German Insolvency Announcements — Bankruptcy Data Scraper

Search and extract German insolvency announcements from the official court portal (insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de). Filter by company name, federal state, court, city, proceeding type, or date range. Returns debtor name, address, court, case number, proceeding type, full announcement text, and insolvency administrator. No cookies, no login required.

How to scrape German insolvency data

This actor searches the official German insolvency announcements portal, operated by the NRW Ministry of Justice on behalf of all 16 federal states. Every German insolvency proceeding — from initial filing through final distribution — is published here. The portal is the canonical source for German bankruptcy data.

Search by Company or Person Name

Enter a debtor's name (company or individual) to find all insolvency announcements. Minimum 2 characters. Wildcards are supported for broader searches.

Filter by State, Court, or City

Narrow to a specific federal state, insolvency court, or city. Useful for regional credit risk monitoring or local market analysis.

Filter by Proceeding Type

Focus on specific stages: opening of proceedings (Eröffnung), rejection for lack of assets (Abweisung mangels Masse), discharge of residual debt (Restschuldbefreiung), or insolvency plans.

What data does German Insolvency Announcements Scraper extract?

Field	Type	Description
debtorName	String	Debtor company or person name
debtorAddress	String	Debtor's registered address
city	String	City
postalCode	String	German postal code (PLZ)
state	String	Federal state (Bundesland)
court	String	Insolvency court (Amtsgericht)
caseNumber	String	Court case number (Aktenzeichen)
proceedingType	String	Type of proceeding (opening, rejection, discharge, etc.)
releaseDate	String	Date of announcement
announcementText	String	Full announcement text (up to 5,000 characters)
administratorName	String	Insolvency administrator name
url	String	Source URL
scrapedAt	String	ISO timestamp

Example output

{
    "debtorName": "Muster GmbH",
    "debtorAddress": "Hauptstrasse 1, 10115 Berlin",
    "city": "Berlin",
    "postalCode": "10115",
    "state": "Berlin",
    "court": "Amtsgericht Charlottenburg",
    "caseNumber": "36n IN 1234/26",
    "proceedingType": "Eröffnung des Insolvenzverfahrens",
    "releaseDate": "19.05.2026",
    "announcementText": "In dem Insolvenzverfahren über das Vermögen der Muster GmbH...",
    "administratorName": "Dr. Hans Schmidt",
    "url": "https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap/suche.jsf",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-05-20T14:30:00.000Z"
}

Tips for best results

• Credit risk monitoring: Run daily with a state or city filter to catch new insolvencies in your market. Early detection of supplier or customer bankruptcy can save significant losses.
• Due diligence: Search by company name before entering a business relationship. Check if potential partners have any insolvency history.
• Administrator lookup: Use the administratorName field to track which insolvency practitioners handle cases in your region.
• Time sensitivity: Consumer insolvency cases are only searchable for 2 weeks. Company cases have no time restriction. Standard cases are deleted after 1 month.

How much does it cost?

Search size	Estimated time	Estimated cost
20 announcements	~2 minutes	~$0.05
100 announcements	~10 minutes	~$0.20
500 announcements	~45 minutes	~$0.80

Uses Playwright (headless browser) due to the JSF-based portal — costs are higher than pure API actors.

Can I use it as an API?

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("studio-amba/insolvenzbekanntmachungen-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchQuery": "GmbH",
    "state": "Berlin",
    "proceedingType": "opening",
    "maxResults": 50,
})

for notice in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{notice['debtorName']} | {notice['court']} {notice['caseNumber']} | {notice['proceedingType']}")

Limitations

• The portal caps results at 1,000 per search — use specific filters to stay under this limit
• Consumer insolvency data is only available for 2 weeks after publication
• Standard cases are deleted after 1 month, closure records after 6 months
• Uses headless browser (Playwright) which is slower than API-based scrapers
• Session timeout after 60 minutes — long runs may need to reinitialize

Other European insolvency and company scrapers

• BODACC Scraper — French insolvency and commercial announcements
• German Company Register — German Handelsregister data
• Belgian Company Enrichment — Belgian KBO/BCE company data

Your feedback

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