Germany Legislation Scraper — Gesetze im Internet

The entire German federal statute book (~6,000 laws) as structured data — from a light law index down to per-paragraph (§) full text. Parsed from the official gesetze-im-internet.de XML (the DTD-defined norm structure), not scraped HTML. Keyless.

Perfect for legal-tech, German-law datasets, research, RAG pipelines, and citation lookups (BGB, StGB, and every other federal law).

What you get

Two output granularities, chosen with includeText:

• Law mode (default) — one row per law: slug, doknr, abbreviation, officialAbbreviation, title, enactmentDate, url, normCount
• Paragraph mode (includeText: true) — one row per paragraph (§): slug, abbreviation, lawTitle, enactmentDate, url, paragraph (e.g. § 1), heading, text

How it works

Reads the master index (gii-toc.xml, ~6,000 laws), then for each selected law downloads {slug}/xml.zip, unzips the XML and parses the norm structure. Filter the index by title/slug substring, or fetch specific laws by slug.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
search	string	—	Filter the TOC by title/slug substring (ignored if slugs given)
slugs	array	["bgb"]	Specific law slugs, e.g. ["bgb","stgb"] (overrides search)
includeText	boolean	false	One row per § with heading + text (else one row per law)
maxLaws	integer	50	Cap on laws when searching the TOC (0 = all)
maxParagraphsPerLaw	integer	0	Cap paragraphs per law when includeText (0 = all)
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy on	Required — see Proxy note below

Example input

{ "slugs": ["bgb"], "includeText": true }

Index of tax laws:

{ "search": "steuer", "maxLaws": 100 }

Example output

Law mode:

{
  "slug": "bgb",
  "doknr": "BJNR001950896",
  "abbreviation": "BGB",
  "officialAbbreviation": "BGB",
  "title": "Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch",
  "enactmentDate": "1896-08-18",
  "url": "https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/",
  "normCount": 2782
}

Paragraph mode (includeText: true):

{
  "slug": "bgb",
  "abbreviation": "BGB",
  "lawTitle": "Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch",
  "enactmentDate": "1896-08-18",
  "url": "https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/",
  "paragraph": "§ 1",
  "heading": "Beginn der Rechtsfähigkeit",
  "text": "Die Rechtsfähigkeit des Menschen beginnt mit der Vollendung der Geburt."
}

Why this actor

• Two granularities from one actor — a light index for discovery, or deep per-§ rows with full text.
• Structured, not scraped — parsed from the official norm XML, so headings and § numbers are reliable.
• Whole statute book — every German federal law by slug or substring search.
• Underserved niche — near-zero competition for clean German legal data.

Notes

• Proxy required: gesetze-im-internet.de blocks Apify's datacenter egress, so the actor routes through Apify Proxy by default (proxyConfiguration, enabled automatically). Leave it as is — direct connections time out.
• Public official data; you are responsible for compliant use. Not a government service.

Pricing

Pay per result — $4 per 1,000 results (one law, or one paragraph when includeText is on). No subscription or platform fees.

Related actors

• UK Legislation Scraper — UK primary and secondary legislation.
• Australia Legislation Scraper — Commonwealth legislation.
• eCFR Scraper — the US Code of Federal Regulations.