Eurostat API

EU statistics, keyless and free — 8,877 datasets, and the codes move under you.

by Eurostat

Last updated

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From
Free
Platforms
Web

What it is

Eurostat is the European Commission's statistical office, and its dissemination API is the programmatic half of the Data Browser. Three services sit on one host under ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/: the API Statistics service, which returns JSON-stat 2.0 and takes filters as unordered query parameters; and SDMX 2.1 and SDMX 3.0 endpoints for clients that already speak the standard. None of them needs a key.

A query is as blunt as it looks — name the dataset code, pin the dimensions you care about, leave the rest unfiltered. Datasets refresh twice a day, at 11:00 and 23:00 CET, when newer data or a structural change exists.

Behind it is official European statistics — prices, national accounts, labour, trade, industrial production, government finance — which is where the euro area's macro prints come from before anyone repackages them.

Pricing

Free, keyless and anonymous, confirmed by an unauthenticated request on 19 September 2026. The only limit is per extraction rather than per account, and it is counted in cells: under 500,000 the data comes back immediately, 500,000 to 5 million is queued and delivered asynchronously, and above 5 million the request is refused with HTTP 413 and EXTRACTION_TOO_BIG — which is an instruction to add filters, not something to wait out. On 19 September 2026 an SDMX 3.0 data request came back not as data but as a SOAP envelope carrying a queued job id; plan for that path if you pull whole datasets rather than slices.

Re-use runs under the Commission Decision of 12 December 2011: commercial use with attribution, citing the dataset DOI and the access date, and no written licence to apply for. The exceptions are narrow and sharp — data for countries outside the EU, EFTA and the acceding and candidate list, trade declared by Liechtenstein or Switzerland, and Austrian trade at 8-digit Combined Nomenclature level all sit outside the commercial permission.

Data & coverage

The catalogue table of contents listed 8,877 datasets and 1,456 tables across 1,924 folders on 19 September 2026. Scope is the EU27 plus EFTA, candidate countries and a few others: the monthly HICP dataflow carries 46 reference areas, aggregates included, down to Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States. Euro area all-items HICP for August 2026 came back at 3.2% year on year.

Freshness is the number to look at, and it is not flattering. Of those 8,877 datasets, 487 carry data into 2026 and 2,376 stop at 2025 — but 4,066, very nearly half the catalogue, stop at 2022 or earlier and keep answering queries exactly as readily as the live ones.

Integrations

Eurostat ships no client library. The packages in use are third-party: eurostat on PyPI is Noemi Emanuela Cazzaniga's, MIT-licensed, last released at 1.1.1 in June 2024, and eurostatapiclient is Emmanuel Bavoux's. Generic SDMX clients — sdmx1, pandasdmx, rsdmx — work against the SDMX endpoints. The API Statistics service sets CORS headers, so it can be called straight from a browser, which is unusual for a statistical agency. Bulk goes out as TSV and SDMX-CSV downloads rather than through the query API, and that is the sane route for a whole dataset.

Limitations

  • Dataset codes are retired in place, silently. prc_hicp_manr still returns HTTP 200; its title now ends in "(1997-2025)", its last update was 06.02.2026 and its data stops at December 2025. Nothing in the response says it has been superseded. The live series moved to the ECOICOP ver.2 dataflows, where the dimension is coicop18 rather than coicop, the all-items code is TOTAL rather than CP00, and the index base is 2025 = 100. A query carrying the old dimension fails with INVALID_QUERY_DIMENSION: Dimension "COICOP" is not defined.
  • No versioning at all. Eurostat says the database always holds the latest version, with no record of past ones. There are no vintages, so a revision overwrites history and nothing tells you it moved.
  • Errors arrive as SOAP faults — a malformed SDMX 2.1 query returns an XML Fault with a numeric faultcode, which is a strange thing to parse out of a service documented as REST.
  • The commercial carve-outs will catch someone. The comparison a macro dashboard most wants, euro area against the United States, is exactly what the country exclusion covers if the dashboard is sold.
  • No market data. No securities, no identifiers, no prices, and monthly is the fastest frequency here.

Alternatives

ECB Data Portal API is the better source for euro-area monetary and financial series, and it is daily where this is monthly. OECD Data and World Bank Open Data overlap on the macro indicators with wider country coverage and shallower detail. DBnomics mirrors Eurostat behind one query shape alongside dozens of other providers, which is easier if you are pulling from several agencies at once.

Specs

Interfaces
API
Export
CSV, JSON, API
Asset classes
—
Markets
EU
Platforms
Web
AI features
None
Pricing verified
Capabilities verified
Coverage verified

Also worth comparing

  • BLS Public Data API — CPI, payrolls and PPI from the agency that computes them. Free, 500 calls a day.
  • ECB Data Portal API — Euro reference rates, yield curves and €STR over keyless SDMX — with vintages.
  • FRED — The Fed's macro database — 851,100 series, a free key and 120 requests a minute.
  • IMF Data — Free, keyless SDMX access to IMF macro statistics — WEO included, forecasts and all.
  • OECD Data — Free, keyless macro statistics over SDMX — and SDMX is the price of admission.
  • World Bank Open Data — Free, keyless macro indicators for 217 economies — annual, lagged, and CC BY 4.0.

FAQ

Does the Eurostat API need a key?

No. An anonymous GET against the dissemination host returns data with no key, no account and no signup — verified on 19 September 2026. Nothing in the developer documentation states a rate limit either. The only documented ceiling is the size of a single extraction, measured in cells — under 500,000 it is answered immediately, 500,000 to 5 million is queued and delivered asynchronously, and anything above 5 million is refused outright with HTTP 413 and EXTRACTION_TOO_BIG, which tells you to add filters rather than to wait.

Can Eurostat data be used commercially?

Mostly, with attribution, under the Commission Decision of 12 December 2011 — cite the dataset DOI and the access date, and no written licence is needed. The carve-outs are specific and easy to trip over. Data for any country that is not an EU member, an EFTA member or an official acceding or candidate country is outside the commercial permission — the United States, Japan and China are Eurostat's own examples, and the instruction is to strip those rows out of the table before selling it. Trade data declared by Liechtenstein or Switzerland, and Austrian trade data at 8-digit Combined Nomenclature level, are excluded on the same terms.

Why does my Eurostat query suddenly return no recent data?

Most likely the dataset was frozen and superseded rather than deleted, and the API does not say so. prc_hicp_manr — the obvious code for monthly HICP annual rates — was retitled to end in 1997-2025, last updated on 06.02.2026 and stops at December 2025. It still answers 200. The live data moved to the ECOICOP ver.2 dataflows, where the dimension is coicop18 rather than coicop and the index base is 2025 = 100.

Which Eurostat API should I use?

The API Statistics service if you want JSON — it returns JSON-stat 2.0, supports CORS, and takes filters as ordinary query parameters in any order. The SDMX 2.1 and SDMX 3.0 services if you already have an SDMX client or need the full structural metadata. All three are on the same host and need no key.

Is Eurostat data versioned?

No. Eurostat states that its dissemination database always contains the latest version of a dataset, with no versioning and no documentation of past versions. There is no vintage parameter and no way to ask what a figure was on a given date — if you need that, you have to snapshot it yourself.