Question: Ongoing Reverse-Proxy via Rewrites and Fair Use Guidelines

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1

Hi Vercel team and community,

We are currently planning a phased migration of our site using the Next.js Rewrites feature. According to your official guide, this feature allows requests received on Vercel to be reverse-proxied to another URL (“Can I use Vercel as a reverse proxy?” – Last updated May 8, 2024):

However, your Fair Use Guidelines explicitly list “Proxies and VPNs” as “Never fair use” (Last updated March 7, 2025):

Since these documents appear to conflict, could you please clarify the following?

  1. If, after our phased migration, we continue to reverse-proxy requests for non-migrated pages via Rewrites, would that usage be considered acceptable under the Fair Use Guidelines?
  2. If long-term proxying is disallowed, at what point or under what conditions is a migration considered complete—i.e., when should proxying cease?
  3. If we wish to continue this usage beyond the normal limits, which Vercel plan or process (for example, an exception under the Enterprise Plan) would you recommend?

Thank you for your time and assistance. I look forward to your guidance.

Best regards,

5

Hi, sorry for the delay here but I had to run it past legal to double check

I can confirm that a reverse-proxy for your own services falls within acceptable use of Vercel

The “No Proxies or VPNs” rule is in place to stop people from disguising their own traffic to unaffiliated third parties as coming from a Vercel IP

You are permitted to use Next.js Rewrites in this manner during your migration

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6

Hi, Thank you very much for checking with your legal team and confirming that using a reverse-proxy for our own services is acceptable under Vercel’s policy. We appreciate the clarification around the “No Proxies or VPNs” rule and its intent.

We will proceed with our incremental migration plan using Next.js Rewrites as discussed.

Thanks again for your help!

Best regards,

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