data.gov.il API
Free Israeli government open data API with no key: around 1,200 curated datasets in Hebrew, including a flight feed refreshed every 15 minutes. Tested example included.
Endpoint tested and returned HTTP 200 on 2026-08-21
What is the data.gov.il API?
data.gov.il is Israel's national open data portal, exposing a free, key-free CKAN API. It holds roughly 1,200 datasets from Israeli ministries and authorities, with Hebrew right-to-left titles and descriptions, and includes near-real-time feeds such as the Airports Authority flight database.
This is a curated catalogue rather than a harvest, and the size shows it: about 1,200 datasets against Germany's 156,000. What you get in exchange is a much higher hit rate — the records are maintained by the publishing authority, and several are genuinely live rather than annual dumps. The Airports Authority `flydata` record, which the default search surfaces first, states in its own description that it refreshes every fifteen minutes.
Everything is Hebrew and right-to-left, which affects more than display. Organisation titles arrive as Hebrew strings, tag names are Hebrew, and any JSON you log to a left-to-right terminal will look scrambled even when it is correct. The portal also adds a `mail_box` field to the standard CKAN record, and uses `license_id: "other-open"` widely — an open licence, but a non-standard identifier that licence-matching code will not recognise out of the box.
Quick facts
- Base URL
https://data.gov.il/api/3/action- Authentication
- No API key for reads. Datastore queries against individual resources use the same key-free interface.
- Rate limit
- No published limit. The datastore endpoints are the ones worth caching.
- Pricing
- Free. Most datasets are open, though `license_id` is frequently the non-standard `other-open`.
- CORS
- Enabled — callable directly from browser JavaScript
- Official docs
- Read the docs
How to use the data.gov.il API
Every request below was executed against the live API on 2026-08-21, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.
1. Search Israeli government datasets
GET https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/package_search?rows=1
curl 'https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/package_search?rows=1'const res = await fetch("https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/package_search?rows=1");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);import requests
res = requests.get("https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/package_search?rows=1", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json()){
"help": "https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/help_show?name=package_search",
"success": true,
"result": {
"count": 1199,
"facets": {},
"results": [
{
"author": null,
"author_email": "dassib@iaa.gov.il",
"creator_user_id": "121487ac-83c5-419e-8327-f71c29196eb8",
"id": "3dfc6b2a-bc1d-4770-8d5f-457ce50a73b3",
"isopen": true,
"license_id": "other-open",
"license_title": "Other (Open)",
"mail_box": "",
"maintainer": null,
"maintainer_email": null,
"metadata_created": "2017-08-06T10:53:26.362799",
"metadata_modified": "2026-08-21T07:45:36.152388",
"name": "flydata",
"notes": "מאגר הטיסות מתעדכן כל 15 דקות",
"num_resources": 1,
"num_tags": 1,
"organization": {
"id": "cad80b0d-1c83-4b14-80fd-c0c5295046f9",
"name": "airport_authority",
"title": "רשות שדות התעופה",
"type": "organization",
"description": "",
"image_url": "2021-08-17-132057.754032headerlogo-icon.png",
"created": "2015-12-07T11:27:49.561255",
"is_organization": true,
"approval_status": "approved",
"state": "active"
},
"owner_org": "cad80b0d-1c83-4b14-80fd-c0c5295046f9",
"private": false,
"remark": "",
"state": "active",
"title": "מאגר טיסות",
"title_link": "",
"type": "dataset",
"url": "",
"url_link": "",
"version": "",
"extras": [
{
"key": "FrequencParameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
q | query | Optional | Free-text Solr query. Hebrew terms match; English mostly does not. טיסות |
rows | query | Optional | Datasets per page. Defaults to 20. 1 |
start | query | Optional | Pagination offset. 0 |
fq | query | Optional | Filter query, typically by publishing authority. organization:airport_authority |
sort | query | Optional | Sort order such as newest first. metadata_modified desc |
Response fields
successboolean- CKAN's success flag, separate from the HTTP status.
result.countinteger- Total matching datasets — 1,199 unfiltered at the time of testing.
results[].title / notesstring- Hebrew, right-to-left. Terminals and logs will render them oddly even when the bytes are correct.
results[].organization.titlestring- Publishing authority in Hebrew, for example רשות שדות התעופה for the Airports Authority.
results[].license_idstring- Commonly `other-open` — genuinely open, but not a Open Definition identifier your licence matcher will know.
results[].mail_boxstring- Non-standard contact field added by this portal; usually empty.
results[].isopenboolean- Portal's own judgement on whether the licence is open. More reliable here than `license_id` string matching.
results[].namestring- Latin-script slug such as `flydata`, even though the title is Hebrew — useful as a stable key.
What you can build with the data.gov.il API
- Poll the Airports Authority flight feed for near-real-time arrivals and departures
- Search Israeli ministry datasets from a Hebrew-language interface
- Query individual datasets row by row through the CKAN datastore
- Monitor a specific authority for newly published data
Common errors and how to fix them
Empty results for English queries
Titles and tags are Hebrew.
Fix: Search Hebrew terms, or list `organization_list` first and browse by publisher using the Latin-script `name` slugs.
HTTP 200 with success false
CKAN rejected your parameters.
Fix: Read `error.message`; the status code will still be 200.
Licence matcher does not recognise the licence
`other-open` is not an Open Definition identifier.
Fix: Use the boolean `isopen` field instead of string-matching `license_id`.
Garbled Hebrew in output
Right-to-left text in a left-to-right console.
Fix: The bytes are fine — check in a browser or an RTL-aware viewer before assuming an encoding bug.
data.gov.il API — frequently asked questions
Is the data.gov.il API free?
Yes, reads need no key or registration. Both `package_search` and the per-resource datastore endpoints are open.
Why does Israel list only about 1,200 datasets?
It is a curated national catalogue rather than a harvest of state and municipal portals. Fewer records, but each one is maintained by the publishing authority and several update continuously.
Which datasets update in near real time?
The Airports Authority `flydata` record describes itself as refreshing every fifteen minutes. Query it through the CKAN datastore rather than re-downloading the whole resource each poll.
Can I search the portal in English?
Barely. Titles, descriptions and tags are Hebrew, though dataset `name` slugs are Latin script. Translate your search term, or enumerate organisations and browse.
Tools that pair with this API
CSV to JSON Converter
Convert CSV to a JSON array of objects online. Header-row detection, comma/semicolon/tab delimiters and pretty-printed output — 100% in your browser.
JSON Formatter
Format, beautify and minify JSON online with 2-space, 4-space or tab indentation. Sort keys alphabetically and catch syntax errors instantly — free and private.
CSV Viewer & Table
View CSV as a clean HTML table online. Live search filter, row and column counts, delimiter and header options — all processed locally in your browser.
data.gov.il is an independent third-party service and is not affiliated with ByteTools or ByteVancer. Details on this page were verified on 2026-08-21; always check the official documentation before relying on this API in production, as terms and limits can change.