Eurostat Statistics API — EU inflation (HICP) & trade data as JSON

SEO title: Eurostat Statistics API — EU inflation (HICP) & trade data as JSON SEO description: Get EU inflation (HICP/CPI) with computed year-over-year change and 12-month moving average, or EU import/export trade statistics, straight from Eurostat's public dissemination API as clean JSON. No API key needed — built for research, market analysis, and AI agents.

One actor, two Eurostat datasets, both wrapped in a clean, agent-friendly JSON schema instead of Eurostat's own JSON-stat 2.0 dimension-index format and cell-limited query API:

1. hicp — Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (inflation), with yoy_pct (year-over-year % change) and ma12_pct (12-month moving average of that) computed automatically. Eurostat's own API does not provide either field — this is the actor's whole value-add.
2. comext — EU international trade in goods (import/export value and quantity, by product/reporter/partner country/period), from the dedicated Comext dissemination endpoint.

No scraping, no anti-bot risk, no login — both datasets are queried from Eurostat's public, unauthenticated dissemination API over HTTPS.

Why this exists

Eurostat's own API is powerful but awkward to use directly:

• Responses are JSON-stat 2.0: values keyed by a flat row-major index, categories as separate code→position maps — not directly usable without a decoder.
• The Comext (trade) endpoint enforces a hard 5,000,000-row extraction limit per query and 413s with EXTRACTION_TOO_BIG if you ask for too much at once.
• Computing inflation's year-over-year change or a moving average yourself means manually fetching extra months of history and aligning them — tedious and easy to get subtly wrong (e.g. off-by-one month, or silently treating a missing value as zero).

This actor does all of that once, correctly, so the output is analysis-ready JSON.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Used by	Description
dataset	string	"hicp"	both	"hicp" (inflation) or "comext" (EU trade).
countries	array of strings	["HU", "DE"]	hicp	Eurostat geo codes. Note: Eurostat uses "EL" for Greece and "UK" for the United Kingdom (not "GR"/"GB").
coicop_codes	array of strings	["CP00"]	hicp	Consumption category. "CP00" = all-items (headline). Others: "CP01" (food), "NRG" (energy), "SERV" (services), "TOT_X_NRG_FOOD" (core, ex. energy & food).
hs_codes	array of strings	["870323"]	comext	Product codes: 2 (HS chapter), 4 (HS heading), 6 (HS subheading), or 8 (full CN8) digits.
reporter_countries	array of strings	["HU"]	comext	EU/EFTA declarant countries. Note: Comext uses "GB"/"GR" (not "UK"/"EL") — the opposite convention from the hicp field above; this is Eurostat's own inconsistency between the two APIs, not this actor's.
partner_countries	array of strings	["DE"]	comext	Trade partner countries (ISO-3166-1 alpha-2), or "WORLD" for all partners combined.
flow	string	"import"	comext	"import" or "export".
period_from / period_to	string ("YYYY-MM")	"2025-01" / "2025-12"	both	Inclusive period range, max 120 months (10 years) per run. For hicp, Eurostat data 23 months before period_from is fetched automatically in the background (see "How yoy_pct/ma12_pct are computed" below) — only rows inside [period_from, period_to] are ever returned.

Fields not relevant to the selected dataset are simply ignored (logged as informational, never an error) — you can leave them at their defaults.

Worked example — input (HICP)

{
  "dataset": "hicp",
  "countries": ["HU", "DE"],
  "coicop_codes": ["CP00"],
  "period_from": "2024-11",
  "period_to": "2025-12"
}

Worked example — output (HICP, real data, 4 of 28 rows)

