---
title: "Live endpoints"
description: "Learn about the structure of live endpoints and additional recommendations for using live endpoints."
url: "https://docs.adyen.com/development-resources/live-endpoints"
source_url: "https://docs.adyen.com/development-resources/live-endpoints.md"
canonical: "https://docs.adyen.com/development-resources/live-endpoints"
last_modified: "2024-01-18T13:03:00+01:00"
language: "en"
---

# Live endpoints

Learn about the structure of live endpoints and additional recommendations for using live endpoints.

[View source](/development-resources/live-endpoints.md)

To communicate with our API, you submit HTTP requests to applicable endpoints.

These endpoints differ for test and live accounts, and also depend on the data format (SOAP, JSON, or FORM) you use to submit data to the Adyen payments platform.

You can [view your live endpoints](#view-your-live-endpoints) in your Customer Area. When using our [libraries](/development-resources/libraries) or [plugins](/plugins), you also need to pass a [prefix for the live URL](#live-url-prefix).

On this page, you can also read about our recommended [Maximum Transmission Unit](#maximum-transmission-unit) setting, and [connection keepalive](#connection-keepalive).

## Requirements

Before you begin, take into account the following requirements, limitations, and preparations.

| Requirement                                                               | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Integration type**                                                      | An [online payments](/online-payments/) integration.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| **[API credential roles](/development-resources/api-credentials/roles/)** | Make sure that you have the roles that are required for the API(s) you are using from the [roles for payments integrations](/development-resources/api-credentials/roles/#roles-for-payments).                                                                                                                                                  |
| **Setup steps**                                                           | Before you begin:- Apply and get your [live account](/get-started-with-adyen/).
- [Generate an API key](/development-resources/api-credentials/#generate-api-key) for the live environment.
- Refer to the [go-live checklist](/online-payments/go-live-checklist/) to get an overview of the steps required when taking your integration live. |

## View your live endpoints

Live endpoints are set up automatically. To view your live endpoints in your [live Customer Area](https://ca-live.adyen.com/), go to **Developers** > **API URLs**.

On the **API URLs and Response** page, you can see the configured data centres and prefixes for your company account.

### Location-based live endpoints

If you need to connect to a certain data center of the Adyen payments platform (for example, US or AU data centers), you can set up location-based live endpoints. To use location-based live endpoints, contact our [Support Team](https://ca-test.adyen.com/ca/ca/contactUs/support.shtml?form=other).

If you use a location-based live endpoint, and use our Drop-in/Components integrations:

* For web integrations, if you embed the script and stylesheet to load the client-side resources, make sure to use the [region-specific URL](/online-payments/web-best-practices#embed-script-and-stylesheet) that matches the region of your live endpoint.
* When you go live, set the `environment` for your Drop-in/Component to match your live endpoint region. Find the `environment` values for each platform in our [Sessions](/online-payments/build-your-integration/sessions-flow) and [Advanced](/online-payments/build-your-integration/advanced-flow) flow integration guides.

## Pass the URL prefix

The live URL prefix is a string composed of a hex-encoded random part and your company name. When using our [libraries](/development-resources/libraries) or [plugins](/plugins) for live transactions, you need to pass the prefix for the live URL.

To get your URL prefix, in your [live Customer Area](https://ca-live.adyen.com/), go to **Developers** > **API URLs** > **Prefix**.

For example, if this is your prefix for your live URL: **1797a841fbb37ca7-AdyenDemo**

Then your live URL for the `/payments` endpoint on Checkout API v69 is: https\://**1797a841fbb37ca7-AdyenDemo**-checkout-live.adyenpayments.com/checkout/v72/payments

## Live endpoints structure

The tables below show the structure of test and live endpoints for the [Checkout API](https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/Checkout/latest/overview) and [Classic Payments API](https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/Payment/latest/overview).

### Checkout API endpoints

|      |                                                                                                  |
| ---- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Test | https\://checkout-**test**.adyen.com/**\[version]**/**\[method]**                                |
| Live | https\://**\[prefix]**-checkout-**live**.adyenpayments.com/checkout/**\[version]**/**\[method]** |

### Classic Payments API endpoints

|      |                                                                                                        |
| ---- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Test | https\://pal-**test**.adyen.com/pal/servlet/Payment/**\[version]**/**\[method]**                       |
| Live | https\://**\[prefix]**-pal-**live**.adyenpayments.com/pal/servlet/Payment/**\[version]**/**\[method]** |

In the live endpoint examples:

* `[version]`: The version number, always starting with "v", for example, **v52**. To learn more about API versioning for classic and new APIs, see [Versioning](/development-resources/versioning).
* `[method]`: The endpoint name, for example, **payments**, or **sessions**.
* `[prefix]`: The [live ULR prefix](#live-url-prefix) from your Customer Area.

Each [company account](/account/account-structure/#company-account) is provided with a unique hostname to communicate with Adyen's APIs. By connecting to this merchant-specific hostname, Adyen has more control over the routing of transactions. This allows Adyen to improve service robustness and availability for our merchants.

By default, all transactions for a merchant-specific endpoint are routed to the same infrastructure as the standard endpoint, however in case of an infrastructure problem on the standard endpoint, especially if the cause is outside of Adyen's scope of control, alternative routing can be enabled to backup infrastructure and new infrastructure can be provisioned on demand.

## Maximum Transmission Unit

We strongly recommend setting the [Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit) to 1500 bytes on the network interfaces connecting to Adyen endpoints. The MTU defines the maximum permissible size of the packets passing through the interface. As most of the public internet assumes a maximum packet size of 1500 bytes, configuring the MTU to larger values can lead to connectivity and stability issues.

## Connection keepalive

You can keep your connections to Adyen endpoints open for longer so you can continue to send or receive data as part of the same TCP session.\
You can do this in your client-side software by enabling TCP keepalive and HTTP keepalive for HTTP connections.

Make sure to enable both TCP keepalive and HTTP keepalive for HTTP connections to avoid connection errors.

### Timeouts

Adyen endpoints have a 60-second time-out for inactive HTTP connections with keepalive enabled. If no new data is transmitted within 60 seconds of the TCP session, we initiate closing the TCP connection.

To prevent connection issues, we recommend you set the client-side HTTP keepalive timeout to be shorter than 60 seconds, for example between 30 and 50 seconds.

## See also

* [Referrals API reference](/risk-management/automate-submitting-referrals/referrals-api-reference/)
* [Test cards API](/development-resources/test-cards-and-credentials/create-test-cards/test-cards-api/)
* [Terminal API endpoints](/point-of-sale/design-your-integration/terminal-api#endpoints)
* [Go live with Adyen for Platforms](/platforms/integration-checklist/#go-live)
