Summary

For data-producing organisations like national statistics offices or central banks, SDMX API v2 offers significant advantages across the data lifecycle. In data collection, it enables automated, standardised data exchange with partners. During statistics production, it supports efficient access to metadata and structural definitions, improving data validation and integration. For dissemination, the API allows real-time, user-driven access to datasets and metadata, reducing manual reporting and increasing transparency. Its support for aggregated data and microdata, flexible filtering, and multiple formats (JSON, XML, CSV) makes it ideal for powering dashboards, portals, and third-party integrations—enhancing data accessibility, quality, and timeliness across the organisation.

For data scientists and data users, SDMX API v2 provides seamless access to reliable, trusted datasets from official sources like national statistics offices and central banks. It simplifies data discovery through structured metadata, code lists, and searchable dataflows. Users can programmatically query time-series data, microdata, and metadata using consistent, RESTful endpoints with support for JSON, XML, and CSV formats. Advanced filtering and pagination options enable efficient extraction of relevant data. By automating data retrieval and integrating directly into analysis workflows or dashboards, the SDMX API v2 ensures up-to-date, high-quality data is always accessible—supporting reproducible research, policy analysis, and data-driven decision-making.

In this module, we have reviewed the overall format of SDMX REST API v2and its purpose, along with data queries and structure queries. We also covered how to programmatically connect to:

• The BIS data API using the SDMX REST API and extract various data
• The SDMX Global Registry using the SDMX REST API and extract various structures

Examples

A few examples of some of the queries we have covered in this module are listed below.

Example 1
List all codelists in the Global Registry (without the codes):

-> Browser

https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/codelist/all/all/+/?format=sdmx-3.0&detail=allstubs&prettyPrint=true

-> Curl

curl -X GET "https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/codelist/all/all/+/?format=sdmx-3.0&detail=allstubs&prettyPrint=true"

-> Python

import requests
response = requests.get("https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/codelist/all/all/+/?format=sdmx-3.0&detail=allstubs&prettyPrint=true")
print (response.text)

NOTE:
XML SDMX 3.0 response: ?format=sdmx-3.0
JSON response, specify: ?format=sdmx-json&version=2.0.0

-> Browser

https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/datastructure/UNSD/all/+/?format=sdmx-3.0&references=dataflow&prettyPrint=true

-> Curl

curl -X GET "https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/datastructure/UNSD/all/+/?format=sdmx-3.0&references=dataflow&prettyPrint=true"

-> Python

import requests
response = requests.get("https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/datastructure/UNSD/all/+/?format=sdmx-3.0&references=dataflow&prettyPrint=true")
print (response.text)

NOTE:
XML SDMX 3.0 response: ?format=sdmx-3.0
JSON response, specify: ?format=sdmx-json&version=2.0.0

-> Browser

https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/structure/UNSD/all?format=sdmx-3.0&detail=allstubs&prettyPrint=true

-> Curl

curl -X GET "https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/structure/UNSD/all?format=sdmx-3.0&detail=allstubs&prettyPrint=true"

-> Python

import requests
response = requests.get("https://registry.sdmx.org/sdmx/v2/structure/structure/UNSD/all?format=sdmx-3.0&detail=allstubs&prettyPrint=true")
print (response.text)

NOTE:
XML SDMX 3.0 response: ?format=sdmx-3.0
JSON response, specify: ?format=sdmx-json&version=2.0.0

Retrieve all data for dataflow ID WS_XRU and where: Frequency = Quarterly (Q) and Reference area is Australia (AU).

-> Browser

https://stats.bis.org/api/v2/data/dataflow/BIS/WS_XRU/1.0/D.AU..?format=csv

-> Curl

curl -X GET "https://stats.bis.org/api/v2/data/dataflow/BIS/WS_XRU/1.0/D.AU..?format=csv"

-> Python

import requests
response = requests.get("https://stats.bis.org/api/v2/data/dataflow/BIS/WS_XRU/1.0/D.AU..?format=csv")
print (response.text)

NOTE:
XML SDMX 3.0 response: ?format=sdmx-3.0
JSON response, specify: ?format=sdmx-json&version=2.0.0

References

The following references provide another opportunity to review the module videos and access more details on some of the topics we have covered:

4. FMR REST API Overview
5. FMR REST API Reference

We welcome feedback on this module. Please send any comments via email to contact.sdmx.io@bis.org.