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Download the full Norwegian business register

Source: R/download.R
brreg_download.Rd

Download a complete extract of the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities (~1 million entities, ~145 MB gzipped). The bulk endpoint does not support server-side filtering — it always returns all entities. Use brreg_search() for filtered queries up to 10,000 results, or download the full register here and filter locally.

Usage

brreg_download(
  type = c("enheter", "underenheter", "roller"),
  format = c("csv", "json"),
  refresh = FALSE,
  cache = TRUE,
  type_output = c("tibble", "arrow", "path")
)

Arguments

type

One of "enheter" (main entities, default), "underenheter" (sub-entities / establishments), or "roller" (all roles for all entities). Roller data is only available as JSON via /roller/totalbestand (~131 MB).

format

Download format: "csv" (default for enheter/underenheter, semicolon-delimited) or "json" (JSON array). Roller bulk download is always JSON regardless of this parameter.

refresh

FALSE (default): use cached file if available. TRUE: force re-download. "auto": check ETag and re-download only if server has a newer version.

cache

Logical. If TRUE (default), cache downloaded file persistently.

type_output

One of "tibble" (default), "arrow" (requires the arrow package), or "path" (returns the file path without parsing).

Value

Depends on type_output:

  • "tibble": A tibble with ~1 million rows. Column names mapped via field_dict.

  • "arrow": An Arrow Table (lazy, not loaded into memory).

  • "path": Character file path to the cached CSV.

Backend routing

The brreg API has two data access paths with fundamentally different characteristics, following the cansim (Statistics Canada) pattern of separate functions for separate access patterns rather than the eurostat pattern of auto-routing within one function:

  • brreg_search(): JSON API with server-side filtering. Fast for small result sets, capped at 10,000. Interactive exploration.

  • brreg_download(): Bulk CSV. Always returns the full register. Appropriate for panel construction, spatial joins, or any analysis requiring more than 10,000 entities.

Results from both paths use the same column names via field_dict.

Caching

Downloaded files are cached in tools::R_user_dir("tidybrreg", "cache") as gzipped CSV. Use refresh = TRUE to force re-download, or refresh = "auto" to re-download only if the cached file is older than the latest nightly bulk export (checked via ETag headers, following the cansim refresh = "auto" pattern).

See also

brreg_search() for filtered API queries, brreg_updates() for incremental changes since a given date.

Other tidybrreg entity functions: brreg_board_summary(), brreg_children(), brreg_entity(), brreg_roles(), brreg_roles_legal(), brreg_search(), brreg_underenheter(), brreg_update_fields(), brreg_updates()

Examples

if (FALSE) { # interactive() && curl::has_internet()
# \donttest{
# Download full register as tibble (~145MB download, ~1M rows)
entities <- brreg_download()

# Just get the file path (no parsing)
path <- brreg_download(type_output = "path")

# Force refresh
entities <- brreg_download(refresh = TRUE)
# }
}