Installation

Install FastAPI and its dependencies to start building high-performance APIs

Installation

Get started with FastAPI by installing it in your Python environment.

Requirements

FastAPI requires Python 3.10 or higher. Make sure you have a compatible Python version installed.

You can check your Python version with:

python --version

Installation options

FastAPI offers two installation options depending on your needs:

Standard installation (recommended)

1. Create a virtual environment

   It’s recommended to create a virtual environment for your project:

   python -m venv venv
   

   Activate the virtual environment:

   macOS/Linux

   source venv/bin/activate
   
2. Install FastAPI with standard dependencies

   Install FastAPI with all standard dependencies included:

   pip install "fastapi[standard]"
   

   Make sure to use quotes around "fastapi[standard]" to ensure it works correctly in all terminals.

3. Verify installation

   Verify that FastAPI is installed correctly:

   python -c "import fastapi; print(fastapi.__version__)"
   

Minimal installation

If you want more control over dependencies, you can install just the core FastAPI package:

pip install fastapi

With the minimal installation, you’ll need to install additional dependencies manually based on your needs:

# For the development server
pip install "uvicorn[standard]"

# For form data and file uploads
pip install python-multipart

# For email validation
pip install email-validator

What’s included in the standard installation?

When you install fastapi[standard], you get:

Used by Pydantic:

• email-validator - Email validation support
• pydantic-settings - Settings management
• pydantic-extra-types - Extra data types

Used by Starlette:

• httpx - HTTP client for testing with TestClient
• jinja2 - Template rendering support
• python-multipart - Form parsing and file uploads

Used by FastAPI:

• uvicorn[standard] - ASGI server for running your application
• fastapi-cli[standard] - Command-line interface with the fastapi command

The fastapi[standard] installation includes fastapi-cloud-cli for deploying to FastAPI Cloud. If you don’t want this, use pip install "fastapi[standard-no-fastapi-cloud-cli]" instead.

Understanding the dependencies

Core dependencies

FastAPI has only a few core dependencies that are always installed:

• Starlette (≥0.46.0) - Web framework foundation
• Pydantic (≥2.7.0) - Data validation using Python type hints
• typing-extensions (≥4.8.0) - Backported type hints
• typing-inspection (≥0.4.2) - Runtime type inspection
• annotated-doc (≥0.0.2) - Documentation annotations

Optional dependencies

You can install additional packages for specific features:

# For JSON performance improvements
pip install orjson
# or
pip install ujson

# For additional Pydantic types
pip install pydantic-extra-types

Next steps

Now that you have FastAPI installed, you’re ready to build your first API:

Quick start guide

Create your first FastAPI application in minutes