Use RIZIV nomenclature data through a simple API

Does RIZIV publish an API?

Not for the nomenclature reference tables. RIZIV publishes them as ZIP archives of pipe-delimited text and XML, refreshed on an irregular schedule, together with a spreadsheet describing the table layout. There is no endpoint to call and no versioned contract to build against.

That is a reasonable way to publish a dataset and an awkward way to consume one. This API exists to close that gap: the same data, normalised, indexed and addressable by code.

What the RIZIV data contains

31,231 nomenclature codes, each with a Dutch and a French description, a chapter, article and sub-article, and a validity period. Alongside them: 1.7 million published amounts, because a single code carries a tariff, what the insurer reimburses, and what the patient pays — split again by whether the patient has the preferential reimbursement regime.

The descriptions are versioned. Code 101076 has had four Dutch wordings since 1995, each tied to the legal instrument that introduced it.

Why not just download the files

You can, and for a one-off analysis you probably should. The cost shows up in maintenance: the archives carry a 2018 timestamp whatever their contents, so you cannot tell from HTTP whether anything changed; amounts use a dot as the thousands separator, so a naive parse turns €1,694.42 into €1.69; and the update archive only keeps five months, so the history you did not capture is gone.

How often the source changes

Irregularly. Between February and September 2026 the source published updates 16 times, with gaps from two days to seven weeks. We poll daily and publish an import only after it validates, so `/v1/source-status` always tells you exactly which publication you are reading.