🇳🇱 Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper

🚀 Export official Netherlands statistics in seconds. Population, jobs, energy, GDP, housing, education, transport. Pull the full CBS table catalog or extract any dataset by table ID with server-side filtering.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-22 · 📊 13 fields per record · 🇳🇱 6,000+ tables · 🏛️ Official Statistics Netherlands · 🗓️ Updated continuously

The Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper taps Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the official producer of Dutch government statistics, and returns 13 structured fields per record. CBS publishes the underlying data as open machine-readable tables that cover population dynamics, the labour market, GDP, regional economy, energy consumption, education, agriculture, healthcare, mobility, and dozens of other domains.

The catalog covers thousands of tables spanning every Dutch municipality, neighbourhood, age group, sector, and statistical theme, with new releases and revisions added every business day. This Actor surfaces the catalog and pulls dataset rows on demand, with OData filtering, column selection, and ordering passed straight through to the source so you skip building yet another OData client.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
EU researchers, NL-focused analysts, government and policy teams, economists, journalists, demographers, urban planners	Population and migration tracking, labour market dashboards, regional GDP benchmarks, energy and emissions monitoring, housing affordability studies, education and healthcare research

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📋 What the Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper does

Two modes in a single Actor:

• 📚 Catalog mode. Browse the full CBS table catalog with titles, identifiers, themes, summaries, and modification dates.
• 📊 Table mode. Pull rows from any CBS table by ID (e.g. 82931NED population, 83765NED jobs, 85003NED regional indicators).
• 🔎 OData filter. Narrow rows with native CBS filter syntax (e.g. AantalInwoners_4 gt 100000).
• 🎯 Field selection. Return only the columns you need with select.
• 📐 Ordering. Sort by any column (e.g. AantalInwoners_4 desc).

Every record includes the table ID, title, short title, identifier, summary, modification date, language, catalog, status, and a clean data object with the actual statistical row.

💡 Why it matters: CBS is the single authoritative source for Dutch official statistics. Building your own OData client means dealing with table metadata, codelists, dimension keys, and CBS-specific encoding quirks. This Actor delivers structured rows you can load into BI, notebooks, or pipelines in minutes.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
mode	enum	"table"	catalog lists all CBS tables. table pulls rows from one specific table.
tableId	string	"82931NED"	CBS table identifier. Required for table mode.
filter	string	""	Optional OData $filter expression. Empty = all rows.
select	string	""	Optional comma-separated column list.
orderBy	string	""	Optional sort expression.

Example: pull regional indicators for municipalities only.

{
    "maxItems": 500,
    "mode": "table",
    "tableId": "85003NED",
    "filter": "SoortRegio_2 eq 'Gemeente '"
}

Example: browse the full CBS catalog.

{
    "maxItems": 200,
    "mode": "catalog"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: CBS tables use Dutch-language column names and coded dimensions (region codes, period codes). Use catalog mode first to discover IDs, then pull rows once you know which table you want.

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📊 Output

Each record contains 13 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🏷️ recordType	string	"row"
🆔 tableId	string	"82931NED"
📛 title	string | null	"Bevolking; geslacht, leeftijd, burgerlijke staat en regio"
🏷️ shortTitle	string | null	"Bevolking; regio"
🔖 identifier	string | null	"82931NED"
📝 summary	string | null	"Population by sex, age, and region"
🕒 modified	ISO 8601 | null	"2026-05-15T09:30:00Z"
🌍 language	string | null	"nl-NL"
📚 catalog	string | null	"CBS"
📌 reasonDelivery	string | null	"Regulier"
📦 data	object | null	{ "ID": 1, "Perioden": "2025JJ00", "TotaleBevolking_1": 17988120 }
🕓 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-22T00:00:00.000Z"
⚠️ error	string | null	null

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🇳🇱	Official source. Data straight from Statistics Netherlands, the legal producer of Dutch government statistics.
📚	Catalog + table modes. Discover tables, then pull rows in the same workflow.
🔎	Server-side filtering. OData filter, select, and order are passed through, so you pay for only the rows you want.
📊	Wide coverage. Population, labour, GDP, energy, housing, education, mobility, healthcare, environment, agriculture.
⚡	Fast. Catalog browse in seconds, dataset rows in under a minute for typical pulls.
🔁	Always fresh. Every run hits the live CBS feed.
🚫	No API key. CBS open data needs no registration.

