Bundesgesetzblatt Scraper

Extract German federal laws and regulations from the official Bundesgesetzblatt (Federal Law Gazette). This actor uses the official NeuRIS API to access structured legislation data — no cookies, no login required.

The Bundesgesetzblatt is Germany's official publication channel for federal laws (Gesetze) and statutory instruments (Verordnungen). Since January 2023, it is published in purely electronic form.

How to scrape Bundesgesetzblatt data

1. Go to this actor's page on Apify Store
2. Click Try for free
3. Enter a search keyword (e.g. "Datenschutz", "Klimaschutz", "Verkehr") or leave empty to get all laws
4. Set the maximum number of results
5. Click Start and wait for the run to finish
6. Download your data in JSON, CSV, or Excel format

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
searchQuery	string	Search keyword to filter laws by title. Leave empty to list all.
includeFullText	boolean	Fetch the complete legal text for each law (slower). Default: false.
includeArticles	boolean	Fetch the list of articles/paragraphs for each law. Default: false.
maxResults	integer	Maximum number of laws to return. Default: 50.
proxyConfiguration	object	Proxy settings. German residential proxy pre-configured.

Output data

Each law in the output dataset contains the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Full official title of the law in German
abbreviation	string	Short abbreviation (e.g. "BDSG", "GG", "StGB")
alternateName	string	Alternative or common name for the law
eli	string	European Legislation Identifier (ELI)
bgblPart	string	Bundesgesetzblatt part: "I" (laws) or "II" (international treaties)
bgblNumber	string	Sequential publication number within the year
bgblYear	string	Year of publication
publicationReference	string	Full publication reference (e.g. "BGBl I, 2026 148")
enactmentDate	string	Date the law was enacted (Ausfertigungsdatum)
publicationDate	string	Date published in the Bundesgesetzblatt
legalForce	string	Current legal force status ("InForce" or other)
articles	array	List of article/section names (when includeArticles is true)
fullTextHtml	string	Full legal text as plain text (when includeFullText is true)
htmlUrl	string	Direct URL to the full text in HTML format
xmlUrl	string	Direct URL to the full text in XML format
zipUrl	string	URL to download the complete publication as ZIP
pdfUrl	string	Direct URL to the PDF version on recht.bund.de
apiUrl	string	API endpoint for this specific legislation
portalUrl	string	Link to the law on the official recht.bund.de portal
scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of when the data was extracted

Example output

{
    "title": "Gesetz über intelligente Verkehrssysteme im Straßenverkehr",
    "abbreviation": "IVSG",
    "alternateName": "Intelligente-Verkehrssysteme-Gesetz",
    "eli": "eli/bund/bgbl-1/2026/148/2026-05-15/1/deu",
    "bgblPart": "I",
    "bgblNumber": "148",
    "bgblYear": "2026",
    "publicationReference": "BGBl I, 2026 148",
    "enactmentDate": "2026-05-15",
    "publicationDate": "2026-05-20",
    "legalForce": "InForce",
    "articles": [],
    "fullTextHtml": null,
    "htmlUrl": "https://testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de/v1/legislation/eli/bund/bgbl-1/2026/148/...",
    "xmlUrl": "https://testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de/v1/legislation/eli/bund/bgbl-1/2026/148/...",
    "zipUrl": "https://testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de/v1/legislation/eli/bund/bgbl-1/2026/148/...",
    "pdfUrl": "https://www.recht.bund.de/eli/bund/BGBl-1/2026/148/regelungstext.pdf?__blob=publicationFile",
    "apiUrl": "https://testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de/v1/legislation/eli/bund/bgbl-1/2026/148/...",
    "portalUrl": "https://www.recht.bund.de/bgbl/1/2026/148/VO.html",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-05-23T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Use cases

• Legal research — Search and download German federal laws by topic
• Regulatory compliance — Monitor new laws and amendments in specific areas
• Legal tech — Build applications that need structured access to German legislation
• Academic research — Analyze legislative trends, publication patterns, and legal language
• Government affairs — Track new statutory instruments and ordinances
• Data journalism — Analyze legislative output and policy areas

Data source

This actor retrieves data from the official NeuRIS API (testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de), which is provided by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and the DigitalService. The data covers federal laws published since January 2023.

For historical Bundesgesetzblatt data (pre-2023), consider using alternative sources like OffeneGesetze.de.

How often is the data updated?

The Bundesgesetzblatt is updated continuously as new laws are enacted. The underlying API reflects publications within days of their official promulgation. As of May 2026, the database contains over 2,400 legislation items.

Is it legal to scrape the Bundesgesetzblatt?

German federal laws are public domain. The NeuRIS API is explicitly designed for programmatic access to legal information. This actor uses the official API, respects rate limits, and does not require authentication.

Pricing

This actor runs on the Apify platform. You can start with a free trial. Runs are fast because the data comes from a structured API rather than HTML scraping.

Limitations

• Only covers laws published from January 2023 onward (when BGBl went digital)
• The NeuRIS API is in trial phase and may occasionally be unavailable
• Full text retrieval significantly increases run time and compute usage
• Maximum practical dataset size is around 2,500 laws (the full BGBl corpus since 2023)