diff --git a/beetsplug/musicbrainz.py b/beetsplug/musicbrainz.py
index 231a045b7..374189e2e 100644
--- a/beetsplug/musicbrainz.py
+++ b/beetsplug/musicbrainz.py
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 import musicbrainzngs
 from confuse.exceptions import NotFoundError
+from requests_ratelimiter import LimiterMixin
 
 import beets
 import beets.autotag.hooks
@@ -34,6 +35,8 @@ from beets.metadata_plugins import MetadataSourcePlugin
 from beets.util.deprecation import deprecate_for_user
 from beets.util.id_extractors import extract_release_id
 
+from ._utils.requests import TimeoutSession
+
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from collections.abc import Iterable, Sequence
     from typing import Literal
@@ -57,6 +60,11 @@ FIELDS_TO_MB_KEYS = {
     "year": "date",
 }
 
+
+class LimiterTimeoutSession(LimiterMixin, TimeoutSession):
+    pass
+
+
 musicbrainzngs.set_useragent("beets", beets.__version__, "https://beets.io/")
 
 
@@ -121,12 +129,24 @@ BROWSE_CHUNKSIZE = 100
 BROWSE_MAXTRACKS = 500
 
 
+class MusicBrainzAPI:
+    api_url = "https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/"
+
+    @cached_property
+    def session(self) -> LimiterTimeoutSession:
+        return LimiterTimeoutSession(per_second=1)
+
+    def _get(self, entity: str, **kwargs) -> JSONDict:
+        return self.session.get(
+            f"{self.api_url}/{entity}", params={**kwargs, "fmt": "json"}
+        ).json()
+
+
 def _preferred_alias(
     aliases: list[JSONDict], languages: list[str] | None = None
 ) -> JSONDict | None:
     """Given a list of alias structures for an artist credit, select
     and return the user's preferred alias or None if no matching
-    alias is found.
     """
     if not aliases:
         return None
diff --git a/poetry.lock b/poetry.lock
index ba16420c2..46bf443ca 100644
--- a/poetry.lock
+++ b/poetry.lock
@@ -2683,6 +2683,21 @@ docs = ["sphinx", "sphinx_rtd_theme"]
 fuzzer = ["atheris", "hypothesis"]
 test = ["coverage[toml] (>=5.2)", "hypothesis", "pytest (>=6.0)", "pytest-benchmark", "pytest-cov", "pytest-timeout"]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "pyrate-limiter"
+version = "2.10.0"
+description = "Python Rate-Limiter using Leaky-Bucket Algorithm"
+optional = false
+python-versions = ">=3.7,<4.0"
+files = [
+    {file = "pyrate_limiter-2.10.0-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:a99e52159f5ed5eb58118bed8c645e30818e7c0e0d127a0585c8277c776b0f7f"},
+    {file = "pyrate_limiter-2.10.0.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:98cc52cdbe058458e945ae87d4fd5a73186497ffa545ee6e98372f8599a5bd34"},
+]
+
+[package.extras]
+all = ["filelock (>=3.0)", "redis (>=3.3,<4.0)", "redis-py-cluster (>=2.1.3,<3.0.0)"]
+docs = ["furo (>=2022.3.4,<2023.0.0)", "myst-parser (>=0.17)", "sphinx (>=4.3.0,<5.0.0)", "sphinx-autodoc-typehints (>=1.17,<2.0)", "sphinx-copybutton (>=0.5)", "sphinxcontrib-apidoc (>=0.3,<0.4)"]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "pytest"
 version = "8.4.2"
@@ -3236,6 +3251,24 @@ requests = ">=2.0.0"
 [package.extras]
 rsa = ["oauthlib[signedtoken] (>=3.0.0)"]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "requests-ratelimiter"
+version = "0.7.0"
+description = "Rate-limiting for the requests library"
+optional = false
+python-versions = "<4.0,>=3.7"
+files = [
+    {file = "requests_ratelimiter-0.7.0-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:1a7ef2faaa790272722db8539728690046237766fcc479f85b9591e5356a8185"},
+    {file = "requests_ratelimiter-0.7.0.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:a070c8a359a6f3a001b0ccb08f17228b7ae0a6e21d8df5b6f6bd58389cddde45"},
+]
+
+[package.dependencies]
+pyrate-limiter = "<3.0"
+requests = ">=2.20"
+
+[package.extras]
+docs = ["furo (>=2023.3,<2024.0)", "myst-parser (>=1.0)", "sphinx (>=5.2,<6.0)", "sphinx-autodoc-typehints (>=1.22,<2.0)", "sphinx-copybutton (>=0.5)"]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "resampy"
 version = "0.4.3"
@@ -4189,4 +4222,4 @@ web = ["flask", "flask-cors"]
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "2.0"
 python-versions = ">=3.10,<4"
-content-hash = "9e154214b2f404415ef17df83f926a326ffb62a83b3901a404946110354d4067"
+content-hash = "1b69db4cdc3908316b2e18a5620916aa55235ded58b275c4433819ffa4ed660b"
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 8b33e9fcb..7fd1cadba 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ numpy = [
 ]
 platformdirs = ">=3.5.0"
 pyyaml = "*"
+requests-ratelimiter = ">=0.7.0"
 typing_extensions = "*"
 unidecode = ">=1.3.6"