What changed
Until October 21 the program was business only. Garmin’s FAQ, as captured on September 24, said it was “available for enterprise use” and “only for business use,” with a banner reading “Stay tuned for more updates on the program.” There was no way in for someone who only wanted their own data, and DC Rainmaker reports that Garmin had closed the program to new applications in March, after more applications than it could handle, many of them for what he calls vibe-coded AI apps, and that Garmin’s own slow process was as much to blame.
The new overview page splits it in two. Personal is “secure access to your own Garmin Connect data for individuals who want to explore, analyze, and build personalized experiences using their own data.” Business has two tiers, Starter and Enterprise. The pages still read business only on the morning of October 21 and showed the new tiers by mid-morning Eastern time, so the change went live that day. We found no press release from Garmin.
| Tier | Who it’s for | Data | How you get it | Price and users (reported) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | One person, their own data; “not intended for commercial applications serving multiple end users” | Activity data (JSON and FIT), health data, women’s health data. Pull only, read only | Create a key yourself on Garmin Connect Web | Free, per DC Rainmaker and intervals.icu’s founder | Personal API FAQ, DC Rainmaker, intervals.icu forum |
| Starter (Business) | Organizations building apps for other users | Activity, Courses, Health, Training and Women’s Health APIs. Push only, no historical data, “Limited” user capacity | Apply with Garmin’s request form | Free, up to 1,000 users, per DC Rainmaker (Garmin’s page says “Limited”) | Overview, DC Rainmaker |
| Enterprise (Business) | Companies “operating at scale” | The same five APIs plus Golf. Push or ping/pull, “1 month +” of history, unlimited users, technical support | Request it through the Garmin Developer Portal; commercial terms set case by case | Needed above 1,000 users; a $1,000 entry fee credited toward billing per monthly active user, per-user price negotiated, per DC Rainmaker | Overview, DC Rainmaker |
The personal API key
Garmin’s setup page walks through it: sign in to Garmin Connect on the web, open the Personal API Key page, select Create Key, accept the terms, pick an expiry and create it. The key is shown once, so save it like a password. You then swap the key for an access token at Garmin’s token endpoint and call the API with that.
From the Personal API FAQ:
- Keys expire after 30 days, 90 days, 180 days or a year, your choice. Garmin emails about a week before.
- Access tokens last 24 hours (or until the key expires). There are no refresh tokens; you ask for a new one.
- You can delete a key at any time on Garmin Connect Web, and its tokens stop working with it.
- It’s for “developers, hobbyists, data enthusiasts, and individuals who want to build personal applications using their own Garmin data.”
The Swagger docs list 26 endpoints, every one of them a read. On the activity side there’s an activity search, each activity’s summary and splits, and a download of the activity file “in its original format.” The rest is daily data: steps, stress, heart rate, sleep, HRV, Body Battery, SpO2, hydration, weight, nutrition logs, menstrual cycle and fitness age, plus your heart-rate zone settings. Range calls for steps and stress cap at 28 days, and sleep, hydration and Body Battery at 31; daily summaries go up to a year per call.
You have one key at a time: the key page says that to make a new one you first delete the current one, and the old key stops working.
The terms you accept when you create the key, which Garmin titles “Garmin Connect Personal API Supplemental Terms,” have three parts. The key “may be used only by you” with tools “that you develop or operate for your own use,” and you may not sell or share it. Garmin may set limits on how many requests you make, change them at any time and “throttle, delay, reject, suspend, or otherwise restrict API requests without notice.” Breaking the terms can get your access suspended and the key revoked. They give no rate-limit numbers and say nothing about price or AI tools.
Garmin has also published an official Python client with a command-line tool, connect-personal-api-python on GitHub (Apache 2.0, also on PyPI). It doesn’t create keys; you give it the one you made on Garmin Connect.
If you’ve been scraping Garmin Connect or exporting files by hand, this is an official route.
What the first users found
The key page went live before its text did. Around 11 AM Eastern on October 21, one developer posted on X that a key had been issued but the page showed placeholder text and the key didn’t seem to work yet. An intervals.icu forum member reported the same placeholder terms, clicked through anyway, got an access token and pulled their sleep data. By early afternoon the same developer had pulled a summer of runs, elevation gain, sleep and HRV through the endpoints, and the terms text was in place by that afternoon. DC Rainmaker reports that creating a key took him about eight seconds.
In an r/Garmin thread that day, the talk was mostly about connecting AI assistants to Garmin data through the key, hope of no longer having to scrape Garmin Connect, and worry that Garmin will charge for it later. Nobody there reported prices, rate limits or waiting for approval.
Starter and Enterprise, for apps
Starter is “the starting point for organizations building apps with Garmin Connect API access.” The program FAQ pulls both ways on timing: Starter developers “can gain immediate access and launch with Garmin,” yet you get into the Developer Portal once your request “has been approved.” It puts a typical integration at one to four weeks. Data arrives by push, and Starter doesn’t include historical data, so an app sees what users sync after they connect. Garmin calls Starter’s user capacity “Limited” without a number; DC Rainmaker reports the cap is 1,000 users. It also notes that Starter’s Courses and Training APIs are the ones apps use to push routes and structured workouts to Garmin Connect.
