---
title: How do I get the raw body of a Serverless Function?
description: Learn how to disable body parsing for Vercel Serverless Functions to enable reading the raw data from a POST request.
url: "https://vercel.com/kb/guide/how-do-i-get-the-raw-body-of-a-serverless-function"
published: 2025-11-03
last_updated: 2025-11-10
authors: Lee Robinson
install_vercel_plugin: npx plugins add vercel/vercel-plugin
---

You can use Vercel Serverless Functions to receive webhooks from third-party services like Stripe. Certain providers require access to the raw body inside the function to validate the signature from the request.

## Accessing the raw body from the request

```javascript
export async function POST(request: Request) {
  const rawBody = await request.text()
  return Response.json({ rawBody })
}
```

## Testing your function locally

You can verify your function can accept and parse raw bodies locally:

1. Start your local development server with `vercel dev` (or `next dev`).
   
2. In another terminal window, run the `cURL` command below.
   

```bash
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" --data "This is raw data" http://localhost:3000/api/test
```

You should see a response like `{"rawBody": "This is raw data"}`.

## Related Documentation

- [Vercel Functions](/docs/functions)

## More Vercel Functions guides

- [How to choose between Functions, containers, and Daemons on Vercel](/kb/guide/vercel-functions-containers-daemons): Choose Vercel Functions for HTTP requests, container images for custom runtimes, and Daemons for continuous background workers.
- [Migrate self-hosted Next.js and containers from AWS to Vercel](/kb/guide/migrate-containers-from-aws-to-vercel): Migrate Next.js apps and HTTP containers from AWS to Vercel. Configure AWS access, assess background workers, and plan testing, DNS cutover, and rollback.
- [Next.js on Vercel vs Webflow Cloud](/kb/guide/next-js-on-vercel-vs-webflow-cloud): Compare running Next.js on Vercel Functions with Fluid compute against Webflow Cloud on Cloudflare Workers. Learn how Next.js feature support, runtimes, storage, pricing, and developer experience differ so you can choose the right platform.