German Court Decisions API & MCP Server

What is German Court Decisions API & MCP Server?

This Actor gives you programmatic access to 80,000+ German federal court decisions from the official NeuRIS database (Rechtsinformationen des Bundes) — the open data initiative by the German Federal Ministry of Justice.

Connect it as an MCP Server to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI agent. Or run it as a standard Apify Actor to search, filter, and export case law in structured JSON.

No API key required. No scraping. Official public API access.

🚀 Get Started in 3 Minutes

Option A: MCP Server — Add this to your MCP client config (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "german-court-decisions": {
      "url": "https://<your-username>--german-court-decisions.apify.actor/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Then ask your AI agent: "Find recent BGH decisions about data privacy"

Option B: Apify Actor — Click Try for free above. No credit card required.

1. Choose an action: Search, Get by ECLI, or List Courts
2. Configure your parameters
3. Run and download results from the Dataset tab (JSON, CSV, Excel)

🔍 What Can This API Do?

MCP Server for AI Agents

• Connect to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client
• 3 structured tools: search_decisions, get_decision_by_ecli, list_courts
• AI-optimized response format with prioritized fields
• The only MCP server for German case law on Apify

Search & Retrieval

• Full-text search across all federal court decisions
• Retrieve individual decisions by ECLI identifier
• Filter by court and date range
• Paginated results with configurable page size

Structured Output

• Normalized ECLI-based data model
• Full decision text, headnotes, guiding principles (Leitsaetze), operative part (Tenor)
• Court metadata, file numbers, keywords
• Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel via Apify Dataset

Reliability

• Built-in caching (7-day TTL) for faster repeated access
• Automatic retry with progressive backoff
• NeuRIS rate limit compliance (transparent throttling)
• Clear error messages when the upstream API is unavailable

👥 Who Is This For?

AI Agent Developers — Give your legal AI agent direct access to German case law. Use the MCP Server to let Claude, GPT, or custom agents search and cite court decisions in real time. Build RAG pipelines for legal research, compliance monitoring, or document analysis.

Legal-Tech Startups — Build legal research tools, compliance checks, or case law databases on top of structured, normalized data. No scraping infrastructure needed. Pay-per-use pricing instead of expensive juris or Beck subscriptions.

Legal Researchers — Run systematic searches across all federal courts. Export datasets for empirical legal studies, citation network analysis, GDPR case law trends, or NLP research.

Compliance Officers — Monitor new court decisions relevant to your regulatory domain. Example: Track GDPR rulings from BGH and BVerfG by searching for "Datenschutz" filtered to the current year.

🔌 How Do I Connect as MCP Server?

Add this to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "german-court-decisions": {
      "url": "https://<your-username>--german-court-decisions.apify.actor/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Example Prompts

Try these with your AI agent:

• "Find recent BGH decisions about data privacy (Datenschutz)" → Agent calls search_decisions with query "Datenschutz" and court filter "BGH"

• "Show me the full text of ECLI:DE:BGH:2024:120324UVIZR234.23.0" → Agent calls get_decision_by_ecli and returns the complete ruling

• "Summarize the key holdings from BVerfG decisions on freedom of speech in 2024" → Agent calls search_decisions, retrieves multiple decisions, synthesizes the guiding principles

• "Which federal courts are available in this database?" → Agent calls list_courts and returns all 7 Bundesgerichte with metadata

▶️ How Do I Run as Apify Actor?

1. Click Try for free on this page — no credit card required
2. Choose an action: Search, Get by ECLI, or List Courts
3. Configure your parameters (see Input Parameters below)
4. Run the Actor
5. Download results from the Dataset tab (JSON, CSV, Excel)

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
action	string	search	Action to perform: search, getByEcli, or listCourts
query	string	—	Full-text search term (e.g., "Datenschutz", "DSGVO")
court	string	—	Court abbreviation: BGH, BVerfG, BVerwG, BFH, BAG, BSG, or BPatG
dateFrom	string	—	Start date (ISO format, e.g., "2024-01-01")
dateTo	string	—	End date (ISO format, e.g., "2024-12-31")
ecli	string	—	ECLI identifier for direct lookup
limit	number	50	Maximum results per page (max 300)

Input Example

{
  "action": "search",
  "query": "Datenschutz",
  "court": "BGH",
  "dateFrom": "2024-01-01",
  "dateTo": "2024-12-31",
  "limit": 50
}

📋 What Data Can I Extract?