[
  { "dataset": "hicp", "country": "HU", "coicop": "CP00", "period": "2025-01", "index_value": 171.85, "yoy_pct": 5.6758, "ma12_pct": 3.8804 },
  { "dataset": "hicp", "country": "HU", "coicop": "CP00", "period": "2025-11", "index_value": 174.66, "yoy_pct": 3.7050, "ma12_pct": 4.5746 },
  { "dataset": "hicp", "country": "DE", "coicop": "CP00", "period": "2025-01", "index_value": 129.9,  "yoy_pct": 2.7690, "ma12_pct": 2.4645 },
  { "dataset": "hicp", "country": "DE", "coicop": "CP00", "period": "2025-11", "index_value": 132.6,  "yoy_pct": 2.5522, "ma12_pct": 2.3333 }
]

The most recent requested month (2025-12 in this example) came back with every field null — Eurostat hadn't published that month for either country yet at fetch time. This is expected, not a bug: see "Known limitations" below.

Worked example — input (Comext)

{
  "dataset": "comext",
  "hs_codes": ["870323", "870324"],
  "reporter_countries": ["HU"],
  "partner_countries": ["DE"],
  "flow": "import",
  "period_from": "2024-07",
  "period_to": "2024-12"
}

Worked example — output (Comext, real data, 4 of 12 rows)

[
  { "dataset": "comext", "hs_code": "870323", "reporter": "HU", "partner": "DE", "period": "2024-07", "flow": "import", "value_eur": 2387357.0, "quantity_kg": 94358.0 },
  { "dataset": "comext", "hs_code": "870323", "reporter": "HU", "partner": "DE", "period": "2024-11", "flow": "import", "value_eur": 6831941.0, "quantity_kg": 349791.0 },
  { "dataset": "comext", "hs_code": "870323", "reporter": "HU", "partner": "DE", "period": "2024-12", "flow": "import", "value_eur": null, "quantity_kg": null },
  { "dataset": "comext", "hs_code": "870324", "reporter": "HU", "partner": "DE", "period": "2024-07", "flow": "import", "value_eur": 2719538.0, "quantity_kg": 50327.0 }
]

Again, 2024-12 (the newest requested month) is null for both HS codes — not yet published for this reporter/partner/product at fetch time, consistently represented as a null row rather than a missing one (see below).

Output schema

hicp rows

Field	Type	Notes
dataset	string	"hicp"
country	string	Eurostat geo code
coicop	string	Consumption category code
period	string	"YYYY-MM"
index_value	float or null	Raw HICP index, base 2015=100, as published by Eurostat
yoy_pct	float or null	Computed. (index_value / index_value 12 months earlier - 1) × 100
ma12_pct	float or null	Computed. Average of yoy_pct over this period and the 11 preceding ones

comext rows

Field	Type	Notes
dataset	string	"comext"
hs_code	string	Product code as given in hs_codes
reporter	string	Reporter (declarant) country
partner	string	Partner country, or "WORLD"
period	string	"YYYY-MM"
flow	string	"import" or "export"
value_eur	float or null	Trade value in euros
quantity_kg	float or null	Trade quantity in kilograms (converted from Eurostat's native 100kg unit)

Both modules guarantee exactly one row per requested combination (country×coicop×period for hicp; reporter×partner×hs_code×period for comext) — a period Eurostat hasn't published data for yet comes back as a row with null fields, it never simply disappears from the output. This makes the row count fully predictable ahead of time (and therefore the cost, too — see Pricing).

How yoy_pct / ma12_pct are computed

• yoy_pct for period t needs the index value at t and at t − 12 months.
• ma12_pct for period t is the average of yoy_pct at t, t−1, ..., t−11 — which in turn each need an index value 12 months before THEM, i.e. as far back as t − 23 months.
• So the actor automatically fetches 23 months of Eurostat data before your requested period_from in the background — you never have to think about this, and only rows inside [period_from, period_to] are ever returned.
• If any needed index value is missing (unpublished, withdrawn, or simply older than the country's series start), the computed field is null — it is never fabricated, and a partial/incomplete 12-month window for ma12_pct is treated as fully missing (strict: all 12 trailing yoy_pct values must be present) rather than silently averaging fewer than 12.

