German Case Law Search & Ruling Alerts (BGH, BVerfG, BAG)

Price: $1 per 1,000 court decisions ($0.90 on Apify Scale, $0.80 on Business and above) + $0.00005 per run · full text at no extra cost · official NeuRIS API, no key or proxy

Auf Deutsch

Rechtsprechung der Bundesgerichte durchsuchen und neue Urteile abonnieren. Dieser Actor liefert Entscheidungen von BGH, BVerfG, BVerwG, BFH, BAG, BSG und BPatG aus dem amtlichen Portal Rechtsinformationen des Bundes (NeuRIS, Bundesministerium der Justiz) als JSON, CSV oder Excel. Gerichtsentscheidungen und amtliche Leitsätze sind nach § 5 UrhG gemeinfrei; jeder Datensatz nennt Quelle und Abrufdatum.

So suchen Sie:

• Stichwortsuche: Suchbegriffe auf Deutsch eingeben (alle Wörter müssen vorkommen), optional nach Gericht, Entscheidungsart und Datum filtern, z. B. "keywords": "Mietminderung", "courts": ["BGH"].
• Gezielter Abruf: Modus Lookup wählen und ECLIs oder Aktenzeichen einfügen (z. B. VIII ZR 198/15).
• Urteils-Alert: Only new decisions since last run einschalten und täglich oder wöchentlich planen – Sie erhalten nur neue Entscheidungen.

Wichtige Ausgabefelder: court (Gericht), chamber (Senat/Spruchkörper), decisionDate (Entscheidungsdatum), documentType (Urteil, Beschluss …), fileNumbers (Aktenzeichen), ecli, subject (Titelzeile), fullText (Leitsatz, Tenor, Tatbestand, Gründe – optional), normReferences (zitierte Normen), url (Link zur Quelle).

Preis: 1 $ pro 1.000 Entscheidungen plus 0,00005 $ pro Lauf; der Volltext kostet nichts extra. Mit KI-Assistenten: Funktioniert auch in ChatGPT, Claude und Cursor über den Apify-MCP-Server – siehe Use it from ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor unten.

Search German federal court decisions – Bundesgerichtshof (BGH), Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG), Bundesverwaltungsgericht (BVerwG), Bundesfinanzhof (BFH), Bundesarbeitsgericht (BAG), Bundessozialgericht (BSG) and Bundespatentgericht (BPatG) – and get alerts for new rulings. Data comes straight from the official federal legal information portal Rechtsinformationen des Bundes (NeuRIS), run by the German Federal Ministry of Justice. You don't need an API key, a proxy or a browser.

Search by keyword (Rechtsprechung durchsuchen), court, decision type and date range. You can also look up a decision by ECLI or Aktenzeichen (file number). Results come back as clean JSON, CSV or Excel, with optional full text: headnote (Leitsatz), operative part (Tenor), facts (Tatbestand), reasons (Entscheidungsgründe), cited statutes (Normenkette) and lower-court decisions.

Germany is the first jurisdiction. The input and output formats are country-neutral, and France (Judilibre) and the Netherlands (Rechtspraak) are planned.

What can you use it for?

• Legal research and know-how: find all BGH or BAG decisions on a topic, e.g. "Datenschutz Schadensersatz" or "Mietminderung Schimmel".
• Practice-area monitoring: schedule a daily or weekly run in alert mode and get only rulings you haven't seen before, e.g. new BFH tax decisions or new BAG labour-law rulings.
• Citation checking: turn a list of ECLIs or file numbers into titles, dates, courts and links.
• Legal tech, RAG and AI pipelines: feed full-text decisions with stable identifiers (ECLI, document number) into search indexes or LLM retrieval.
• Compliance and newsletters: track case law on GDPR/DSGVO, employment, competition or tax, and send results to Slack, email, Google Sheets or Make/Zapier via Apify integrations.

Use it from ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor

Give your AI assistant real German federal court decisions to cite (BGH, BVerfG, BAG, BFH and more) from the official NeuRIS portal, with file numbers and ECLIs, instead of guessing.

This Actor works as a tool in any AI assistant that supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP), through the official Apify MCP server. You ask in plain language; the assistant fills in the filters, runs the Actor and answers from the results.

