The present disclosure relates to systems and methods of implementing rate limiting in a representational state transfer (REST) application programming interface (API) system. A method of operating an instance of a REST API server, includes: receiving a REST API request that matches a rate limit rule associated with the instance of the REST API server; preparing a REST API response that includes rate limiting response headers. The method includes determining whether a rate limit violation exists that corresponds to the rate limit rule and, when it does, adding an error message to the REST API response. Otherwise, the REST API request is fulfilled and corresponding data is added to the REST API response. The method includes sending the REST API response including the rate limiting response headers and either the error message or the corresponding data.