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Last updated: 28 September 2026

This is the same engine the BGNinja website runs on, exposed directly over HTTP. It is free to call within the limits below. You do not need to ask us for access and there is no key to rotate.

Quick start

curl -s -o output.png \
  -F "file=@input.jpg" \
  https://bgninja.com/api/remove

That is the whole thing. output.png is your image with the background removed and an alpha channel where the background used to be.

Moving off the remove.bg API?

remove.bg's API page says that starting 1 December 2026, background removal moves to Leonardo.Ai. If you would rather not sign up somewhere new, the change to BGNinja is small:

Two differences: the free limit here is 10 images a day per IP address, and there is no image-URL input. Send the file itself. If you move real volume, tell us on the contact page first. For single photos in the browser, see the remove.bg alternative page and what the remove.bg shutdown means.

Endpoint

Parameters

Response

On success you get HTTP 200 and the raw bytes of a PNG, with Content-Type: image/png. The call is synchronous: there is no job id, no queue and nothing to poll. Write the body straight to a file or hand it to your image library.

Limits

These are real and enforced. There is no hidden unlimited tier, and the free result is the full-resolution image rather than a shrunken preview.

Errors

An error comes back as JSON with a single error key, not as an image. Check the status code before you write the body to a file.

$ curl -s -F "file=@notes.txt" https://bgninja.com/api/remove
{"error":"can't read this file (TXT), please upload a photo (JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC)."}

A 429 is about how many run at once, so retry the same image shortly after. A 402 is the daily count, so retrying before midnight will not help.

Examples

Python

import requests

with open("input.jpg", "rb") as f:
    r = requests.post(
        "https://bgninja.com/api/remove",
        files={"file": f},
        data={"src": "my-app"},
        timeout=120,
    )
r.raise_for_status()
open("output.png", "wb").write(r.content)

Node

import { readFile, writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";

const body = new FormData();
body.append("file", new Blob([await readFile("input.jpg")]), "input.jpg");
body.append("src", "my-app");

const r = await fetch("https://bgninja.com/api/remove", { method: "POST", body });
if (!r.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${r.status}`);
await writeFile("output.png", Buffer.from(await r.arrayBuffer()));

A flat white background instead of transparency

curl -s -o output.png \
  -F "file=@input.jpg" \
  -F "bg=ffffff" \
  https://bgninja.com/api/remove

What happens to your image

It is processed in memory and streamed straight back to you. Nothing is written to disk, so there is no stored copy sitting somewhere waiting to be deleted or leaked. We keep a count of how many requests came in and how big they were, and nothing that identifies the picture itself.

Using it in your own project

You are welcome to build on this, including in something you charge for. One condition, and one request:

• Request: pass a src label so we can see that an integration exists and avoid breaking it.
• Condition: if you use BGNinja on a website or in an app that other people use, name us (“Background removal by BGNinja”, linking to bgninja.com) somewhere users can see it, such as the footer or a credits page. It is the whole reason we can keep this free and without a key. Using it on your own files needs no credit.

If you are about to send serious volume through it, say hello on the contact page first. We would rather hear from you than throttle you.

Questions

Terms of use are on the terms page, and what we do with data is on the privacy page.