GovData Docs

Legislation API Reference

Search and retrieve UK legislation from legislation.gov.uk.

Base URL: https://api.govdata.dev/v1

Search Legislation

GET /v1/legislation/search

Full-text search across UK legislation. Filter by type and year.

Query parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
q string Yes Search query (matches title and content)
type string No One of ukpga, uksi, ukla, wsi, ssi, nisi, nisr, asp, asc, or ukdsi
year integer No Year of enactment (e.g. 2025)
page integer No Page number (default 1, 20 results per page) 
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.govdata.dev/v1/legislation/search?q=finance&type=ukpga&year=2025"

Response

{
  "data": [
      {
        "identifier": "ukpga/2025/12",
        "legislation_type": "ukpga",
        "type_name": "UK Public General Act",
        "year": 2025,
        "number": 12,
        "title": "Finance Act 2025",
        "enacted_date": "2025-03-20",
        "description": "An Act to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the national debt and the public revenue.",
        "commencement_date": null,
        "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/12"
      }
    ],
  "meta": {
    "api_version": "v1",
    "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
    "source": "The National Archives",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk"
  },
  "pagination": { "page": 1, "per_page": 25, "total": 1, "total_pages": 1 }
}

Get Legislation

GET /v1/legislation/:type/:year/:number

Retrieve a specific piece of legislation by type, year, and number.

Path parameters

Parameter Type Description
type string Any of the ten type codes listed above
year integer Year of enactment
number integer Legislation number within that year 
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  https://api.govdata.dev/v1/legislation/ukpga/2025/8

Response

{
  "data": {
    "identifier": "ukpga/2025/12",
    "legislation_type": "ukpga",
    "type_name": "UK Public General Act",
    "year": 2025,
    "number": 12,
    "title": "Finance Act 2025",
    "enacted_date": "2025-03-20",
    "description": "An Act to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the national debt and the public revenue.",
    "commencement_date": null,
    "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/12"
  },
  "meta": {
    "api_version": "v1",
    "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
    "source": "The National Archives",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/8"
  }
}

Legislation data is sourced from The National Archives with a sync scheduled every Sunday at 10am. All ten documented series are synchronised for 2000 to the present year. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Data Coverage

Source legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives)
Date range 2000–present for all ten series (or the series' later inception)
Records About 96,000 published series/year results through 2026: ukpga 938; uksi 51,969; wsi 6,735; ssi 11,280; nisi 114; nisr 9,050; asp 401; asc 34; ukla 67; ukdsi 5,402
Updated Weekly; historical backfill is resumable by type and year
Limitations legislation.gov.uk's UKSI browse total includes Welsh SIs, so published series totals overlap. GovData stores each canonical identifier once under its canonical type. Draft instruments (ukdsi) can be withdrawn or replaced; local Acts (ukla) are sparse and some years have no publications.