Eurostat API Reference

Overview

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union, providing statistics on economy, population, trade, labor, environment, and more for EU/EEA member states and partner countries. The API follows the SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange) standard.

Base URL

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1

An older JSON-stat endpoint also exists:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0

Authentication

No API key required. The API is fully open and free.

Rate Limits

• No formal rate limits documented.
• Eurostat may throttle aggressive scraping. Keep automated requests to 1-2 per second.
• Large datasets may time out; use filters to reduce response size.

Key Endpoints (SDMX 2.1 API)

1. Get Dataset (Observations)

GET /data/{datasetCode}/{filter}

Query parameters:

Example (GDP at market prices for Germany and France, annual, 2018-2023):

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/data/nama_10_gdp/A.CP_MEUR.B1GQ.DE+FR?startPeriod=2018&endPeriod=2023

Example (total population by country, annual):

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/data/demo_pjan/A.NR.T.TOTAL.DE+FR+IT+ES?startPeriod=2015&endPeriod=2023

Example (unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, monthly):

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/data/une_rt_m/M.SA.TOTAL.PC_ACT.T.EA20?startPeriod=2023-01&endPeriod=2024-12

Example (HICP inflation, all items, monthly):

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/data/prc_hicp_mmor/M.RCH_A.CP00.DE+FR+IT?startPeriod=2023-01&endPeriod=2024-06&format=sdmx+json

2. Get Dataset as CSV

Append ?format=sdmx+csv to any data request for a flat CSV response that is easier to parse.

Example:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/data/nama_10_gdp/A.CP_MEUR.B1GQ.DE+FR?startPeriod=2018&endPeriod=2023&format=sdmx+csv

3. Get Dataset Structure (Dimensions and Code Lists)

GET /datastructure/ESTAT/{datasetCode}

Example:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/datastructure/ESTAT/nama_10_gdp

Returns dimension names, positions, and code list references.

4. Get Code List (Dimension Values)

GET /codelist/ESTAT/{codelistId}

Example:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/codelist/ESTAT/GEO

5. Search/Browse Datasets (Dataflows)

GET /dataflow/ESTAT/all

Returns all available Eurostat datasets. Add ?detail=allstubs for a lighter listing.

Example:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/sdmx/2.1/dataflow/ESTAT/all?detail=allstubs

JSON-stat API (Simpler Alternative)

Base URL

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data

Get Data

GET /data/{datasetCode}?{dimension_filters}

Dimensions are passed as query parameters using their dimension name.

Example (GDP for DE and FR):

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/nama_10_gdp?geo=DE&geo=FR&unit=CP_MEUR&na_item=B1GQ&freq=A&time=2020&time=2021&time=2022&lang=en

Response (JSON-stat format):

{
  "version": "2.0",
  "label": "GDP and main components (output, expenditure and income)",
  "id": ["freq", "unit", "na_item", "geo", "time"],
  "size": [1, 1, 1, 2, 3],
  "dimension": {
    "geo": {
      "label": "Geopolitical entity",
      "category": {
        "index": {"DE": 0, "FR": 1},
        "label": {"DE": "Germany", "FR": "France"}
      }
    },
    "time": {
      "label": "Time",
      "category": {
        "index": {"2020": 0, "2021": 1, "2022": 2}
      }
    }
  },
  "value": {3336010.0, 3601750.0, 3876810.0, 2310420.0, 2500870.0, 2639090.0},
  "status": {}
}

Values are in a flat array; use dimension sizes to reshape.

Common Dataset Codes

Common Country Codes (ISO 2-letter, Eurostat uses uppercase)

AT Austria, BE Belgium, BG Bulgaria, CY Cyprus, CZ Czechia, DE Germany, DK Denmark, EE Estonia, EL Greece, ES Spain, FI Finland, FR France, HR Croatia, HU Hungary, IE Ireland, IT Italy, LT Lithuania, LU Luxembourg, LV Latvia, MT Malta, NL Netherlands, PL Poland, PT Portugal, RO Romania, SE Sweden, SI Slovenia, SK Slovakia

Aggregates: EU27_2020 (EU-27), EA20 (Euro area 20), EA19 (Euro area 19), EEA30_2007 (EEA)

Note: Greece uses EL (not GR) in Eurostat.

SDMX JSON Response Format

{
  "header": {
    "id": "...",
    "prepared": "2024-01-15T10:00:00"
  },
  "dataSets": [
    {
      "series": {
        "0:0:0:0": {
          "observations": {
            "0": [3336010.0],
            "1": [3601750.0]
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "structure": {
    "dimensions": {
      "series": [...],
      "observation": [...]
    }
  }
}

In SDMX+JSON, dimension values are encoded as integer indices. The structure.dimensions section maps indices to codes and labels. This is compact but requires index lookup.

Notes

• Dimension order in the filter path depends on the dataset structure. Always check /datastructure/ESTAT/{code} first.
• Use + to select multiple values in one dimension (e.g., DE+FR+IT).
• Leave a dimension segment empty (consecutive dots ..) to select all values.
• CSV format (?format=sdmx+csv) is recommended for easier parsing -- it returns flat rows with labeled columns.
• The JSON-stat API is simpler for quick queries but the SDMX API is more powerful and complete.
• Dataset codes can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/ by browsing themes.
• Large unrestricted queries may time out. Always filter by country and time period.