Alþingi — Parliament XML

Open XML feeds from the Alþingi database: every MP since 1875, per-MP roll-call votes, the parliamentary matter catalogue, committee membership, speeches, ministerial appointments and consultation submissions.

API

Base URL: https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/

No authentication, no rate limit published. Plain GET, no query language — each endpoint is a fixed path with query-string filters. Responses are text/xml; charset=utf-8.

Send a User-Agent. The site returns 403 Forbidden to httpx's default UA. Any identifying string is accepted — sending none, or a default library UA, is the failure mode. curl works out of the box, so this bites only when moving from a shell probe to code.

Responses are served through Cloudflare and come back cf-cache-status: HIT with an age of up to ~10 minutes. Combined with the daily refresh, treat anything you read as up to a day old.

Data refreshes once per day ("Gögnin uppfærast að öllu jöfnu einu sinni á sólarhring"), so there is nothing to gain from polling faster.

There is no schema

Alþingi states outright: "Ekki er til xml-skema fyrir gögnin, nema Alþingistíðindi" and "Framsetningin á gögnunum geta tekið breytingum án fyrirvara" — no XSD except for Alþingistíðindi, and the shape may change without notice.

In practice there is no schema at all. The two XSDs the index page links for the record proper — http://skema.althingi.is/skema/althingi_{gerdabok,raedur}.xsd — are dead: skema.althingi.is returns no DNS answer (checked 2026-08-15, while www.althingi.is resolves normally). Do not plan on validating against them.

So everything here is shape-by-observation. That is what the health probe guards, and it is why it asserts Icelandic element names rather than values.

Element names are Icelandic

Tags are <þingmaður>, <atkvæðagreiðsla>, <þingflokkur>, <kjördæmi> — non-ASCII, which is legal XML but unusual. Both lxml and stdlib xml.etree.ElementTree handle it; this repo uses the stdlib parser, so no new dependency. Parse from bytes (resp.content), never resp.text — the documents carry their own encoding declaration and a str input trips ValueError: Unicode strings with encoding declaration are not supported.

Common parameters

Parameter	Applies to	Example	Notes
lthing	most list endpoints	?lthing=156	Parliament (löggjafarþing) number
dagur	rosters, votes, speeches	?dagur=14.2.2013 or ?dagur=20190916	Two date formats in the wild — D.M.YYYY for rosters, YYYYMMDD for votes/speeches
dagar	votes, speeches	?dagar=100	Trailing window in days
malnr	matter detail	?lthing=156&malnr=1	Only unique within a málsflokkur — see caveat 3
nr	per-person detail	?nr=1547	Person id, stable across parliaments
nnefnd	committee members	?lthing=156&nnefnd=201	Committee id

Endpoints

Core — what scripts/althingi.py fetches

Endpoint	Root element	Purpose
loggjafarthing/	löggjafarþing	Every parliament 1..N with dates and per-þing index links
loggjafarthing/yfirstandandi/	löggjafarþing	The current parliament — resolve this at runtime, never hardcode
thingmenn/?lthing=N	þingmannalisti	Everyone who sat during þing N (members and substitutes)
thingmenn/thingmadur/thingseta/?nr=N	þingmaður	Party + constituency + seat, per parliament. The only route to party affiliation
atkvaedagreidslur/?lthing=N	atkvæðagreiðslur	All vote events of a parliament
atkvaedagreidslur/atkvaedagreidsla/?numer=N	atkvæðagreiðsla	One vote with the per-MP ballot (<atkvæðaskrá>)
thingmalalisti/?lthing=N	málaskrá	All matters (bills, resolutions, questions) of a parliament
nefndir/nefndarmenn/?lthing=N	nefndarmenn	Committee membership with start/end dates
thingfundir/?lthing=N	þingfundir	Sittings: number, title, start/end timestamps
raedulisti/?lthing=N	ræðulisti	Speech metadata — speaker, times, links. Not the text