Each court decision includes the following fields:

Field	Description
ecli	European Case Law Identifier — unique ID across all EU courts
court	Court name and abbreviation (e.g., BGH, BVerfG)
date	Decision date
fileNumber	Court file number (Aktenzeichen)
decisionType	Type: Urteil (judgment) or Beschluss (order)
headline	Short summary of the case
guidingPrinciple	Key legal principle (Leitsatz) — the court's main holding
headnote	Editorial headnote summarizing the ruling
tenor	Operative part — the actual order or judgment
grounds	Full reasoning of the court
keywords	Legal keywords and topics

Output Example

{
  "ecli": "ECLI:DE:BGH:2024:120324UVIZR234.23.0",
  "sourceId": "KARE600050824",
  "source": "neuris",
  "court": {
    "name": "Bundesgerichtshof",
    "abbreviation": "BGH"
  },
  "date": "2024-03-12",
  "fileNumber": "VI ZR 234/23",
  "decisionType": "Urteil",
  "headline": "Zum Anspruch auf immateriellen Schadensersatz ...",
  "guidingPrinciple": "Ein Verstoß gegen die DSGVO ...",
  "headnote": "Der Kläger hat keinen Anspruch ...",
  "tenor": "Die Revision des Klägers wird zurückgewiesen ...",
  "grounds": "I. Der Kläger nimmt die Beklagte auf Zahlung ...",
  "keywords": ["Datenschutz", "DSGVO", "Schadensersatz"],
  "retrievedAt": "2024-12-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

🏛️ Which Courts Are Covered?

Currently 7 German federal courts with over 80,000 decisions:

Court	Abbreviation	Legal Domain
Bundesgerichtshof	BGH	Civil and criminal law
Bundesverfassungsgericht	BVerfG	Constitutional law
Bundesverwaltungsgericht	BVerwG	Administrative law
Bundesfinanzhof	BFH	Tax law
Bundesarbeitsgericht	BAG	Labor law
Bundessozialgericht	BSG	Social law
Bundespatentgericht	BPatG	Patent law

💰 Pricing

This Actor uses Apify's pay-per-event pricing. You pay a small fee per tool call — no subscription, no minimum commitment.

Per-Tool Pricing

Tool	Price per Call	What You Get
search_decisions	$0.01	Search results with metadata
get_decision_by_ecli	$0.015	Full normalized decision text
list_courts	Free	Reference data (7 federal courts)

Typical Monthly Cost

Use Case	Estimated Queries/Month	Estimated Cost
Occasional research (student, journalist)	20–50	$0.20–$0.50
Regular case law lookups (solo lawyer)	80–200	$0.80–$2.00
AI agent integration (startup, MCP)	400–2,000	$4–$20
Bulk research or compliance checks	50–200	$0.50–$2.00

Free Tier

First 100 queries per month are free — no credit card required. Enough for exploration and light use.

MCP mode: When used as MCP Server, the Actor runs in Apify Standby mode. Per-tool pricing applies to each MCP tool call. For occasional use (a few queries per day), costs stay well under $1/month.

No results, minimal cost: If a search returns no results, you only pay the search fee ($0.01).

For exact pricing details, see the Pricing tab above.

✅ Data Source & Legality

This Actor exclusively accesses the official NeuRIS API (rechtsinformationen.bund.de), an open government data initiative by the German Federal Ministry of Justice. All court decisions are public records.

• No authentication or API key required
• No personal data is collected or processed
• Court decisions are public documents by law (§ 169 GVG)
• Data is accessed via the official public API — not by scraping
• Compliant with GDPR and open data principles

⚠️ Limitations

• Federal courts only. State court (Landesgericht) decisions are not available via NeuRIS. This covers the 7 highest federal courts listed above.
• Search result cap. The NeuRIS API returns a maximum of 10,000 results per query. Use specific filters (court, date range, decision type) to narrow results. For individual decisions, use the ECLI lookup — no cap.
• API in test phase. NeuRIS has been in public test phase since April 2025. Occasional instability is possible. The Actor includes automatic retry with progressive backoff and clear error messages when the upstream API is unavailable.
• German language only. All court decisions are published in German. Metadata field names are in English for ease of integration.

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🇩🇪 Für deutsche Nutzer

Dieser Actor bietet programmatischen Zugang zu über 80.000 Entscheidungen der deutschen Bundesgerichte (BGH, BVerfG, BVerwG, BFH, BAG, BSG, BPatG) über die offizielle NeuRIS-Datenbank des Bundesministeriums der Justiz.

Zwei Nutzungswege:

1. MCP-Server — Direkt in Claude Desktop, Cursor oder andere AI-Agents einbinden. Ihr Agent kann dann Gerichtsentscheidungen suchen, abrufen und zitieren. Einrichtung in unter 5 Minuten.

2. Apify Actor — Suchparameter eingeben, Ergebnisse als Dataset (JSON/CSV/Excel) herunterladen. Ideal für systematische Recherchen und Datenexporte.

Kostenlos testen — Apify bietet Startguthaben für neue Accounts. Keine Kreditkarte erforderlich.

Alle Daten stammen aus der öffentlichen API von rechtsinformationen.bund.de (Open Government Data). Es werden keine personenbezogenen Daten verarbeitet. Gerichtsentscheidungen sind öffentliche Dokumente (§ 169 GVG).

💬 Feedback & Support

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on GitHub or reach out via the Apify community.