It's far from being obvious how included resources and pagination plays together. It should be clarified in the specification itself. It links many complex topics: 1. Relationship URLs 2. Resource identifier objects as primary data 3. `include` query parameter and relationship paths for relationship URLs For additional context, please see this recent question in the forum about it: https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/where-to-put-pagination-links-for-included-collections/2885