Also available — documented, not yet scripted

Endpoint	Root element	What it holds
thingmenn/thingmadur/?nr=N	þingmaður	One MP: name, birth date, links
thingmalalisti/thingmal/?lthing=N&malnr=M	þingmál	A-matter detail: sponsors, stages, documents
thingmalalisti/bmal/?lthing=N&malnr=M	bmál	B-matter detail — a separate route, see caveat 3
nefndir/?lthing=N	nefndir	Committees active in þing N
thingmenn/thingmadur/hagsmunir/?nr=N	þingmaður	Declarations of interest — an MP's directorships, shareholdings, paid roles. Joins to skatturinn ownership data by company name
erindi/?lthing=N	erindaskrá	Consultation submissions to committees — the lobbying trail. ~800 KB per parliament
erindi/sendandi/?lthing=N	sendendur	Who submitted, aggregated by sender
thingmenn/thingmadur/lifshlaup/?nr=N	þingmaður	Biography — education, career, offices
thingmenn/thingmadur/nefndaseta/?nr=N	þingmaður	One MP's committee history
thingskjol/?lthing=N	þingskjöl	Parliamentary documents index
thingskjol/thingskjal/?lthing=N&skjalnr=N	þingskjal	One document
samantektir/?lthing=N	samantektir	Plain-language summaries of matters
samantektir/samantekt/?lthing=N&malnr=M	samantekt	One summary (often empty — 87 bytes)
efnisflokkar/	efnisflokkar	Subject taxonomy, two levels (yfirflokkur → efnisflokkur)
efnisflokkar/efnisflokkur/?lthing=N&efnisflokkur=K	efnisflokkar	Matters in a subject category
nefndarfundir/	nefndarfundir	Committee meetings. Trailing slash required — without it, 301 to HTML
dagskra/thingfundur/?lthing=N&fundur=M	dagskráþingfundar	Order paper for one sitting
forsetar/?lthing=N	forsetalisti	Speaker and deputy speakers
framsogumenn/?lthing=N	framsögumannaskrá	Committee rapporteurs per matter
thingflokkar/?lthing=N	þingflokkar	Parliamentary groups with abbreviations
thingflokksformenn/?lthing=N	þingflokksformenn	Group chairs
kjordaemi/?lthing=N	kjördæmin	Constituencies
radherrar/?dagur=D.M.YYYY	ráðherralisti	Ministers on a given date
radherrar/radherraseta/?nr=N	einstaklingur	One person's ministerial terms
radherraembaetti/	ráðherrar	Ministerial offices over time
saetaskipan/?timi=ISO	sætaskipun	Chamber seating. Seat numbers only — no party

Historical depth

Coverage starts at a different parliament per dataset — this is the first thing to check before any long-run series:

Dataset	From	Roughly
MPs (þingmenn)	þing 1	1875
Matters, documents, speeches	þing 20	1907
Committees	þing 74	1954
Submissions (erindi)	þing 111	1988

Request examples

# Which parliament is sitting right now
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/loggjafarthing/yfirstandandi/"

# Everyone who sat in þing 156
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/thingmenn/?lthing=156"

# One MP's party and constituency, per parliament
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/thingmenn/thingmadur/thingseta/?nr=1261"

# A single vote, with every MP's ballot
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/atkvaedagreidslur/atkvaedagreidsla/?numer=67566"

# Votes on one matter / on one day / in the last 100 days
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/atkvaedagreidslur/?lthing=150&malnr=1"
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/atkvaedagreidslur/?dagur=20190916"
curl -s "https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/atkvaedagreidslur/?dagar=100"

Schema

Vote event — atkvaedagreidslur/?lthing=N

<atkvæðagreiðsla málsnúmer='104' þingnúmer='156' málsflokkur='A' atkvæðagreiðslunúmer='67566'>
  <mál málsnúmer='104' þingnúmer='156' málsflokkur='A'>
    <málsheiti>ráðstöfun útvarpsgjalds</málsheiti>
  </mál>
  <tími>2025-02-18T14:09:52</tími>
  <fundur>7</fundur>
  <tegund tegund='as'>Of skammt var liðið frá útbýtingu --- Afbrigði</tegund>
  <samantekt>
    <aðferð>atkvæðagreiðslukerfi</aðferð>
    <já><fjöldi>44</fjöldi></já>
    <nei><fjöldi>0</fjöldi></nei>
    <greiðirekkiatkvæði><fjöldi>0</fjöldi></greiðirekkiatkvæði>
    <afgreiðsla>samþykkt</afgreiðsla>
  </samantekt>
  <nánar><xml>.../atkvaedagreidsla/?numer=67566</xml></nánar>
</atkvæðagreiðsla>