Pricing (pay-per-event)

Event	Price	When it's charged
data-row	$0.002	Once per output row
dataset-query	$0.05	Once per run, right after the first upstream Eurostat chunk fetch succeeds. Never charged if every upstream fetch in the run fails.

Plus Apify's own apify-actor-start synthetic event (first 5 seconds of compute free, platform-managed).

Examples:

• HICP: 2 countries × 1 COICOP × 12 months = 24 rows → 24 × $0.002 + $0.05 = $0.098.
• Comext: 1 reporter × 1 partner × 1 HS code × 6 months = 6 rows → 6 × $0.002 + $0.05 = $0.062.

If a run's cost would exceed the Max total charge USD you set for it, the actor stops producing further rows at exactly that point — every delivered row was paid for, and nothing paid-for is ever dropped. It never crashes and never produces unbilled/"free" rows past the limit.

Error messages

• No input at all: explains the minimal valid input for each dataset.
• Unknown dataset: "'dataset' must be one of ['comext', 'hicp'], got '...'."
• Unknown countries code (hicp): lists all 45 valid Eurostat geo codes and calls out the "EL"/"UK" naming quirk.
• Unknown reporter_countries / partner_countries code (comext): lists all valid codes and calls out that Comext uses "GB"/"GR" (opposite of the hicp module's "UK"/"EL").
• Malformed coicop_codes: Eurostat's full COICOP nomenclature has 468 entries, too many to hardcode as a strict allowlist — this actor validates the code shape (letters/digits/underscore, starting with a letter) rather than membership. A well-formed but nonexistent COICOP code is not a validation error; it comes back as a row with index_value/yoy_pct/ma12_pct all null (see "Known limitations").
• Malformed hs_codes: must be digits only, 2/4/6/8 characters.
• Bad period_from/period_to format, period_from after period_to, or span over 120 months: all rejected with the exact rule and an example fix.
• 0 rows with otherwise valid input: the run still succeeds, but the log carries an explicit WARNING: 0 results produced despite valid input (...) line and the run's status message says so — never a silent "nothing happened." In practice, because both modules guarantee one row per requested combination (see above), this only happens when every single upstream chunk fetch failed (e.g. Eurostat is unreachable) — Eurostat genuinely having no data for a period/country/product still produces null-valued rows, not zero rows.

Known limitations (documented, not hidden)

• HICP index base year is fixed to unit=I15 (2015=100). Eurostat periodically rebases (I05, I96 were also observed live); if/when a newer base becomes the primary one, this actor will need an update — verified 2026-07-06 that I15 is still current.
• COICOP codes are shape-validated, not membership-validated (see Error messages) — a typo'd-but-well-formed code silently yields all-null rows rather than a hard error. Common valid codes are listed in the input field description.
• Comext's 5,000,000-row extraction cap is worked around by chunking every fetch to one (reporter country × calendar year) pair, which stays far under the cap for any realistic hs_codes/partner_countries combination. In the extraordinarily unlikely case a single chunk is still rejected as too big, that one chunk is skipped with a loud log warning (not a crash) — narrowing hs_codes/partner_countries or the period range is the fix.
• Eurostat's two APIs disagree on a few country codes ("EL"/"UK" for HICP vs. "GB"/"GR" for Comext) — this is Eurostat's own inconsistency between the general Statistics API and the Comext API, called out explicitly in both the input schema and validation error messages so it's never a silent surprise.
• A requested period newer than what Eurostat has actually published for a given series is emitted as a null row, not omitted — Eurostat's own JSON-stat response simply drops that month from its time dimension entirely rather than returning an explicit null cell for it; this actor re-inserts the expected row with null fields so the row count is always predictable from the input alone.

Data sources (public, no API key, no scraping)

• Eurostat Statistics API (JSON-stat 2.0): https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/prc_hicp_midx
• Eurostat Comext dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0): https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/comext/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/DS-045409

Both are the same public, unauthenticated endpoints Eurostat's own web tools call — no login, no key, no ToS-risk scraping.