The Amadeus API now means Amadeus’s Enterprise APIs: a catalogue of more than 100 APIs for travel businesses, many of them SOAP. The free self-service portal closed on 17 July 2026, so there is no longer a sign-up for keys. Access starts with a request to Amadeus, needs accreditation and a negotiated contract, and ends with a certification review.

Many pages that rank for this term were written for the self-service tier. They explain free quotas and instant keys that no new customer can get. This guide covers what is left in September 2026: the Enterprise path, what it asks of you, what it costs to plan for, and what to do if it does not fit. The facts come from the Amadeus developer site, checked this month, and a published guide by AltexSoft, a software company that has built on Amadeus.

What Changed on 17 July 2026

The Amadeus developer site now opens with one line: “Amadeus for Developers self-service portal has been decommissioned on July 17th, this website is for Amadeus Enterprise API Portal only.”

That ends a model many small teams relied on. Here is what the self-service tier offered, according to AltexSoft, and what replaced it:

Self-service (closed) Enterprise (open)
Sign-up Create an account, register an app, get a key Request access; a consultant helps choose an offer
API style REST and JSON Mostly SOAP, with some REST
Content Public fares only; no American Airlines, Delta, British Airways or low-cost carriers Broader inventory, including negotiated and private fares
Testing Free monthly quota of 1,000–10,000 calls per API Enterprise APIs sandbox, after approval
Pricing Free quota, then roughly $0.003–$0.046 per call Negotiated monthly fee, quota, then per call
Who it suited Startups and solo developers Accredited, established travel sellers

If you were one of the teams on the left, our Amadeus API shutdown migration guide covers the move. This post is for anyone deciding whether the right-hand column is their path now.

What the Amadeus Enterprise APIs Include

Amadeus describes the Enterprise catalogue as “over a 100 Enterprise APIs” that approved customers can test in an Enterprise APIs sandbox. Its developer site highlights four of them, and they show the style of the catalogue:

API What it does Style
Master Pricer Travelboard Search Search a large volume of flight options, then sort and filter them SOAP
Air Sell From Recommendation Sell the chosen flights, with an optional optimisation algorithm SOAP
PNR Add Multi Elements Create a whole reservation in one transaction, once the full itinerary is known SOAP
Get Virtual Credit Card Generate a virtual card for a travel agency, outside the PNR SOAP

All four are SOAP. That matches AltexSoft’s reading: Amadeus is moving from SOAP to REST, but “to access most of the features, you still need to use SOAP.” Where a REST API covers what you need, you can use it; Amadeus supports mixing the two.

Amadeus is one of the three major GDS networks, alongside Sabre and Travelport. If the term is new, start with what a GDS is.

What Enterprise Gives You That Self-Service Did Not

The Enterprise path is harder to enter, but it is not only a cost. According to AltexSoft, it unlocks four things the self-service tier never had:

What you gain Why it matters
Wider airline content Carriers the self-service catalogue left out, including American Airlines, Delta, British Airways and low-cost carriers
Negotiated and private fares Self-service returned public fares only, so an agency could not sell the deals it had negotiated
Round-the-clock support 24/7 technical support, with a dedicated manager for your account
A service level agreement A contract that sets how much support you can expect

For an established seller, the first two rows are the reason to go direct. A travel management company with corporate fares, or an agency that sells mainly on the airlines self-service left out, gains content it could not reach before. For a startup testing an idea, none of the four rows justifies a monthly fee and a SOAP build.

Is the Amadeus API Free?

Not for a new customer, and that is the biggest change for the searchers behind this keyword. The free path was the self-service tier, and it is closed.

On the Enterprise side, AltexSoft describes the pricing like this:

  • A monthly fee, negotiated in your contract, which includes support and a free request quota.
  • A charge per call once you pass that quota.
  • Custom terms. Amadeus shapes pricing to the customer.
  • Look-to-book ratio matters. If your users search a lot and book little, the terms for calling the APIs can become less favourable.

AltexSoft’s comparison of the two tiers makes one more point worth keeping: the Enterprise model has a fixed cost but lower variable fees. For a platform with thousands of transactions, it can end up cheaper per booking than self-service would have been. For a team with a few hundred bookings a year, the fixed fee is the problem.

Amadeus publishes no Enterprise prices on its developer site. For how the three networks compare on cost, see our guide to GDS API cost.

What Amadeus Expects Before It Signs

Enterprise access has preconditions that self-service never had. According to AltexSoft, you should expect:

  • Accreditation. Enterprise access is aimed at businesses “such as being IATA/ARC certified.” Without IATA or ARC, you cannot issue flight tickets yourself.
  • A long negotiation. Talks “can last for weeks or even months.”
  • A clear use case. A consultant guides you through the portfolio and helps you pick an offer, so know what you will sell and where.

If you are not accredited, the usual route is to work with a host agency or an airline consolidator that is. Self-service used to build that relationship in: production use required a signed agreement with a consolidator. On the Enterprise path, you arrange it yourself.