Field	XML	Type	Example
atkvgr_nr	@atkvæðagreiðslunúmer	INT	67566 — globally unique, the join key
thing	@þingnúmer	INT	156
malsnumer	@málsnúmer	INT	104
malsflokkur	@málsflokkur	STR	A or B
malsheiti	mál/málsheiti	STR	ráðstöfun útvarpsgjalds
timi	tími	DATETIME	2025-02-18T14:09:52 (ISO)
fundur	fundur	INT	7 — sitting number
tegund	tegund	STR	What was voted on
tegund_kodi	tegund/@tegund	STR	as, v2, n2 …
adferd	samantekt/aðferð	STR	See vote-method table
ja / nei / greidir_ekki	samantekt/{já,nei,greiðirekkiatkvæði}/fjöldi	INT	Null when no ballot was taken
afgreidsla	samantekt/afgreiðsla	STR	samþykkt / fellt

Per-MP ballot — atkvaedagreidsla/?numer=N

<atkvæðaskrá>
  <þingmaður id='1004'><nafn>Arna Lára Jónsdóttir</nafn><atkvæði>já</atkvæði></þingmaður>
  <þingmaður id='1510'><nafn>Alma D. Möller</nafn><atkvæði>fjarverandi</atkvæði></þingmaður>
</atkvæðaskrá>

<atkvæði> values, with Alþingi's own gloss from the XML comments:

Value	n (þing 156)	Meaning
já	12,258	Yes
nei	1,676	No
greiðir ekki atkvæði	1,324	Abstain — present in the chamber and pressed the abstain button
fjarverandi	3,160	Absent, not notified — pressed no button
boðaði fjarvist	482	Absent, notified — illness, or on parliamentary business

The abstain string is spaced here and unspaced in the summary block. The <samantekt>/<niðurstaða> count element is <greiðirekkiatkvæði> (one word); the <atkvæði> value inside <atkvæðaskrá> is greiðir ekki atkvæði (three words). Matching the element spelling against ballot values silently returns nothing — and because plenty of votes are unanimous, a spot check can easily miss it.

The distinction between the last two matters: boðaði fjarvist is an excused absence, fjarverandi is not. Collapsing them loses the signal.

Vote methods — aðferð

Observed across þing 156 (598 vote events):

aðferð	Count	Carries <atkvæðaskrá>?
atkvæðagreiðslukerfi	299	yes — electronic voting
yfirlýsing forseta/mál gengur	297	no — Speaker's declaration, no ballot
nafnakall	1	yes — roll call
handaupprétting	1	no — show of hands, count only

MP roster — thingmenn/?lthing=N

Field	XML	Example
thingmadur_id	@id	1547 — stable person id
nafn	nafn	Aðalsteinn Leifsson
faedingardagur	fæðingardagur	1967-06-17 (ISO)
skammstofun	skammstöfun	ALeif

Parliamentary service — thingseta/?nr=N

This is where party and constituency live. One <þingseta> per parliament, and more than one if the MP changed party or seat mid-þing.

Field	XML	Example
thing	þing	156
tegund	tegund	þingmaður, varamaður (substitute), or með varamann (seat-holder currently replaced by a substitute) — three values, not two
thingflokkur / thingflokkur_id	þingflokkur + @id	Viðreisn / 45
kjordaemi / kjordaemi_id	kjördæmi (CDATA) + @id	Reykjavíkurkjördæmi suður / 45
kjordaemanumer	kjördæmanúmer	7
thingsalssaeti	þingsalssæti	2
inn / ut	tímabil/{inn,út}	21.05.2025 / 27.05.2025 — D.M.YYYY, not ISO

<út> is absent for a currently-serving MP.

Matters — thingmalalisti/?lthing=N

Field	XML	Example
malsnumer	@málsnúmer	1
thing	@þingnúmer	156
malsflokkur	@málsflokkur	A or B
malsheiti	málsheiti	breytt skipan ráðuneyta í Stjórnarráði Íslands
malstegund	málstegund/heiti	Tillaga til þingsályktunar
malstegund_kodi	málstegund/@málstegund	a, l, m, þi …

Matter types on þing 156 — 716 matters, 504 A and 212 B:

málstegund	n
Fyrirspurn (written question)	266
óundirbúinn fyrirspurnatími (oral questions)	202
Frumvarp til laga (bill)	131
Tillaga til þingsályktunar (resolution)	71
Skýrsla (report)	23
sérstök umræða (special debate)	10
Beiðni um skýrslu (report request)	9
Álit (opinion)	4

