Data Register of the Dutch Government data.overheid.nl

Overview

Data.overheid.nl is the National Data Portal of the Dutch government, serving as the central register and catalog for datasets published by Dutch governmental organizations. It was launched in 2011 when the Netherlands joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The portal is built on the CKAN open-source data management platform with a Drupal 8 front end.

Management and Governance

The portal is maintained by the Knowledge and Exploitation Center for Official Publications (KOOP) on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. It operates under the philosophy of 'open, unless' — meaning government information is published openly by default unless there is a legal reason to restrict it. The portal is also governed by the Dutch Digital Administration Code (CAD) and the Reuse of Government Information Act (Who).

Collections and Holdings

Data.overheid.nl functions as a reference index and register for both open and closed government datasets. It harvests dataset metadata from individual government portals and aggregates them in one place. As of published monitoring data (2024), over 73,000 records were available. The portal also aggregates data to the European Data Portal (data.europa.eu), which harvests all Netherlands datasets via data.overheid.nl. High-value datasets, referential data, and spatial data (geodati.gov.it equivalent: geodati.overheid.nl) are prominently featured.

Access and Usage

The portal is freely accessible to anyone at data.overheid.nl/en. Government organizations can publish datasets directly via the CKAN API using the DCAT-AP-NL metadata standard. Data users can submit data requests for datasets not yet available as open data. The portal provides an Application Catalog showing applications developed using open government data.