NL Building Cost Index Monitor (CBS) 🏗️

Official CBS (Statistics Netherlands) input price index for new-build housing construction costs — straight from CBS StatLine table 85728NED (base year 2021=100). No login, no API key, no scraping: this is a direct government OData feed.

Why this actor?

Every month, CBS publishes how construction costs for new-build homes are developing, split into a combined total index and its two underlying components (labour, materials). It's public, free, and goes back to 2018 — but it's only exposed as a raw OData API with cryptic component codes (T001363, A043942, A043943) instead of readable labels, and a dimension that mixes monthly rows with yearly summary rows without any obvious marker.

This actor does that translation for you:

• 📈 Monthly building-cost index, total plus labour/material breakdown, going back to 2018MM01
• 🏷️ Human-readable labels, not CBS dimension codes — resolves component names live from CBS itself
• 📊 Year-on-year change included for free — CBS publishes this directly, no extra charge
• ➕ Optional month-on-month trend — calculated purely from the fetched range, no extra data source
• 🎯 Zero configuration — leave the input empty and get the latest available month for the combined total index
• 🚫 No personal data — this is a macro-economic price index, not data about individuals or companies

When should an AI agent use this?

• "What's the current CBS building cost index for new-build homes in the Netherlands?"
• "How much have construction labour costs risen year-on-year?"
• "Track the trend in material vs. labour cost components over the last 2 years."
• "Is Dutch construction cost inflation accelerating or slowing down month-to-month?"

What this Actor does

• Fetches the building cost index from CBS StatLine table 85728NED via its OData API
• Resolves component codes and month labels to readable text
• Lets you pick a component (total, labour, material, or all three) and a month range
• Optionally adds a month-on-month trend field, calculated from the fetched range

What this Actor does NOT do

• No per-material breakdown (e.g. steel, timber, concrete separately) — CBS 85728NED only splits into labour vs. material, not individual material types.
• No groothandelsprijzen (wholesale trade prices from suppliers like Raab Karcher/Stiho) — those sit behind a mandatory customer login and are out of scope for this actor.
• Not a replacement for project-level cost estimation software — this is a macro index, useful for contract indexing and trend-tracking, not for pricing an individual project.

Input

Field	Type	Description
component	string	"totaal" (default, combined index), "loon" (labour), "materiaal" (material), or "alle" (separate row per component).
periodeVanaf	string	Start month, format "2025MM01". Leave empty together with periodeTot to use only the latest available month.
periodeTot	string	End month, format "2025MM01". Leave empty to reuse periodeVanaf (a single month).
maxResults	integer	Cap on output records per run (default 500, max 2000). The full dataset since 2018 is only ~330 rows across all components.
berekenMaandTrend	boolean	Add a month-on-month change field, calculated from the already-fetched period range. Default false.
alertDrempelPercentage	integer	Signal when a record's absolute YoY or MoM change reaches/exceeds this percentage. Leave empty to disable.
signaleerRecordpunten	boolean	Flag, per component, whether a record is the highest/lowest index value within the fetched range. Default false.
includeGww	boolean	Also fetch CBS table 86049NED (infrastructure/GWW input price index, aggregate total). Only has data from 2020 onward. Default false.

Output

{
  "periode": "2026MM05",
  "periodeLabel": "2026 mei",
  "component": "Bouwkosten totaal",
  "componentCode": "T001363",
  "indexwaarde": 129.2,
  "basisjaar": "2021=100",
  "yoyPercentage": 5.1,
  "momPercentage": 0.3,
  "momBeschikbaar": true,
  "drempelAlert": null,
  "isHoogstePunt": null,
  "isLaagstePunt": null,
  "bron": "CBS StatLine 85728NED"
}

yoyPercentage is always included (CBS publishes it directly). momPercentage/momBeschikbaar are only filled in with berekenMaandTrend: true, and momBeschikbaar stays false (not a guessed zero) whenever no previous month is available in the fetched range — e.g. the very first month of your range.

Threshold alerts (alertDrempelPercentage, optional, separately charged)

With alertDrempelPercentage set (e.g. 2), drempelAlert becomes true whenever the absolute YoY or MoM change (whichever is available) reaches or exceeds that percentage — null when the setting isn't used. Only charged the extra drempel-alert event when the threshold is actually reached.

Record highs/lows (signaleerRecordpunten, optional, separately charged)

With signaleerRecordpunten: true, isHoogstePunt/isLaagstePunt flag whether a record is the highest/lowest index value for its component within the fetched period range — null when the setting isn't used. Only charged the extra record-signaal event when a record actually is a new high/low within the range.