Committee membership — nefndir/nefndarmenn/?lthing=N

Field	XML	Type	Example
thing	request lthing	INT	156
nefnd_id	nefnd/@id	INT	201
nefnd	nefnd/heiti	STR	allsherjar- og menntamálanefnd
thingmadur_id	nefnd/nefndarmaður/@id	INT	1547
nafn	nefnd/nefndarmaður/nafn	STR	Aðalsteinn Leifsson
stada	nefnd/nefndarmaður/staða	STR	varamaður
hofst / lauk	nefndasetahófst / nefndasetulauk	DATE	2025-02-04 / 2025-09-08; lauk is null while active

Sittings — thingfundir/?lthing=N

Field	XML	Type	Example
thing	request lthing	INT	156
fundur	þingfundur/@númer	INT	1
fundarheiti	fundarheiti	STR	Sitting title
dagur	hefst/dagur, falling back to fundursettur	DATE	2025-02-04
dagur_aaetlad	derived	BOOL	Whether dagur came from the schedule
hefst_texti	hefst/texti	STR	Free-text scheduling note, nullable
hefst	hefst/dagurtími	DATETIME	Scheduled start, nullable
fundursettur / fundarslit	fundursettur / fuslit	DATETIME	Actual opening and close

Speeches — raedulisti/?lthing=N

Field	XML	Type	Example
thing	request lthing	INT	156
thingmadur_id	ræðumaður/@id	INT	Speaker/person id when present
nafn	ræðumaður/nafn	STR	Speaker name
dagur	dagur	DATE	2025-02-18
fundur	fundur	INT	Sitting number
fundarheiti	fundarheiti	STR	Sitting title
hofst / lauk	ræðahófst / ræðulauk	DATETIME	Speech start and end
tegund	tegundræðu	STR	Speech type
umraeda	umræða	STR	Debate stage
malsflokkur / malsnumer	mál/{málsflokkur,málsnúmer}	STR / INT	Matter key, nullable
malsheiti	mál/málsheiti	STR	Matter title, nullable

Script usage

uv run python scripts/althingi.py list                        # every parliament, current one flagged
uv run python scripts/althingi.py list --datasets             # what fetch can pull

uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset members     # roster + party + constituency
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset votes       # vote events + per-MP ballots
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset bills
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset committees
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset sittings
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset speeches
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset all

uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset votes --thing 155      # a past parliament
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset members --thing 150-156
uv run python scripts/althingi.py fetch --dataset votes --force          # ignore the raw cache

--thing defaults to the parliament returned by loggjafarthing/yfirstandandi/.

Data files

Path	Format	Description
data/raw/althingi/*.xml	XML	Every response, cached verbatim. Closed þing are cached permanently; current feeds refresh after 24h. --force always re-downloads
data/processed/althingi_members.parquet	Parquet	One row per (MP, parliament, party spell)
data/processed/althingi_votes.parquet	Parquet	One row per vote event
data/processed/althingi_ballots.parquet	Parquet	One row per (vote, MP) — the per-MP records
data/processed/althingi_bills.parquet	Parquet	One row per matter in the catalogue; no stage/document detail
data/processed/althingi_committees.parquet	Parquet	One row per (committee, MP, spell)
data/processed/althingi_sittings.parquet	Parquet	One row per sitting. dagur is the scheduled date, or the opening date when none was scheduled; dagur_aaetlad flags which
data/processed/althingi_speeches.parquet	Parquet	One row per speech (metadata only)

Column names are ASCII snake_case transliterations of the Icelandic tags — the mapping is in the schema tables above. Values keep their Icelandic characters.

Caveats

1. Half the "votes" are not votes. atkvaedagreidslur/?lthing=N returned 598 entries for þing 156, but only 301 involved a ballot; the other 297 are yfirlýsing forseta/mál gengur — the Speaker declaring a matter advanced unopposed. Counting rows to get "votes this session" roughly doubles the real figure. Filter on afgreidsla / vote counts being present.

2. Do not filter per-MP ballots on aðferð == 'atkvæðagreiðslukerfi'. nafnakall (roll call) also carries a full <atkvæðaskrá> — 63 MPs on the one þing-156 instance. It is rare, and it is exactly the kind of vote that gets called on contentious matters, so dropping it biases the sample in the worst possible direction. handaupprétting (show of hands) carries counts but no per-MP record. The script keys off the presence of <atkvæðaskrá>, not the method name.

