The Gazette is a rich source of open data that is free for the developer community to use and repurpose unless stated otherwise, is Crown Copyright and is therefore free for you to use under the Open Government Licence.

However, please note that this licence does not cover the re-use of personal data. We can also provide a subscription-based data service, designed to support risk and opportunity management in business and government.

The types of information held in our archives include:

• Companies (from 1998): insolvency, filings at Companies House, striking off, dissolutions, reinstatements, takeovers and transfers, changes in capital structure, property disclaimers, claims against pension schemes, societies notices and cancellations.
• Individuals and partnerships (from 1998): insolvency, partnership changes and dissolution.
• Wills and probate (from 1998): missing wills, missing beneficiaries, missing creditors.
• Appointments (from 1900): civil promotions, church appointments and military promotions.
• Honours, awards and charters (from 1900).
• Wills and probate (from 1900).
• Planning notices (from 1998).

For more information on longitudinal datasets and how they are maintained, see longitudinal datasets.

Linked data

Linked data is a method of publishing structured data so that it can be automatically read by computers and so is more easily shared and compared. As a result, linked data is data that is more accurate and easier to use.

The Gazette’s linked data application programming interface (API) allows the different representations of a notice to be retrieved via format specific URLs. For more information, please visit the data formats section of the website. The formats that can be queried include:

• PDF
• TTL
• RDF
• JSON LD
• HTML
• XML

You will find all the documentation you need to get started on The Gazette’s Github.

Once you’ve read the developer documentation, you can begin querying the data held in our archives at:

• SPARQL endpoint
• Flint editor

Please note: all crawling undertaken must respect the rules laid out in our robots.txt file, especially the crawl delay of one request every 10 seconds. Crawling should be undertaken in non-business hours between 9pm and 7am.

Citing The Gazette

When reusing any data it is important to reference the original source. We are keen for you to cite The Gazette in your research, or link to us from your website, as it helps us raise awareness (more information can be found in our hyperlinking policy page). Should you choose to cite The Gazette you can use the following wording:

“Recorded in The Gazette, issue 60630, 17 September 2013”

If you would like to refer to a specific edition (London, Edinburgh or Belfast) you can say:

“Recorded in The Gazette (London Gazette), issue 60630, 17 September 2013”