GWW / infrastructure index (includeGww, optional, separately charged)

With includeGww: true, the actor also fetches CBS StatLine table 86049NED (aggregate GWW — grond-, weg- en waterbouw / infrastructure — input price index, 2020=100), alongside the existing housing-construction index:

{
  "recordType": "gww_index",
  "periode": "2026MM01",
  "periodeLabel": "2026 januari",
  "indexwaarde": 112.4,
  "basisjaar": "2020=100",
  "yoyPercentage": 3.2,
  "bron": "CBS StatLine 86049NED"
}

Only the aggregate GWW total is fetched (not the 25+ individual sub-sectors), to keep the same simple scope and pricing as the existing housing index. Table 86049NED only has data from 2020 onward — a periodeVanaf before that returns no GWW records for that part of the range (no error). Charged as the new gww-index-record event, per record.

Run summary (last dataset item, free)

After all index records, the actor pushes one extra dataset item summarizing the run — same content as the RUN_SUMMARY key-value store entry, but also available via the normal dataset API/exports:

{
  "recordType": "RUN_SUMMARY",
  "component": "totaal",
  "periodeVanaf": "2026MM01",
  "periodeTot": "2026MM05",
  "ruweRecords": 5,
  "outputRecords": 5,
  "momTrendSignalen": 4
}

Use recordType === "RUN_SUMMARY" to filter this item out of (or in for) your own processing. It is not charged.

Month-on-month trend (berekenMaandTrend, optional, separately charged)

With berekenMaandTrend: true, each record is compared against the same component's index value one month earlier, within the same fetched range. Only records where momBeschikbaar: true are charged the extra mom-trend-record event.

Use cases

• Calculation software / cost estimators — pull a live, structured building cost index instead of manually checking CBS StatLine
• Contract indexing — many Dutch construction contracts reference this exact CBS index for price adjustment clauses
• Construction consultants / cost analysts — track labour vs. material cost trends separately
• AI agents & MCP tools — flat JSON, tiny input schema, resolved labels instead of CBS dimension codes

Pricing

This Actor uses Apify's Pay-Per-Event (PPE) pricing model.

• Actor Start: $0.00005 (Apify default)
• index-record: $0.003 per output record
• mom-trend-record: $0.005 extra, only with berekenMaandTrend enabled and only when a previous month's value was actually found
• drempel-alert: $0.01 extra, only with alertDrempelPercentage set and only when a record actually reaches the threshold
• record-signaal: $0.006 extra, only with signaleerRecordpunten enabled and only when a record actually is a new high/low within the range
• gww-index-record: $0.004 per record, only with includeGww enabled

Legal

• Source: CBS StatLine (opendata.cbs.nl), the official statistics office of the Dutch government. Table 85728NED is open data, explicitly published for reuse.
• No authentication, no scraping — this is a direct, public OData API.
• Data is a macro-economic price index. No addresses, project names, company names, or personal data of any kind.

FAQ

Q: Why does the default run only return one month instead of the full 2018-present history? A: To keep the zero-configuration default fast and cheap. Set periodeVanaf/periodeTot to fetch a wider range — CBS has data back to 2018MM01.

Q: What does component: "alle" actually return? A: One row for each of the 3 index series (total, labour, material) instead of just the total. Note these are 3 separate index series, not a breakdown that sums to the total — "total" is its own weighted combination, not loon + materiaal.

Q: How often is the data updated? A: CBS publishes this table monthly. A monthly scheduled run is sufficient.

Q: Why is there no per-material (steel/timber/concrete) breakdown? A: CBS 85728NED only publishes a labour/material split, not individual material types. No official CBS table currently offers that level of detail for this index.

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Zoekwoorden: bouwkosten index, inputprijsindex bouwkosten, cbs statline 85728ned, bouwkostenindex nieuwbouwwoningen, bouwkosten stijging, materiaalprijzen bouw, loonkosten bouwnijverheid.

Keywords

netherlands, construction, cbs, statline, open-data, government-data, price-index, mcp-tool

Changelog

0.2.0 - Threshold alerts, record highs/lows, GWW index

• New alertDrempelPercentage input: flags a record (drempelAlert: true) when its absolute YoY or MoM change reaches/exceeds the given percentage. Charged as drempel-alert, only when actually reached.
• New signaleerRecordpunten input: flags whether a record is the highest/lowest index value for its component within the fetched range (isHoogstePunt/isLaagstePunt). Charged as record-signaal, only on an actual new high/low.
• New includeGww input: also fetches CBS StatLine table 86049NED (aggregate GWW/infrastructure input price index, 2020=100). Charged as gww-index-record, per record.

0.1.1 - Run summary in the dataset

• The batch run summary (component, period range, record counts, MoM-signal count) is now also pushed as the last dataset item, not just written to the key-value store — so it's visible via the normal dataset API/exports. Marked with recordType: "RUN_SUMMARY" to distinguish it from regular index records. No new charge; it only surfaces data already computed for free.

0.1.0 - Initial release

• Fetch the CBS building cost index (table 85728NED) for new-build homes, filterable by component and month range.
• Live-resolved component labels instead of raw CBS codes.
• Year-on-year change included for free (from CBS); optional month-on-month trend as a paid add-on.