3. málsnúmer is only unique within a málsflokkur. A- and B-matters number independently and have separate detail routes. On þing 156, thingmal/?malnr=11 is "sameiningar háskóla" (a question) while bmal/?malnr=11 is "forseti Íslands setur þingið" (the state opening) — different matters, same number. The natural key is (þingnúmer, málsflokkur, málsnúmer). Joining on málsnúmer alone silently mixes them.

4. Dates come in three formats, and Alþingi intends to change them. D.M.YYYY (01.07.1875) in löggjafarþing, þingseta, þingfundir; ISO YYYY-MM-DD in fæðingardagur; ISO datetime in votes and speeches. The site's own To-Do list has "Breyta dagsetningum í ISO" pending, so the first form will migrate at some point without notice. Normalise on read and accept both.

5. The sitting parliament has no <þinglok>. Every closed þing carries an end date; the current one carries only <þingsetning>. A parser that assumes the element is present breaks on the current þing specifically — the one you most want to query.

6. Never hardcode the parliament number. Resolve it from loggjafarthing/yfirstandandi/. Þing 157 opened 2025-09-09.

7. Sentinel rows with empty names. kjördæmi id=1 and þingflokkur id=26 have empty CDATA <heiti> and - as their abbreviation. They are "unknown/none" placeholders, not real constituencies or parties. Filter them out or they show up as a blank category in every grouping.

8. <niðurstaða> nests inside <niðurstaða>. In the vote-detail document the outer element is the result block and the inner one is the verdict string (samþykkt). An unanchored XPath grabs whichever comes first — use niðurstaða/niðurstaða for the verdict. Note the list endpoint calls the same block <samantekt> and the verdict <afgreiðsla>: the two endpoints use different tag names for the same thing.

9. The MP roster includes substitutes. thingmenn/?lthing=156 returns 105 people for a 63-seat parliament, because every varamaður who sat for even a week is in there. þingseta/tegund separates þingmaður from varamaður, and tímabil gives the spell. Head-counting the roster is not a seat count.

10. One MP can have several <þingseta> entries for one þing — and the usual reason is not a party switch. Þing 156 yields 313 spells for 105 people, because the record is re-cut every time a substitute steps in: Alma D. Möller alone has six consecutive spells, same party, same constituency, differing only in tímabil. members is therefore one row per spell, not per MP. Deduplicate on (thingmadur_id, thing) before joining to votes, or every ballot gets multiplied.

    Spells can also start before the parliament convenes — þing 156 opened 2025-02-04, but spells run from 2024-11-30, the day after the election that produced it.

11. Speeches are metadata only. raedulisti gives speaker, sitting, times and links to the text and audio — not the text itself. It is also large: 12.4 MB and 13,623 speeches for þing 156 alone.

    Speakers are not all MPs. <ræðumaður> carries role elements such as <forsetiÍslands>; the first speech of þing 156 is by Halla Tómasdóttir, President of Iceland, opening the session. An inner join from speeches to members on thingmadur_id therefore drops real speeches — use a left join and expect unmatched rows.

12. nefndarfundir needs a trailing slash. Without it the server 301s to an HTML page, so a naive fetch parses HTML as XML and fails obscurely.

    Relatedly, not every sitting has a scheduled date. A sitting called relative to another one carries only free text — <hefst><texti>að loknum 37. fundi</texti></hefst>, "once the 37th concludes" — with no <dagur> and no <dagurtími>. That is 8 of 92 sittings on þing 156. The script falls back to the date part of <fundursettur> (when the sitting was actually opened) and sets dagur_aaetlad = false on those rows, so dagur is never null and the provenance stays visible.

13. Parse bytes, not text. The documents carry an encoding declaration; handing a decoded str to an XML parser raises ValueError. Use resp.content.

14. No schema, changes without notice. Alþingi says so explicitly, and the XSDs they link are on a host that no longer resolves. This is what tests/health/test_althingi.py watches — it asserts the Icelandic element names still exist, since a silent retag is the likeliest break.

15. greiðir ekki atkvæði (value) vs greiðirekkiatkvæði (element). The same concept is spelled two ways in the same document family — see the ballot-value table above. This one is easy to get wrong and hard to notice.

Sources

• Endpoint index: https://www.althingi.is/altext/xml/
• Alþingistíðindi XSDs: http://skema.althingi.is/skema/ — linked from the index but dead; the host does not resolve