📊 Authoritative population, labour, and economic statistics are the bedrock of every Dutch policy paper, market study, and city plan.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	6,000+ tables	Live per run	Filter, select, order	⚡ 2 min
Manual CSV downloads from CBS portal	Free	Per-table	Manual	None	🐢 Hours per table
Hand-coded OData client	Free	Full	Per-build	Custom	⏳ Days
Commercial NL statistics aggregators	$$$/year	Curated subsets	Vendor schedule	Vendor-defined	🕒 Sales cycle

Pick this Actor when you want the authoritative source, server-side filtering, and zero pipeline maintenance.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Run catalog mode to discover tables, then table mode with a tableId.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

🏛️ Government and policy Municipal population and migration tracking Regional GDP and employment dashboards Housing supply and affordability studies Energy transition and emissions monitoring	📈 Economic research Labour market analytics by sector and region Inflation, wage, and consumer spending models SME and industry concentration studies Cross-country benchmarks for EU panels
🏙️ Urban planning and real estate Neighbourhood demographics for site selection Transport and mobility flow analysis School and healthcare facility planning Retail catchment and store-format modelling	📰 Journalism and consultancy Data-driven stories on Dutch society and economy Briefings and white papers for clients Election reporting with regional breakdowns Audit and due diligence inputs

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🔌 Automating Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Daily or weekly refreshes keep downstream databases in sync automatically.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Theses and journal papers in demography, economics, and sociology Reproducible studies with cited, versioned dataset pulls Teaching datasets for statistics and data-science courses Cross-disciplinary panels mixing CBS with EU sources	🎨 Personal and creative Side projects exploring Dutch trends and stories Personal dashboards on local neighbourhoods Data visualizations and infographics for blogs Portfolio pieces showcasing real-world data work
🤝 Non-profit and civic Local-government transparency and accountability tools Civic-tech apps for residents and community groups Investigative journalism on housing, inequality, and migration Public-interest dashboards and open-data hackathons	🧪 Experimentation Train forecasting models on Dutch macro indicators Test data-product hypotheses with real public data Prototype agent pipelines that answer statistical questions Build LLM-grounded research assistants with cited tables

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick catalog or table mode, set a tableId and optional filters, click Start, and the Actor pulls live records from the CBS open-data feed. No browser automation, no captchas, no setup.

📏 How accurate is the data?

CBS is the legally mandated producer of Dutch official statistics. Records mirror the live CBS feed at run time, including any provisional or revised figures published by CBS itself.

🔁 How often is the dataset refreshed?

CBS publishes new tables and revisions every business day. Every Actor run pulls the latest version, so your dataset reflects the current CBS state at run time.

🇳🇱 Is the data in Dutch or English?

CBS publishes most tables with Dutch dimension labels and column names. Many tables also have English-language editions with ENG suffixes (e.g. 83765ENG).

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run this Actor on any cron interval (hourly, daily, weekly) and keep a downstream database in sync.

⚖️ Is this data legal to use?

CBS publishes open data under a permissive license. Review the downstream terms of your specific use case, but Dutch official statistics are generally free to redistribute with attribution.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

Yes. The CBS open-data license permits commercial use with attribution. You are responsible for complying with the license and with any downstream regulatory requirements.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan to use this Actor?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs (10 records per run). A paid plan lifts the limit and gives you access to scheduling, higher concurrency, and larger datasets.

🔁 What happens if a run fails or gets interrupted?

Apify automatically retries transient errors. If a run still fails, you can inspect the log in the Runs tab, fix the input, and re-run. Partial datasets from failed runs are preserved so you never lose progress.

🆘 What if I need help?

Our support team is here to help. Contact us through the Apify platform or use the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

Dutch CBS Statistics Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe CBS data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh CBS data into your product backend, or alert your team in Slack.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

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• 🗺️ Nominatim OSM Scraper - Geocode Dutch addresses via OpenStreetMap
• 🏥 ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper - Global clinical research registry

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) or any Dutch government body. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open data is collected.