MCP server URL (this Actor only):

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=orange_briefcase_hrj/german-case-law-search

Set it up once (you need a free Apify account):

• Claude (claude.ai and Claude Desktop): open Settings → Connectors → Add → Add custom connector. Enter a name (for example German case law), paste the URL above as the Remote MCP server URL, select Continue, keep the detected settings and select Add. Sign in to Apify when your browser opens. On Team and Enterprise plans, an Owner adds the connector for the organisation.
• ChatGPT: custom connectors need ChatGPT Developer mode (beta). Go to Settings → Apps & Connectors → Create, paste the URL above as the MCP Server URL, choose OAuth authentication and select Create, then sign in to Apify. In a new chat, select + → More and pick the connector.
• Cursor: add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json in a project). Cursor opens your browser to sign in to Apify:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "german-case-law-search": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=orange_briefcase_hrj/german-case-law-search"
    }
  }
}

• VS Code, Windsurf and other MCP clients: add the same URL as a remote (Streamable HTTP) MCP server. If a client can't do OAuth, send the header Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN> instead (token from Apify Console → Settings → API & Integrations).

Already connected to the full Apify server (https://mcp.apify.com) or the Apify plugin for Cursor, Claude Code or VS Code? Just mention orange_briefcase_hrj/german-case-law-search in your request.

Try asking:

"Find the 10 most recent BAG decisions on Kündigung and summarise the headnotes in English, with file numbers and ECLIs."

"Get BGH VIII ZR 198/15 with full text and explain the court's reasoning in plain English."

"Find BGH rulings on Mietminderung decided since 1 January 2024 and group them by outcome."

Cost: a run started by your assistant is a normal run of this Actor, billed to your Apify account at the usual pay-per-event price ($1 per 1,000 decisions, see the pricing section below). This Actor charges nothing extra for runs that come through an assistant. Asking for a small number of results (for example "the top 20") keeps runs cheap, and the Apify Free plan's monthly credit covers plenty of tests.

Screenshots

Real output from the saved example tasks (test runs on 26 October 2026):

Ready-made example tasks

• New Federal Labour Court (BAG) rulings alert: court BAG, alert mode on. Schedule it daily or weekly.
• BGH rulings on data protection (Datenschutz): keyword Datenschutz, court BGH, newest first, with full text.
• Federal Finance Court (BFH) tax rulings: court BFH, decisions since 1 January 2025, newest first.

How to use it

1. Enter keywords (German; all words must appear in the decision), or switch Mode to Lookup and paste ECLIs or file numbers.
2. Optionally pick courts, decision types (judgment / order) and a date range.
3. Turn on Include full text if you need the decision text.
4. For alerts, turn on Only new decisions since last run and add a schedule (e.g. every morning). Each saved search keeps its own state in a named key-value store, so you only receive new rulings.

Example input – keyword search

{
  "keywords": "Datenschutz Schadensersatz",
  "courts": ["BGH", "BAG"],
  "dateFrom": "2024-01-01",
  "includeFullText": true,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Example input – weekly alert for new BAG rulings

{
  "courts": ["BAG"],
  "decisionTypes": ["judgment"],
  "onlyNew": true,
  "alertWindowDays": 90,
  "stateKey": "bag-judgments"
}

Example input – lookup

{ "eclis": ["ECLI:DE:BGH:2016:130416UVIIIZR198.15.0"], "fileNumbers": ["VIII ZR 198/15"] }

Output

One dataset item per decision:

{
  "jurisdiction": "DE",
  "source": "NeuRIS",
  "sourceId": "KORE303742016",
  "ecli": "ECLI:DE:BGH:2016:130416UVIIIZR198.15.0",
  "court": "BGH",
  "courtLabel": "Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice)",
  "chamber": "8. Zivilsenat",
  "decisionDate": "2016-04-13",
  "documentType": "Urteil",
  "fileNumbers": ["VIII ZR 198/15"],
  "title": "BGH, Urteil vom 13. April 2016 - VIII ZR 198/15",
  "subject": "(Wohnraummiete: Mietminderungsanspruch bei Entwendung einer ... Vermietereinbauküche)",
  "matchSnippets": [{ "section": "headnote", "text": "Zur Mietminderung im Falle der Entwendung ..." }],
  "fullText": { "headnote": "...", "operativePart": "...", "facts": "...", "reasons": "..." },
  "normReferences": ["BGB § 535 Abs 1 S 1", "BGB § 536 Abs 1 S 1"],
  "previousDecisions": ["LG Berlin, Urteil vom 4. August 2015 - 63 S 378/14"],
  "url": "https://testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de/gerichtsentscheidungen/KORE303742016",
  "isNew": false,
  "retrievedAt": "2026-10-26T11:10:00Z",
  "attribution": "Source: Rechtsinformationen des Bundes ... retrieved 2026-10-26 ..."
}

fullText, normReferences, previousDecisions, subsequentDecisions and keywords are only filled when Include full text is on. Each run also saves a SUMMARY record with counts per court and the query used.

