INE Portugal Statistics Scraper

INE Portugal Statistics Scraper

Scrape INE Portugal Statistics data by indicator code, theme, or catalogue, up to a million records per run. Every row comes with its dimensions, period, geography, and value. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

INE Portugal's official portal hides its data behind a slow web interface and no public API. This Actor reads the public statistics service directly, filtered by indicator code, theme, or dimension, and returns each match in one fixed schema. Get crime rates, population, GDP, unemployment, and thousands of other indicators in seconds.

Who uses it	What they scrape INE Portugal Statistics for
Market researchers	Which Portuguese regions are growing fastest this quarter
Data journalists	Crime, unemployment, or population figures for a story
Economists	GDP, inflation, and labour market series for models
Public policy analysts	Demographic and housing indicators by municipality
Students and academics	Official statistics for theses and papers

What it does

This Actor collects INE Portugal statistics by indicator code, theme, or the full catalogue, and returns each record as a flat row with dimensions and values.

• 📊 Data values: fetch actual observations for any indicator code, with optional dimension filters.
• 🗂️ Indicator metadata: get the description, units, and dimension labels for one or many codes.
• 📚 Indicator catalogue: list every available INE indicator code with its name and theme, optionally filtered by theme.
• 🔢 Batch lookup: pass up to 100 indicator codes in one run and get data or metadata for all of them.
• 🌐 Bilingual labels: return dimension and indicator names in English or Portuguese.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with INE Portugal Statistics data

📈 Track regional economic trends.

A market researcher pulls GDP and unemployment by NUTS region each quarter to compare growth across Portugal.

📰 Fact-check a news story.

A journalist fetches the latest crime rate for Lisbon and Porto to verify a claim about rising violence.

🏠 Analyse housing affordability.

A policy analyst scrapes housing price and income indicators by municipality to identify areas under pressure.

🎓 Build a demographic dataset.

A student downloads population by age and sex for all municipalities to use in a GIS project.

🔍 Discover available indicators.

A researcher runs the catalogue mode to list every INE indicator on health, then batch-fetches the relevant codes.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	The public INE service needs no registration or token
Fixed schema	Every record has the same columns, ready for analysis
Batch and catalogue	Fetch many indicators at once or discover new ones
Dimension filters	Narrow by period, geography, or any other dimension
Bilingual	Labels in English or Portuguese

How it compares

No other Store actor targets INE Portugal Statistics the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	INE Portugal Statistics Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When INE Portugal Statistics changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from indicator codes, themes, and dimension filters, alone or together, and filters run as each record is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "indicatorCode": "0008074",
  "mode": "data",
  "language": "EN",
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "indicatorCode": "0008074",
  "mode": "data",
  "language": "EN",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.037 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$3.70
1,000 results	$37.00
10,000 results	$370.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the INE Portugal Statistics Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to INE Portugal Statistics through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/ine-portugal-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your indicator code is correct and padded to 7 digits. Also verify your dimension filters: if you set dim1 to a value that does not exist for that indicator, no records will match.

The Actor returns only 10 records.

Free users are limited to 10 records as a preview. Upgrade to a paid plan and increase maxItems to get more.

I get an error about an invalid indicator code.

Make sure the code is exactly 7 digits. Use the catalogue mode to list valid codes, or check the INE portal.

The labels are in the wrong language.

Set the language field to EN for English or PT for Portuguese. The default is EN.

I want to filter by a specific municipality but don't know the code.

Run the metadata mode for your indicator to see the dimension values, including geographic codes. Then use those codes in dim1, dim2, or dim3.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is an INE indicator code?	It is the 7-digit code (varcd) that INE uses to identify each statistical series. You can find codes on the INE portal or use the catalogue mode to list them.
Can I fetch more than one indicator at a time?	Yes. Use the indicatorCodes array to pass up to 100 codes in one run. The Actor will return data or metadata for all of them.
What does the catalogue mode return?	It returns every available indicator code with its name and theme. You can optionally filter by a theme code to narrow the list.
How do I filter by geography or period?	Use the dim1, dim2, and dim3 fields. For example, dim1 can be a period code and dim2 a geographic code. Leave them empty to get all values.
Can I get labels in Portuguese?	Yes. Set the language field to PT for Portuguese labels, or EN for English.
Is there a limit on how many records I can get?	Free users are limited to 10 records as a preview. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000.
Do I need an API key or login?	No. The Actor reads the public INE statistics service directly, so no registration or token is required.
What format is the output?	The Actor returns a flat dataset that you can export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
How do I find the theme code for the catalogue?	Theme codes (temaCod) are available on the INE portal. You can also run the catalogue without a theme to see all indicators and their themes.
Can I schedule this Actor to run regularly?	Yes. Use Apify schedules to run it daily, weekly, or monthly and keep your dataset up to date.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Instituto Nacional de Estatística. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.