Described herein are systems and methods for determining data rate in a direct sequence spread spectrum system. The systems may include circuits or processors for receiving a signal that was transmitted at an unknown data rate and determining the value of the unknown data rate based on a sequence of bits that is generated from processing the signal according to a first data rate. The methods may include receiving a signal having an unknown data rate, processing the signal according to a first data rate, generating another signal that corresponds to a sequence of bits that result from the processing, and determining the value of the unknown data rate according to the sequence of bits.