Pricing

Pay per event, with Apify platform costs included:

Apify plan (Store discount tier)	Price per court decision	Per 1,000
Free, Starter (Bronze)	$0.001	$1
Scale (Silver)	$0.0009	$0.90
Business (Gold) and above	$0.0008	$0.80

Each run also has an Actor start charge of $0.00005 (at the default 256 MB memory). Full text doesn't cost extra per decision, but it makes runs a little slower.

Worked examples (Free/Starter prices):

• Research search returning 200 decisions: $0.00005 + 200 × $0.001 = about $0.20.
• Weekly alert with about 20 new rulings a week: 4 runs × $0.00005 + 80 × $0.001 = about $0.08 a month.
• Bulk export of 1,000 decisions for a RAG index: $0.00005 + 1,000 × $0.001 = about $1.00.

The Apify Free plan includes $5 of platform usage every month (see apify.com/pricing), and pay-per-event charges are paid from that credit. That covers about 5,000 decisions a month, for example a daily alert for a whole month or one large export (30 daily runs add only $0.0015 in start charges). Use Max results and Apify's maximum cost per run to cap spend.

Use via API (Python, JavaScript, cURL)

You can start the Actor from your own code with the official Apify API clients. Get your API token from Apify Console → Settings → API & Integrations.

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("orange_briefcase_hrj/german-case-law-search").call(run_input={
    "keywords": "Mietminderung",
    "courts": ["BGH"],
    "maxResults": 20,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Install with pip install apify-client.

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('orange_briefcase_hrj/german-case-law-search').call({
    keywords: 'Mietminderung',
    courts: ['BGH'],
    maxResults: 20,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Install with npm install apify-client.

cURL

This runs the Actor and returns the dataset items in the same request (best for short runs):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/orange_briefcase_hrj~german-case-law-search/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keywords": "Mietminderung", "courts": ["BGH"], "maxResults": 20}'

For longer runs, call POST /v2/acts/orange_briefcase_hrj~german-case-law-search/runs and read the dataset when the run finishes. You can also add the Actor to Zapier, Make, n8n or a webhook from the Integrations tab.

Data source, licence and attribution

• Source: Rechtsinformationen des Bundes – the federal legal information portal (NeuRIS), operated by DigitalService GmbH des Bundes on behalf of the Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz. API documentation.
• Copyright: court decisions and official headnotes are official works with no copyright protection under § 5 UrhG.
• Attribution: every record includes an attribution field naming the source and the retrieval date. Please keep it when you republish data.
• Test phase: the official service is still in a test phase and its dataset is incomplete. Fields may change, and coverage is federal courts only, not state (Länder) courts. For authoritative citations, always check the official source linked in url.
• The Actor respects the documented rate limit of 600 requests per minute and waits between requests by default.

This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the German federal government.

Personal data and responsible use

The courts anonymise published decisions before release. This Actor does not output the names of participating judges and has no judge-profiling or outcome-prediction features. Don't use the data to re-identify parties or to profile individual judges. If you republish decisions, you are responsible for complying with GDPR.

Related tools

Other tools from the same publisher, all built on official open-data APIs:

Tool	What it does
UK Public Tender Alerts	Daily alerts for new UK government tenders and contract awards from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder.
UK Company Check & Change Monitor	Bulk Companies House checks with a RED/AMBER/GREEN risk flag, plus a monitor mode that outputs only changes.
Sweden Job Ads API (Platsbanken)	Swedish job ads from Arbetsförmedlingen's official JobTech API, with English labels and daily alerts.
Netherlands Public Tender Alerts (TenderNed)	Daily alerts for new Dutch government tenders from TenderNed, filtered by keyword, CPV and province.

FAQ

Does it cover state courts (OLG, LG, AG)? Not yet. The official API currently covers federal courts. Lower-court decisions only appear as references in previousDecisions.

How does alert mode decide what's new? It checks decisions dated within the last alert window days (default 90, because courts often publish weeks after the decision date). It returns any it hasn't returned before for the same search. State is stored in the named key-value store (stateStoreName) under stateKey.

Can I start an alert without receiving the backlog? Yes. Turn on First alert run: mark existing as seen.

Is there an English translation? The decisions are in German. The field names and court labels are in English.

Spotted an issue or want another country? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.

Where can I see what changed? See the Changelog tab. Each release is listed there.