Getting started with tidybrreg

tidybrreg provides tidy access to Norway’s Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities (Enhetsregisteret), maintained by the Brønnøysund Register Centre at data.brreg.no. The register contains approximately 1 million active entities — companies, partnerships, sole proprietorships, associations, and government bodies.

Installation

# Recommended
# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("sondreskarsten/tidybrreg")

# Or from r-universe (pre-built binaries)
install.packages("tidybrreg",
  repos = c("https://sondreskarsten.r-universe.dev",
            "https://cloud.r-project.org"))

For snapshot and panel features, also install a parquet backend:

install.packages("nanoparquet")  # lightweight, read/write only
# OR
install.packages("arrow")       # full-featured, lazy queries

Look up a single entity

Every Norwegian legal entity has a unique 9-digit organization number (organisasjonsnummer). Look up Equinor ASA:

library(tidybrreg)

brreg_entity("923609016")
#> # A tibble: 1 × 65
#>   org_nr    name        legal_form founding_date employees nace_1
#>   <chr>     <chr>       <chr>      <date>            <int> <chr>
#> 1 923609016 EQUINOR ASA ASA        1972-09-18        21408 06.100

The result is a tibble with English column names mapped from the Norwegian API via the package’s field_dict. All 49 dictionary-mapped columns are present in every output, filled with typed NA when the API omits a field.

Translate codes to labels

By default, functions return raw codes (ASA, 06.100). Two ways to get English labels:

# Option 1: inline via type = "label"
brreg_entity("923609016", type = "label")

# Option 2: pipe to brreg_label() for more control
brreg_entity("923609016") |>
  brreg_label(code = c("legal_form", "nace_1"))
#> legal_form      = "Public limited company"
#> legal_form_code = "ASA"  (original code preserved)
#> nace_1          = "Extraction of crude petroleum"
#> nace_1_code     = "06.100"

The code = argument keeps the original code in a _code suffixed column alongside the label — following the eurostat package’s pattern.

Search for entities

Query by name, legal form, geography, industry, employee count, or any combination:

# Large private companies in Oslo
brreg_search(
  legal_form = "AS",
  municipality_code = "0301",
  min_employees = 500,
  max_results = 10
)

Search results are paginated automatically up to max_results or the API’s 10,000-result ceiling. For larger extractions, use brreg_download().

Sub-entities (establishments)

Use registry = "underenheter" to search sub-entities — branch offices, plants, and establishments linked to a parent entity:

brreg_search(name = "Equinor", registry = "underenheter", max_results = 5)

Retrieve roles

Board members, officers, and auditors for any entity:

roles <- brreg_roles("923609016")
roles
#> # A tibble: 25 × 14
#>   org_nr    role_group        role              first_name last_name birth_date
#>   <chr>     <chr>             <chr>             <chr>      <chr>     <date>
#> 1 923609016 Board of Directors Chair of the Board Jon Erik   Reinhardsen 1960-07-14
#> 2 923609016 Board of Directors Board member      ...

Derive board-level summary covariates:

brreg_board_summary(roles)
#> # A tibble: 1 × 10
#>   org_nr    board_size n_chair n_members has_ceo has_auditor auditor_org_nr

Bulk download the full register

Three registries available:

# Main entities: ~152 MB CSV or ~196 MB JSON
entities <- brreg_download(type = "enheter")

# JSON captures additional fields not in CSV
entities_json <- brreg_download(type = "enheter", format = "json")

# Sub-entities: ~59 MB
sub_entities <- brreg_download(type = "underenheter")

# All roles for all entities: ~131 MB JSON
all_roles <- brreg_download(type = "roller")

Downloads are cached in tools::R_user_dir("tidybrreg", "cache"). Use refresh = TRUE to force re-download, or refresh = "auto" to re-download only when the server has a newer version (ETag-based).

Function → API endpoint mapping

Function API endpoint Returns
brreg_entity(org_nr) /enheter/{orgnr} 1-row tibble
brreg_entity(org_nr, registry = "underenheter") /underenheter/{orgnr} 1-row tibble
brreg_search(...) /enheter?... N-row tibble
brreg_search(..., registry = "underenheter") /underenheter?... N-row tibble
brreg_roles(org_nr) /enheter/{orgnr}/roller N-row tibble
brreg_roles_legal(org_nr) /roller/enheter/{orgnr}/juridiskeroller N-row tibble
brreg_download("enheter") /enheter/lastned/csv Full register tibble
brreg_download("enheter", format = "json") /enheter/lastned Full register tibble
brreg_download("roller") /roller/totalbestand Full roles tibble
brreg_updates(type = "enheter") /oppdateringer/enheter Change events tibble
brreg_updates(type = "roller") /oppdateringer/roller Change events tibble

Next steps

  • vignette("business-data") — Norwegian legal forms, NACE codes, and data quirks
  • vignette("panels") — Building firm-period panels and time series from snapshots
  • vignette("governance") — Board networks and survival analysis