World Bank Data Scraper: Economic Indicators

World Bank development indicators as a flat table you can pivot, not nested JSON you have to unpack.

{
  "indicators": ["NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", "FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG"],
  "countries": ["IL", "US", "DE"],
  "dateRange": "2015:2024"
}

One row per country × indicator × year. No API key.

The two things that break naive World Bank clients

The response is a two-element envelope. Every World Bank reply is [metadata, rows], not a list of rows. Code that treats it as a plain array either crashes or silently reads the pagination metadata as if it were data. An error comes back as a one-element list holding a message, which is why that case is checked rather than assumed.

Most cells are genuinely empty. Ask for 200 countries × 3 indicators × 20 years and the World Bank returns 12,000 rows, of which a large share have value: null, that country simply never reported that number. Emitting those would bill you for the absence of data. They are dropped by default, and skipEmptyValues: false is there when you need the complete grid including gaps.

Indicators

Fourteen of the most-requested ones are a dropdown, GDP, GDP per capita, GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, population, life expectancy, education and health spending, CO2 per capita, internet penetration, FDI, exports, government debt.

Anything else goes in customIndicators as a code, e.g. SI.POV.GINI. The full catalogue is at data.worldbank.org/indicator.

Countries

ISO 2- or 3-letter codes. Leave countries empty to get every country plus the World Bank's regional and income-group aggregates (WLD, EUU, OED, LIC…), which is usually what you want for a benchmark chart.

Country and indicator codes are semicolon-joined into a single request, so a 200-country × 3-indicator pull is a handful of calls, not 600.

Use cases

• Macro dashboards: one call feeds a whole country comparison
• Market sizing: GDP per capita and population, filtered to your target markets
• Investment research: inflation, debt and FDI series without a Bloomberg terminal
• Academic work: reproducible, citable, with the World Bank's own lastUpdated stamp on every row
• Risk models: sovereign indicators as a scheduled feed

Pricing

Charged per observation returned. An unknown indicator code or a request the World Bank has no data for produces an error row and costs $0.00.

Do you need an API key? No. Is there a free tier? Yes.

The two things people search for in this category, measured, are free and API key: world bank api key.

So, plainly:

• No API key. Nothing to register for, nothing to rotate, no key to leak in a repo. The source is a public API published deliberately by its owner.
• No proxy setup. The source does not bot-wall datacenter addresses, so the default works.
• Pay per result, not per month. There is no subscription and no minimum. Rows that error or that your filters drop are not charged.
• Free to try. Run it with the prefilled input and see real rows before deciding anything.

Notes

• Values are exactly as the World Bank publishes them, no interpolation, no filling forward. A gap in the data is reported as a gap.
• lastUpdated is the World Bank's own database refresh date, carried on every row so you can tell how current a series is.
• Data is licensed CC BY 4.0 by the World Bank; attribution is your responsibility when republishing.

FAQ

Do I need a World Bank API key?

No. The World Bank's indicator API is open and key-free, and there is no quota to manage.

Where do I find indicator codes?

Fourteen of the most-requested indicators are a dropdown. Anything else goes in customIndicators as its code, such as SI.POV.GINI for the Gini index. The full catalogue is at data.worldbank.org/indicator.

Why are some country-year values missing?

Because the country never reported that figure. The World Bank publishes those cells as null, and they are dropped by default so you are not billed for absence of data. Set skipEmptyValues: false when you want the complete grid including the gaps, for example when you need to show coverage rather than values.

Can I get regions and income groups, not just countries?

Yes. Leave countries empty and you get every country plus the World Bank's own aggregates: WLD for world, EUU for the EU, OED for the OECD, LIC for low income. Those are usually what a benchmark chart actually needs.

How current is the data?

Every row carries lastUpdated, the World Bank's own database refresh date, so you can tell how stale a series is without guessing. Indicators update on different schedules, and annual national accounts lag by roughly a year.

Can I use this in a published paper or product?

The data is licensed CC BY 4.0 by the World Bank. Attribution is your responsibility when republishing.