# Generate a license key through the Avalara Portal

Source: https://developer.avalara.com/products/ecm/integration-guides/document-management/ifu0126309772296/

Guide: Exemption Certificate Management (ECM)

# Generate a license key through the Avalara Portal

Learn how to generate a license key in the Avalara Portal and understand its implications.

Use the following steps to generate and reset your license key in the AvaTax portal.

1.  Sign in to the Avalara Portal for the appropriate environment.

2.  Select Settings.

3.  Select Reset License Key.

This page is restricted to account administrators. You only have one license key, and Avalara can’t recover it.

When you generate a new license key, all older keys are immediately revoked and unusable. This is useful if your key is lost or stolen, as you can revoke it instantly. However, generating a new key may impact existing systems using the Avalara Calculation engine.

Learn how to construct an authorization using an Avalara License Key:

TASK

RESULT

Start with the word `Basic`, followed by a username, a colon, and a password. There are no spaces between any values.

`Basic username:password`

Replace the `username` with your username and the `password` with your password. Ensure that there are no whitespace characters unless they’re part of your username or password.

`Basic bob@example.org:bobspasswordgoeshere`

Use a [Base64 encoding program](https://www.google.com/webhp#q=base64+encoding) to encode the right-hand side of the string.

`Basic Ym9iQGV4YW1wbGUub3JnOmJvYnNwYXNzd29yZGdvZXNoZXJI`

Add this to the `Authorization` header in your HTTP request.

`Authorization: Basic Ym9iQGV4YW1wbGUub3JnOmJvYnNwYXNzd29yZGdvZXNoZXJI`

**Parent topic:** [License key authentication](/document-management/jwg4610283771454/ "Learn how to use license keys for AvaTax account authentication.")