UK FCDO Foreign Travel Advice Scraper

Scrape official GOV.UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) travel advice into clean Apify dataset records.

Use it to monitor country warnings, entry requirements, safety and security notes, health guidance, latest update text, timestamps, and GOV.UK email signup links.

What does UK FCDO Foreign Travel Advice Scraper do?

This actor reads the public GOV.UK Content API for Foreign Travel Advice.

It creates one dataset item per country or territory.

Each item includes the official GOV.UK page URL, Content API URL, country slug, update timestamps, change description, warning summary, and selected advice sections.

You can scrape a few named countries or the whole FCDO index.

No browser automation is used.

No login is required.

No proxy is required.

Who is it for?

• 🌍 Travel-risk and duty-of-care teams monitoring destinations for employees.
• 🧳 Travel agencies building country-advice dashboards.
• 🛡️ Corporate security teams watching warnings and change descriptions.
• 🏥 Insurers checking health and entry-requirement guidance.
• 📊 Compliance teams storing official public-source evidence.
• 🔔 Developers building change monitors, alerts, and internal travel portals.

Why use this scraper?

GOV.UK pages are easy to read manually but harder to consume at scale.

This actor turns the official Content API into a consistent dataset.

You can schedule it daily, compare update timestamps, and send alerts when a country changes.

It keeps the official source URL with every record.

It can include clean text for analysis and raw HTML for teams that need GOV.UK links and formatting.

Data you can extract

Field	Description
country	Country or territory name from GOV.UK.
slug	GOV.UK country slug.
url	Public GOV.UK travel advice page.
publicUpdatedAt	Public update timestamp.
reviewedAt	GOV.UK reviewed timestamp when available.
changeDescription	Latest change summary from FCDO.
warningsSummary	Short text summary from the warnings section.
emailSignupUrl	GOV.UK update notification signup URL.
sections	Selected advice sections with title, slug, text, and optional HTML.
contentId	GOV.UK content ID.

How much does it cost to scrape UK FCDO travel advice?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

There is a small start charge per run.

There is also a per-country charge for each advice record saved.

The default input is intentionally small enough for a quick first run.

For full-country monitoring, set allCountries to true and maxItems to 250.

How to use it

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Enter one or more country slugs such as france, spain, or turkey.
3. Or leave countries empty and enable all countries.
4. Choose whether to include clean text, raw HTML, or both.
5. Run the actor.
6. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or via the API.

Input options

countries

Country slugs or full GOV.UK Foreign Travel Advice URLs.

Examples:

• france
• spain
• turkey
• https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/japan

allCountries

When enabled and no countries are supplied, the actor loads all country pages from the GOV.UK index.

maxItems

Maximum country records to save.

The GOV.UK index normally contains about 225 countries and territories.

sections

Optional section filter.

Useful values include:

• warnings-and-insurance
• entry-requirements
• safety-and-security
• health
• getting-help

includeText

Adds readable text converted from GOV.UK HTML.

includeHtml

Adds the original section HTML.

Use this when you need embedded GOV.UK links and formatting.

Example input: selected countries

{
  "countries": ["france", "spain", "turkey"],
  "allCountries": false,
  "maxItems": 3,
  "includeText": true,
  "includeHtml": false
}

Example input: all countries

{
  "countries": [],
  "allCountries": true,
  "maxItems": 250,
  "includeText": true,
  "includeHtml": false
}

Example input: entry requirements only

{
  "countries": ["france", "germany", "italy"],
  "allCountries": false,
  "sections": ["entry-requirements"],
  "includeText": true,
  "includeHtml": true
}

Output example

{
  "country": "France",
  "slug": "france",
  "title": "France travel advice",
  "url": "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france",
  "publicUpdatedAt": "2026-06-23T14:42:30+01:00",
  "changeDescription": "Latest FCDO change summary",
  "warningsSummary": "Before you travel...",
  "emailSignupUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france/email-signup",
  "sectionTitles": ["Warnings and insurance", "Entry requirements"]
}

Scheduling and monitoring

Run the actor daily or hourly to watch official travel advice updates.

Store previous runs in your own database.

Compare publicUpdatedAt, sourceUpdatedAt, and changeDescription.

Trigger alerts when a country changes.

Integrations

• Send update records to Slack or Microsoft Teams.
• Load country advice into a duty-of-care dashboard.
• Feed insurer underwriting workflows.
• Save CSV exports for travel consultants.
• Store JSON in a risk intelligence data lake.
• Combine with other automation-lab travel and government-data actors.

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/uk-fcdo-foreign-travel-advice-scraper').call({
  countries: ['france', 'spain'],
  allCountries: false,
  includeText: true
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('MY-APIFY-TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/uk-fcdo-foreign-travel-advice-scraper').call(run_input={
    'countries': ['france', 'spain'],
    'allCountries': False,
    'includeText': True,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~uk-fcdo-foreign-travel-advice-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"countries":["france","spain"],"allCountries":false,"includeText":true}'

MCP usage

Use this actor through Apify MCP tools in Claude Code or Claude Desktop.

MCP URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-fcdo-foreign-travel-advice-scraper

Claude Code setup:

$claude mcp add apify-fcdo-travel-advice https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-fcdo-foreign-travel-advice-scraper

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-fcdo-travel-advice": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-fcdo-foreign-travel-advice-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Run the UK FCDO travel advice scraper for France and Spain and summarize recent changes."
• "Fetch all FCDO country advice and list records updated this week."
• "Extract only entry requirements for Japan, Canada, and Australia."

Tips for best results

Use slugs from GOV.UK URLs for the most reliable country targeting.

Keep includeHtml disabled unless you need the source formatting.

Use sections to reduce output size for focused dashboards.

Schedule full-index runs when you need monitoring coverage.

Use emailSignupUrl to subscribe human owners to GOV.UK notifications.

Troubleshooting

If a country is skipped, check that the slug exists on GOV.UK.

If output is large, disable includeHtml and filter sections.

If you only get a few rows, increase maxItems or remove the explicit countries list.

If you need exact source wording, enable includeHtml.

Data source

The source is the official GOV.UK Content API.

Index endpoint:

https://www.gov.uk/api/content/foreign-travel-advice

Country endpoint pattern:

https://www.gov.uk/api/content/foreign-travel-advice/{country-slug}

Legality and ethical use

This actor reads public GOV.UK content.

Respect GOV.UK terms and attribution expectations.

Do not present scraped data as legal, immigration, health, or security advice without checking the official page.

Always keep links to the original GOV.UK source.

Related scrapers

Explore related automation-lab actors on Apify:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab/us-travel-advisories-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/website-contact-finder
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/google-news-scraper

FAQ

Can I scrape every country?

Yes. Leave countries empty, keep allCountries enabled, and set maxItems high enough.

Does this actor need a proxy?

No. It uses the public GOV.UK Content API.

Does it use Playwright?

No. It is HTTP/API-only for speed and low cost.

Can I monitor only entry requirements?

Yes. Set sections to ["entry-requirements"].

Can I keep original GOV.UK links inside section content?

Yes. Enable includeHtml.

Is the data official?

The actor extracts from official GOV.UK Content API responses, but users should always verify critical decisions on the linked GOV.UK page.

Changelog

• 0.1.0: Initial actor for GOV.UK/FCDO Foreign Travel Advice API extraction.

Support

Open an Apify issue if you need more fields, custom section parsing, or integration guidance.