ServiceNow REST API

servicenow.com · Company

Company Basic Auth Free Tier Technology Financial Services Healthcare ITSM Enterprise Developer Tools

REST API for ServiceNow — the leading IT Service Management and workflow automation platform. Access incidents, changes, problems, CMDB, service catalog, and any custom table. ServiceNow has a free Personal Developer Instance (PDI) program.

Authentication

Basic Auth HTTP Basic auth with ServiceNow user credentials, or OAuth2 (recommended for production). Free Personal Developer Instance available at developer.servicenow.com.

Sample Requests

GET Get incidents

Returns incident records. Filter with sysparm_query using ServiceNow encoded query format.

https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident?sysparm_limit=10&sysparm_query=active=true&sysparm_fields=number,short_description,state,priority

Hover any highlighted part to learn what it does

Headers — extra info sent with the request

Accept	application/json
Authorization	Basic BASE64_USER_PASS

curl -X GET "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident?sysparm_limit=10&sysparm_query=active%3Dtrue&sysparm_fields=number%2Cshort_description%2Cstate%2Cpriority" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS"

import requests
params = {
    "sysparm_limit": "10",
    "sysparm_query": "active=true",
    "sysparm_fields": "number,short_description,state,priority"
}
headers = {
    "Accept": "application/json",
    "Authorization": "Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS"
}
response = requests.get(
    "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident",
    params=params,
    headers=headers,
)
print(response.json())

const url = new URL('https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident');
url.searchParams.set('sysparm_limit', '10');
url.searchParams.set('sysparm_query', 'active=true');
url.searchParams.set('sysparm_fields', 'number,short_description,state,priority');

const response = await fetch(url, {
  headers: {
    'Accept': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS'
  },
}); 
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
	"net/url"
)

func main() {
	baseURL, _ := url.Parse("https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident")
	q := baseURL.Query()
	q.Set("sysparm_limit", "10")
	q.Set("sysparm_query", "active=true")
	q.Set("sysparm_fields", "number,short_description,state,priority")
	baseURL.RawQuery = q.Encode()
	targetURL := baseURL.String()
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", targetURL, nil)
	req.Header.Set("Accept", "application/json")
	req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS")

	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, _ := client.Do(req)
	defer resp.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
	fmt.Println(string(body))
}

require "net/http"
require "json"

uri = URI("https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident")
uri.query = URI.encode_www_form({
  "sysparm_limit" => "10",
  "sysparm_query" => "active=true",
  "sysparm_fields" => "number,short_description,state,priority"
})

http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = uri.scheme == "https"

req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
req["Accept"] = "application/json"
req["Authorization"] = "Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS"

res = http.request(req)
puts JSON.parse(res.body)

<?php
$url = "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident?" . http_build_query([
    "sysparm_limit" => "10",
    "sysparm_query" => "active=true",
    "sysparm_fields" => "number,short_description,state,priority"
]);
$opts = ["http" => [
    "method" => "GET",
    "header" => implode("\r\n", [
        "Accept: application/json",
        "Authorization: Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS"
    ]),
]];
$ctx = stream_context_create($opts);
$res = file_get_contents($url, false, $ctx);
print_r(json_decode($res, true));

POST Create an incident

Creates a new incident record.

https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident

Hover any highlighted part to learn what it does

Headers — extra info sent with the request

Content-Type	application/json
Authorization	Basic BASE64_USER_PASS

Request Body — data you're sending

{
  "impact": "1",
  "urgency": "1",
  "category": "hardware",
  "short_description": "Server is down"
}

curl -X POST "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"impact":"1","urgency":"1","category":"hardware","short_description":"Server is down"}'

import requests
headers = {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    "Authorization": "Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS"
}
data = {
    "impact": "1",
    "urgency": "1",
    "category": "hardware",
    "short_description": "Server is down"
}
response = requests.post(
    "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident",
    headers=headers,
    json=data,
)
print(response.json())

const url = 'https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident';

const response = await fetch(url, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS'
  },
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({
  "impact": "1",
  "urgency": "1",
  "category": "hardware",
  "short_description": "Server is down"
}),
}); 
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
	"bytes"
	"encoding/json"
)

func main() {
	targetURL := "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident"
	jsonData, _ := json.Marshal({"impact":"1","urgency":"1","category":"hardware","short_description":"Server is down"})
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", targetURL, bytes.NewBuffer(jsonData))
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
	req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS")
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")

	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, _ := client.Do(req)
	defer resp.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
	fmt.Println(string(body))
}

require "net/http"
require "json"

uri = URI("https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident")

http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = uri.scheme == "https"

req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri)
req["Content-Type"] = "application/json"
req["Authorization"] = "Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS"
req["Content-Type"] = "application/json"
req.body = "{\"impact\":\"1\",\"urgency\":\"1\",\"category\":\"hardware\",\"short_description\":\"Server is down\"}"

res = http.request(req)
puts JSON.parse(res.body)

<?php
$url = "https://{instance}.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident";
$opts = ["http" => [
    "method" => "POST",
    "header" => implode("\r\n", [
        "Content-Type: application/json",
        "Authorization: Basic YOUR_BASE64_CREDENTIALS",
        "Content-Type: application/json"
    ]),
    "content" => json_encode({"impact":"1","urgency":"1","category":"hardware","short_description":"Server is down"}),
]];
$ctx = stream_context_create($opts);
$res = file_get_contents($url, false, $ctx);
print_r(json_decode($res, true));

Postman Setup Guide

Get Postman ↗

Get a FREE Personal Developer Instance at https://developer.servicenow.com — no credit card needed
Your instance URL: https://{instance}.service-now.com
In Postman, set Authorization to Basic Auth with admin credentials
Table API: /api/now/table/{table_name} — works for any ServiceNow table
Use sysparm_query for filtering: field=value^ANDfield2=value2
Use sysparm_fields to limit returned columns and reduce payload size
Download official Postman collection at https://developer.servicenow.com

What can you build with ServiceNow REST API?

ServiceNow REST API is a Company API. Developers commonly use company APIs for:

enriching CRM records with company firmographics
building lead-generation and prospecting tools
verifying business identity and registration details
monitoring competitors and market intelligence
powering B2B data enrichment pipelines

Basic authentication. Send your username and password (Base64-encoded) in the Authorization header. Always use HTTPS — Basic auth over plain HTTP exposes your credentials. ServiceNow REST API is free to use up to a usage limit, making it a low-risk choice to experiment with.

New to APIs? Read our beginner's guide · Learn about API keys · What is REST?

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