About UN Comtrade #
The UN Comtrade platform provides comprehensive annual and monthly trade statistics for global trade by product and trading partner. These statistics are useful for governments, academic institutions, research organizations, and businesses. It covers approximately 200 countries, representing over 99% of the world’s merchandise and services trade. You can access the data and metadata by visiting the URL: http://comtrade.un.org.
UN Comtrade is maintained by the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). Contact: comtrade@un.org.
Free and premium access #
UN Comtrade offers free access to all users. Registering a free account unlocks additional features, but usage is monitored for fairness.
Users can access premium data services by visiting https://shop.un.org/databases#Comtrade
Comparison between various access options are outlined at Subscription Plans
Fair Usage #
UN Comtrade is a publicly available database that anyone can access with or without registration. However, users are expected to consider others by avoiding excessive usage, such as web scraping via bots or registering multiple accounts to circumvent the daily limit. To ensure the well-functioning of data services, the following measures may be implemented:
- The rate limit for data queries and API calls per second and the daily call quota may be temporarily adjusted.
- Accounts of users who violate this fair usage policy may be banned or blocked.
- Some data services may be turned off until usage returns to a normal range.
Copyright Statement and Citation #
The United Nations copyright UN Comtrade data.
UN Comtrade data are provided for internal use only and may not be re-disseminated in any form without UNSD’s permission. The exemption (e.g., a small amount of data) is explained in the section on re-dissemination below.
Regarding citation, refer to the data source as “UN Comtrade.”
Internal use #
Internal use is defined as only for use by staff members of the institutional unit for the benefit of the unit; internal use explicitly excludes data dissemination to any entity outside the institutional unit.
If UN Comtrade data are used within the boundaries of the definition of internal use, then permission from UNSD for its use is unnecessary, and a license to distribute with a fee will not apply.
Use of data within a joint project #
UNSD allows the sharing of UN Comtrade data beyond the internal definition only if it is shared with another institution within the framework of a joint project. In all other cases, permission from UNSD for sharing UN Comtrade data is necessary, and a license to distribute with a fee may apply.
License Agreement #
Use of UN Comtrade data is subject to a license agreement found at https://comtrade.un.org/licenseagreement.html, regardless of whether the data is accessed via free or premium access.
Disclaimer #
Use of UN Comtrade data is also subject to acknowledgment of the disclaimer contained in Read Me First (Disclaimer)
Permission for re-dissemination and use of data within applications #
UNSD allows using UN Comtrade data within data extraction and/or visualization/analytical applications, free of charge or with fees. Re-dissemination means reusing UN Comtrade data as-is, without any transformation, in other data platforms (printed or online) and not for internal use.
The following rationale is considered regarding the application of a license to distribute with a fee:
- If data being re-disseminated are substantially different from the data provided in the UN Comtrade, then a license to distribute with a fee shall not apply.
- If data being re-disseminated are substantially the same as data provided in the UN Comtrade, then a license to distribute with a fee shall apply where the amount charged is based on:
- the number of records being re-disseminated or the type of application (data visualization/analytics or data extraction/streaming oriented)
- whether data is re-disseminated for a fee or free of charge; and,
- whether access to this data is limited to a specific audience or open to the public in general.
The license to distribute is not applied, and permission is not required for the following use cases: #
- Publication of UN Comtrade data in a few tables or graphs in newspaper articles, journals, other magazines, books, or social media
- Free-of-charge data extraction and/or streaming application offering only a small number of records (up to 100,000)
- Free-of-charge data extraction and/or streaming application for large number of records for existing active UN Comtrade subscribers
- Free-of-charge data visualization and/or data analytics application
- Internal use, including the use of UN Comtrade data for the AI model.
License to distribute with a fee is applied for the following use cases: #
- For-profit data visualization and/or analytics application
- For-profit data extraction and/or streaming application
- Any other for-profit applications
To re-disseminate UN Comtrade data, a user must be an active premium subscriber.
Exceptionally, case-by-case decisions will be made in special situations where the previously stated guidelines may not easily be applied.
Please read this FAQs on Use and Re-dissemination for some examples and use cases.
For inquiries or requests for re-dissemination, please contact subscriptions@un.org.
Definitions #
| Data visualization and/or analytics application | These applications normally do not provide download/streaming features. If they do (e.g., to download underlying data), they should only offer a small number of records. |
| Data extraction and/or streaming application | These applications are similar to the UN Comtrade-style data dissemination system, characterized by fully flexible queries and strong data extraction capabilities. These include the availability of bulk files and APIs |
| Institutional unit | “An institutional unit is an economic entity that is capable, in its own right, of owning assets, incurring liabilities, and engaging in economic activities and in transactions with other entities.” “An institutional unit is an economic entity that is capable, in its own right, of owning assets, incurring liabilities, and engaging in economic activities and in transactions with other entities.” – System of National Accounts publication (SNA, 2008) |
