Government and law
Laws, parliaments, spending and crime data
Government and law APIs give laws and regulations, parliaments and their members, public spending and crime statistics, for example to follow a bill, look up an MP or see where public money goes.
Congress.gov API
The Congress.gov API from the Library of Congress gives data about the US Congress: bills and their actions, amendments, members, committees, nominations and the Congressional Record, for example to follow a bill through ...
FBI Crime Data API
The FBI Crime Data API gives US crime statistics reported by police agencies to the FBI: offences, arrests, victims and offenders per agency, state and year, for example to compare crime rates between states. Responses are JSON. ...
Federal Register API
The Federal Register API searches the daily journal of the US government: proposed and final rules, notices and presidential documents since 1994, with their agencies, dates and full text, for example to follow new rules about a ...
legislation.gov.uk API
legislation.gov.uk publishes all UK legislation, and every page can also be fetched as data: add /data.xml to an act or section address to get it as XML, or use the Atom feeds to follow new and changed legislation, for example to ...
Police API (data.police.uk)
The Police API from data.police.uk gives open data on policing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: street-level crimes and outcomes by location and month, stop and search records, police forces, neighbourhood teams and their ...
UK Parliament Members API
The UK Parliament Members API gives data about Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords: names, parties, constituencies, contact details, roles, interests and voting records, for example to look up the MP for a ...
USAspending API
The USAspending API gives the spending data of the US federal government: budgets per agency, contracts, grants and loans with their recipients and locations, for example to see which companies in a state receive federal ...
Compare the government, law and spending APIs
| Service | API key | Formats | Free use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Congress.gov API | Needed, free | JSON, XML | Free with a free api.data.gov key. |
| FBI Crime Data API | Needed, free | JSON | Free with a free api.data.gov key. |
| Federal Register API | Not needed | JSON, CSV | Free, no key needed. |
| legislation.gov.uk API | Not needed | XML, RSS | Free, no key needed. |
| Police API (data.police.uk) | Not needed | JSON | Free, no key needed, up to 15 requests a second; the data is under the Open Government Licence. |
| UK Parliament Members API | Not needed | JSON | Free, no key needed. |
| USAspending API | Not needed | JSON | Free, no key needed. |
Questions
Which free government, law and spending APIs work without an API key?
Federal Register API, legislation.gov.uk API, Police API (data.police.uk), UK Parliament Members API and USAspending API work without a key, according to their documentation. Most keyless services ask you to keep the number of requests reasonable, and some ask for a User-Agent that names your app.
Are these government, law and spending APIs really free?
The services here can be used without paying, at least on a free plan or free tier, often with limits such as a number of requests per day or non-commercial use only. The table above quotes what each service says about its free use; check the provider's own terms before you rely on it.
How up to date is this list?
The address of every service is checked about once a week, and services that stop working or stop being free are removed. This list last changed on November 8th, 2026.