set and meta.coverage.status = "not_yet_ingested".

Reference & Account

• Sources — GET /api/v1/sources and GET /api/v1/sources/{county} — the per-county delinquency / certificate-sale feed registry, with vendor, sale URL, and freshness.
• Counties — GET /api/v1/counties — the county directory covers all 67 Florida counties with their tax-collector URL, certificate-sale vendor + URL, and certificate-sale URL. Certificate-level data is a subset of those 67: read each row's coverageStatus and certificateCount for the real depth.
• Account Usage — GET /api/v1/account/usage — current month consumption against your plan quota.

A Tax Certificate Is a Lien, Not the Property

A Florida tax certificate is a first lien against a parcel for unpaid ad-valorem taxes — it is not ownership of the property and does not convey title. The holder earns interest when the certificate is redeemed, and may apply for a tax deed after two years. Use these records to research liens, auctions, and redemption status — not to claim or transfer property. For the underlying parcel, owner, and valuation detail, cross-reference floridapropertyapi.com; every certificate record carries a parcel_url deep link.

FCRA Disclaimer

Florida Tax Certificate API data is not a consumer report as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681). You may not use it to make decisions about credit, employment, insurance, housing, or any other purpose covered by the FCRA. See the Terms of Service for the full acceptable-use policy.