# World Bank Open Data

Free, keyless macro indicators for 217 economies — annual, lagged, and CC BY 4.0.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/world-bank-open-data · Stock Market Data APIs*

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | World Bank |
| Category | Stock Market Data APIs |
| Job | macro |
| Website | https://data.worldbank.org |
| Pricing model | free |
| Free tier | true |
| Open source | false |
| Licence | none |
| Self-hosted | false |
| Tested hands-on | false |
| Last updated | 2026-09-14 |

### Pricing

| Tier | USD | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free | 0 USD | month |

### Coverage

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Asset classes | none |
| Markets | global |
| Works outside the US | true |
| Data latency | none |
| Platforms | web |
| AI features | none |

### Interfaces

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| API | true |
| Webhooks | false |
| Scripting | none |
| Python | true |
| Spreadsheet add-in | false |
| MCP server | false |
| Export | csv, json, xlsx, api |

### Capabilities

Yes: none

No: charting, screening, scanning, backtesting, automation, live_trading, paper_trading, portfolio_tracking, broker_import, tax_reporting, alerts, news, options_analysis

*Verified: pricing 2026-09-14; capabilities 2026-09-14; coverage 2026-09-14.*

## What it is

World Bank Open Data is the institution's public statistics catalogue and the REST API in front of
it. A GET against `api.worldbank.org/v2/country/br/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?format=json` returns
Brazil's GDP series with no key and no account. The API is on version 2; version 1 was retired in
November 2018 and its endpoints now answer "Resource not found".

What sits behind it is development statistics rather than market data — GDP, inflation,
population, debt, trade, governance scores — compiled from national statistical offices, the IMF,
the UN and the World Federation of Exchanges rather than measured by the World Bank itself. For a
stock-market reader that makes it a denominator source: the macro series you divide a portfolio
by, not anything you would trade on.

## Pricing

Free without qualification. No key, no tier, no quota page, and no rate limit stated anywhere in
the documentation. The bounds that exist are per-request rather than per-account: 50 rows a page by
default, up to 32,500 with `per_page` (40,000 returns a server error), 60 indicators maximum in one
query, a 4,000-character URL limit, and 15,000 data points per call on the SDMX endpoint.

The licence is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which is what makes this worth a
card rather than a bookmark — you may put the numbers inside a commercial product if you credit the
World Bank and its data providers. The exceptions are real: some third-party datasets carry the
Open Database License, a microdata research licence, or terms set by whoever supplied them, and
those cannot be redistributed on the same footing.

## Data & coverage

The `/v2/indicator` endpoint lists 29,544 indicator codes across 71 databases. Most of that is
archive. World Development Indicators, the database people mean, holds 1,498 of those codes, and
the World Bank describes it as roughly 1,400 series for 217 economies with history back to 1960. It
is refreshed quarterly — 27 January, 8 April and 1 July in 2026 — and every response carries the
source's `lastupdated` stamp, which for WDI currently reads 2026-07-13.

Everything is annual — no intraday, no daily, and for the overwhelming majority of series no
monthly either.

## Integrations

Plain REST, and XML by default — `format=json`, `jsonstat` and `jsonP` are opt-in, which catches
anyone who assumes otherwise. Bulk downloads are a separate route: `?downloadformat=csv` or
`?downloadformat=excel` against an indicator returns a zipped CSV or an Excel workbook holding
every economy and year at once, which is the sane way to take a whole series. There is an SDMX-ML
2.1 endpoint at `/v2/sdmx/rest/` for pipelines that already speak SDMX.

The World Bank ships no client library. The three Python packages in common use are all
third-party — `wbgapi` (MIT, Tim Herzog, published from a personal GitHub account), `wbdata`
(GPL-2.0-or-later, Oliver Sherouse) and `world_bank_data` (Marc Wouts) — and none of them is named
in the API documentation.

The institution also runs a second, newer platform, Data360, on its own host with its own API and
an official MCP server. That is not this API, the indicator codes are not interchangeable without
mapping, and no deprecation notice for the v2 Indicators API appears in its documentation.

## Limitations

- **Annual and lagged.** In September 2026 the newest GDP figure for most economies is 2025, and it
  arrived in the July refresh. Anything needing a number faster than a year is the wrong use.
- **The market series are half-covered.** Market capitalization of listed domestic companies
  (`CM.MKT.LCAP.CD`) has ever carried a value for 103 of the 217 economies, and only 68 have one
  for 2025. Stocks traded and listed-company counts are the same shape. They come from the World
  Federation of Exchanges, so an economy without a WFE member exchange is simply absent.
- **Survey-based series are worse.** The Gini index has a value for 171 economies, but only 62 of
  them have one for 2023 or later, and just four for 2025. A country's latest inequality figure
  being five years old is normal, not an edge case.
- **Whole databases are frozen and the API does not warn you.** Doing Business last updated in
  August 2021, Enterprise Surveys in March 2022, Africa Development Indicators in February 2013.
  All three still answer queries as readily as WDI does.
- **Figures are revised backwards without notice.** Historical values are restated at each
  quarterly refresh, the errata page publishes the list of changes after the fact, and there is no
  versioned snapshot to pin to. A number cached last quarter may not be the number today, and
  nothing in the response tells you it moved.
- **No prices, no tickers, no securities.** This is not market data.

## Alternatives

Nothing else in this catalogue does this job. [Nasdaq Data Link](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/nasdaq-data-link) used to
carry free macro series and no longer does. The IMF and the OECD publish overlapping indicators on
their own free APIs under different revision and licensing rules, and the three institutions'
figures for the same country and year frequently disagree — compare on the specific indicator, not
on the source. For anything priced, see the rest of the
[market data category](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/market-data-apis).

## FAQ

### Does the World Bank API need an API key?

No. A plain GET against api.worldbank.org/v2 returns data with no key, no account and no signup form — the documentation states that authentication is no longer necessary. There is also no published rate limit, and no ceiling, quota or throttling figure appears anywhere in the developer documentation.

### What licence is World Bank data under?

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International for datasets the World Bank produces itself, so commercial redistribution is allowed if you credit the World Bank and its data providers. Exceptions exist — some third-party datasets carry the Open Database License, a microdata research licence, or terms set by the original provider.

### How current is World Bank data?

Annual, and a year or more behind. The World Development Indicators database is refreshed quarterly, and in September 2026 the most recent GDP figure for most economies is 2025. Nothing here is intraday, daily or tradeable.

### Is the old World Bank API still working?

Version 2 is current and version 1 was retired in November 2018. Calls to the older endpoints return a "Resource not found" error, so the v2 path segment is mandatory.

## Also worth comparing

- [BLS Public Data API](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/bls-api.md) — CPI, payrolls and PPI from the agency that computes them. Free, 500 calls a day.
- [ECB Data Portal API](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/ecb-data-portal.md) — Euro reference rates, yield curves and €STR over keyless SDMX — with vintages.
- [Eurostat API](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/eurostat.md) — EU statistics, keyless and free — 8,877 datasets, and the codes move under you.
- [FRED](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fred.md) — The Fed's macro database — 851,100 series, a free key and 120 requests a minute.
- [IMF Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/imf-data.md) — Free, keyless SDMX access to IMF macro statistics — WEO included, forecasts and all.
- [OECD Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/oecd-data.md) — Free, keyless macro statistics over SDMX — and SDMX is the price of admission.