Quickstart Guide for the Coinbase Advanced Trade API

This quickstart walks you through everything you need to make your first successful call to the Coinbase Advanced Trade API — from creating credentials and installing a client library, to fetching live account data and browsing the product catalog. By the end you will have a working local setup ready to explore the full API.

Get API credentials

Before you can make any API calls, you need an API key and private key from Coinbase.

Sign in to your Coinbase account.
Go to Settings → API → Create API Key.
Give the key a name, select the View scope (sufficient for this quickstart), and click Create.
Copy your API key name and download your private key (PEM file). Store them somewhere safe — you will not be able to retrieve the private key again.

For full details on JWT generation and header formatting, see the Authentication guide.

Install the SDK or use curl

You can interact with the API using the official Coinbase SDK or plain HTTP with curl. Choose the option that fits your workflow.

# No installation required — curl is available on most systems.
# Export your credentials as environment variables for use in later steps.
export API_KEY_NAME="organizations/{org_id}/apiKeys/{key_id}"
export PRIVATE_KEY_PEM="$(cat /path/to/your/private-key.pem)"

pip install coinbase-advanced-py

npm install @coinbase/coinbase-advanced-sdk

The official SDKs handle JWT signing automatically on every request, so you do not need to implement token generation yourself. If you are using curl, you must generate and refresh a JWT manually before each call (tokens expire after 120 seconds).

Fetch your accounts

Send a GET request to /api/v3/brokerage/accounts to retrieve all brokerage accounts linked to your Coinbase profile, along with their available balances.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $JWT" \
  'https://api.coinbase.com/api/v3/brokerage/accounts'

from coinbase.rest import RESTClient

client = RESTClient(
    api_key="organizations/{org_id}/apiKeys/{key_id}",
    api_secret=open("/path/to/private-key.pem").read()
)

response = client.get_accounts()
for account in response["accounts"]:
    print(account["name"], account["available_balance"])

import { RESTClient } from "@coinbase/coinbase-advanced-sdk";
import { readFileSync } from "fs";

const client = new RESTClient({
  apiKey: "organizations/{org_id}/apiKeys/{key_id}",
  apiSecret: readFileSync("/path/to/private-key.pem", "utf8"),
});

const response = await client.getAccounts();
response.accounts.forEach((account) => {
  console.log(account.name, account.available_balance);
});

A successful response returns an array of account objects. Here is an example with two accounts:

{
  "accounts": [
    {
      "uuid": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
      "name": "BTC Wallet",
      "currency": "BTC",
      "available_balance": {
        "value": "0.05123400",
        "currency": "BTC"
      },
      "default": false,
      "active": true,
      "type": "ACCOUNT_TYPE_CRYPTO"
    },
    {
      "uuid": "b2c3d4e5-f6a7-8901-bcde-f12345678901",
      "name": "USD Wallet",
      "currency": "USD",
      "available_balance": {
        "value": "1250.00",
        "currency": "USD"
      },
      "default": true,
      "active": true,
      "type": "ACCOUNT_TYPE_FIAT"
    }
  ],
  "has_next": false,
  "cursor": "",
  "size": 2
}

Each account includes a uuid (used in other API calls), a human-readable name, the currency it holds, and an available_balance showing funds not currently locked in open orders.

List available products

Send a GET request to /api/v3/brokerage/products to retrieve the full catalog of tradable markets. You can filter by product_type or contract_expiry_type using query parameters.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $JWT" \
  'https://api.coinbase.com/api/v3/brokerage/products?limit=5'

response = client.get_products(limit=5)
for product in response["products"]:
    print(product["product_id"], product["status"])

const response = await client.getProducts({ limit: 5 });
response.products.forEach((product) => {
  console.log(product.product_id, product.status);
});

The response includes each product’s ID, current status, quote and base currencies, and precision rules for order sizing:

{
  "products": [
    {
      "product_id": "BTC-USD",
      "price": "62345.67",
      "price_percentage_change_24h": "1.23",
      "volume_24h": "12048.91",
      "status": "online",
      "base_currency_id": "BTC",
      "quote_currency_id": "USD",
      "base_min_size": "0.000016",
      "base_max_size": "1500",
      "base_increment": "0.00000001",
      "quote_increment": "0.01",
      "trading_disabled": false
    }
  ],
  "num_products": 1
}

Use product_id values (such as "BTC-USD") when placing orders or subscribing to market data channels.

Next steps

You have successfully authenticated, fetched your account balances, and explored the product catalog. You are ready to go deeper.

Place an Order

Learn how to place market and limit orders, handle order confirmation responses, and track order status.

API Reference

Explore the complete endpoint reference for accounts, orders, products, portfolios, and more.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

Resources

Quickstart Guide for the Coinbase Advanced Trade API

Place an Order

API Reference