Prepare your expected volumes and your look-to-book ratio before the first call. Both shape the contract, and both are harder to change later.

How to Get Amadeus Enterprise API Access, Step by Step

From the Amadeus developer site and AltexSoft’s account of the process:

  1. Request access through Amadeus’s contact form. The developer site’s “Get started with enterprise APIs” button leads there.
  2. Talk to a travel consultant. Amadeus says a consultant will guide you through the full portfolio and help select the offer that meets your needs.
  3. Negotiate and sign the contract, including pricing and a service level agreement for support.
  4. Build and test against test data in the Enterprise APIs sandbox.
  5. Certify. Amadeus checks how your application uses its APIs before it goes live.
  6. Go live. After certification, Amadeus switches your integration to production and real data.

Step 3 also decides your support. AltexSoft notes that Enterprise customers usually get a dedicated account manager and a support team, and that response speed often depends on the size of the customer.

What Certification Looks Like

Certification is not optional, even if you bought a ready-made solution. AltexSoft describes the flight certification steps:

Step What you do
Model standard trips A one-way trip for one person, a round trip for one person, and the same trips for two adults and for a family with a child and an infant
Sign every call Each request carries your unique ID
Send the log Requests and responses go to Amadeus
Wait for feedback Amadeus reviews and comments
Fix and resend Correct mistakes, send a new log, and wait again

The waiting is usually the longest part. On Enterprise, AltexSoft says certification “takes weeks rather than days.”

There is one piece of good news. Once the main flight workflow is certified, from search to ticketing, adding features such as seat maps is relatively fast. The first flow is the expensive one. Our guide to the airline ticketing API explains that last stage in more detail.

SOAP Is the Real Cost

Teams used to the self-service REST APIs are often surprised by the Enterprise side. AltexSoft lists why SOAP APIs are hard to work with:

  • Verbose XML instead of JSON.
  • Less flexible than REST.
  • Not orchestrated, so one operation often takes several requests.
  • Poorly described, with documentation that “leaves much to be desired.”

WSDL files help. You can generate client code from them and automate part of the work. But the effort sits in understanding each call and its order, not in parsing XML.

Budget for that in two ways. First, time: a team new to SOAP and GDS work should plan for a learning stage before the build moves fast. Second, people: GDS experience on the team shortens that stage more than familiarity with your own stack does. Plan the build around the booking flow, and check the catalogue for each step before you promise dates.

Amadeus vs Sabre vs Travelport: Access in 2026

The three networks no longer offer the same way in. After 17 July 2026 the gap is wide, and it changes which one a small team can even start with.

Amadeus Sabre Travelport
Free testing None for new users Free Developer Hub account and Try it Out sandbox TripServices trial credentials, no payment
Self-service access Closed 17 July 2026 Sabre says it is expanding, not closing, developer access Trial open; production contracted
Main API style Mostly SOAP REST for new products, large SOAP catalogue REST and JSON (TripServices)
Published price None None $5,000 a year, reported by AltexSoft in February 2026

Sabre addresses the change directly in its own developer FAQ: “While some travel platforms are closing self-service portals and restricting API access to select partners, Sabre is moving in the opposite direction.” That does not make Sabre the right choice for everyone. It does mean a startup that could no longer test Amadeus can still test the other two.

For the full paths, read our Sabre API guide and Travelport API guide. For a feature-by-feature view, see Amadeus vs Sabre vs Travelport.

Direct Amadeus, or Amadeus Through an Aggregator?

A direct Enterprise connection fits a business that sells high air volume, holds IATA or ARC accreditation, and can staff a SOAP integration. It gives full control of content, private fares and the commercial relationship.

For most former self-service users, it does not fit. The fixed monthly fee, the accreditation and the SOAP build are exactly what the self-service tier let them avoid. The usual alternative is an aggregator: one API that already holds the GDS connections.

Direct Amadeus Enterprise Through an aggregator
Contracts One with Amadeus, then one per GDS One
Time to first booking Six to twelve months per GDS Days or weeks
API style Mostly SOAP One normalized REST API
GDS certification Yours to pass Not your queue

The six-to-twelve-month figure is from Tripgic’s GDS page, for any direct GDS connection.

Tripgic is built for this second path. It connects to Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport through one REST API, under one commercial relationship, and returns normalized JSON with duplicate flights across sources removed. Sandbox credentials are free after a short KYC check. Pricing is a one-time activation, then the supplier’s net fare plus a flat fee per transaction — never a percentage. Which plans include full GDS access is on the pricing page.

Final Thoughts

The Amadeus API still exists, but it is no longer the easy on-ramp it was. Since 17 July 2026 it means Enterprise: over 100 APIs, mostly SOAP, behind accreditation, a negotiated contract and a certification review measured in weeks.

If you are an accredited seller with volume and a team that has built on a GDS, that path is open and worth pricing. If you were a self-service user, the question is different: not “how do I get Amadeus back,” but “which route gets me GDS content in days rather than months.” Answer that one before you fill in the contact form.