Some features are marked Enterprise only on the API pages: backfilling a user’s older data and multiple projects on the Activity API, plus ping/pull delivery and Enhanced Beat-To-Beat Interval on the Health API. For Enterprise itself Garmin says “options and commercial terms are tailored based on business and technical requirements.”
Is it free?
Garmin’s pages don’t say, for any tier. The old FAQ said there were “no licensing or maintenance fees,” though it added that some metrics could need a license fee or a minimum device order. That line is gone from the new one.
DC Rainmaker reports that Personal and Starter (which the article mostly calls Startup) are free. Enterprise, which apps need to go beyond 1,000 users, is paid, as reported: an initial $1,000 entry fee that counts as a credit toward a bill per monthly active user, with the per-user price negotiated company by company. The article reports that existing Garmin partners become Enterprise by default, or Starter if they’re under 1,000 users, that no existing partner pays the $1,000 entry fee, and that companies start paying by April 1, 2027. DC Rainmaker objects to Garmin charging for access at all.
intervals.icu’s founder also wrote on October 21 that Garmin Connect users “can now access a free personal API key” and that app builders “can apply for Business Starter and start building with Garmin APIs for free” (forum post). Both are reports, not Garmin’s word.
For contrast, a Standard-tier Strava API app now needs a Strava subscription, and Strava’s API Policy restricts using its data with AI tools. Our Strava developer program post has the details. Neither Garmin’s Personal API pages nor the Supplemental Terms you accept when you create a key say anything about AI use either way.
intervals.icu and the apps that read from it
On October 9, intervals.icu’s founder wrote that new Garmin terms meant it would likely have to block Garmin data through its API, which other apps use to read your training. Intervals Pro closed on October 12, citing that. After a call with Garmin on October 14, the founder wrote that the third-party sharing requirements “are not new,” that the revisions were “part of the planned reopening of the Garmin Connect Developer Program,” and that there would be “an easier path for individuals and apps to access data from Garmin devices.”
What neither intervals.icu nor Garmin has said yet is whether intervals.icu still has to stop passing Garmin-sourced data to other apps. A user asked that on October 21, and a forum member replied with their own understanding that it will. The maker of an app that reads from intervals.icu asked the same later that day. As of the afternoon of October 21 the founder hadn’t answered. If you use an app that reads your Garmin training through intervals.icu, the direct routes now exist on Garmin’s side, but intervals.icu hasn’t confirmed whether that route closes, or when. One more thing to know before switching: DC Rainmaker writes that it “does sound like” Garmin strips some data it considers proprietary from FIT files sent through the API, data a file uploaded straight from the watch keeps. Garmin hasn’t said.
If you sync Garmin to Strava, there’s nothing to do: neither company has said that sync changes.
What’s still unknown
- Garmin’s own word on price. The prices and the 1,000-user cap above are reported; Garmin’s pages don’t state them.
- Rate limits. Garmin’s terms say it may set and change them; no numbers are published.
- FIT files. Whether files from the API leave out data that the watch’s own file keeps.
- intervals.icu’s API. Whether Garmin data stays in it.
We’ll update this post when any of those change. For other ways to get wearable data into an app, see Strava API alternatives, and for building on Strava itself, our developers page.
Questions
Does this change how my Garmin activities get to Strava?
Nothing on Garmin’s developer pages mentions Strava. The Garmin Connect to Strava sync, which Strava describes in its Garmin help article, is a separate connection you set up from Strava’s settings, and nothing Garmin or Strava has published says it changes.
Can the Personal API send workouts or courses to my watch?
Not as documented. Sending workouts, training plans and courses to Garmin Connect is what the Training and Courses APIs do, and those are listed under the business tiers only.
Is this the same as Connect IQ?
No. Garmin’s program FAQ says the Connect Developer Program APIs and Connect IQ, which is for watch faces, data fields, widgets and apps on the device, are different programs, and one doesn’t require the other.
Sources
- Garmin developer pages (read October 21, 2026): Program overview, Personal API, Personal API FAQ, Personal API Swagger docs, Program FAQ, Activity API, Health API, Starter access request form
- Garmin’s Personal API key page text, including the Supplemental Terms: the text file Garmin Connect loads for the key page (read October 21, 2026); Garmin’s Python client: GitHub, PyPI
- Garmin’s earlier FAQ: Internet Archive capture, September 24, 2026
- intervals.icu forum, “API access to Intervals.icu”: October 9, October 14, October 21, the open question, a launch-day report, an app maker’s question; Intervals Pro
- Reported: DC Rainmaker, Garmin Revamps and Opens Up Connect Developer API Program (October 21, 2026)
- Launch-day reports: a developer on X, late morning and early afternoon, October 21; r/Garmin thread
- Strava support: Garmin and Strava
