By name: retsinformation-dk description: retsinformation.dk — Denmark's central legal information portal. Use when the user wants to look up Danish law/regulations, retrieve legislation metadata, find parliamentary documents, or navigate by ministry/topic. last-updated: 2026-05-31
retsinformation.dk — Danish legal information portal
Operated by Civilstyrelsen (Viborg). Free, anonymous, no login. Respond in Danish unless the user signals otherwise.
Use the retsinformation CLI for everything. Run retsinformation ... to look up laws, metadata, timelines, registers, ministries and ELI documentation.
CLI
The retsinformation CLI can be run from anywhere — no need to point at the skill directory. Pure Python standard library, no extra dependencies.
Limits
- No public search API: the site is a React SPA with no server-rendered HTML and no search endpoint, so use the CLI's register/registry/sitemap commands to discover documents rather than scraping or searching the site.
- All access is anonymous (no login).
Prerequisites
Verify the CLI is installed:
which retsinformation
If missing, install it editable with pipx (from the skill directory). First make sure pipx itself is available, then install:
# Ensure pipx is installed
which pipx || python3 -m pip install --user pipx
python3 -m pipx ensurepath
# Install the retsinformation CLI
pipx install -e <path-to-retsinformation-dk-skill>
After installing, confirm retsinformation is on the PATH (you may need to restart the shell so pipx ensurepath takes effect):
which retsinformation
Command reference
Every command supports --raw to print the unformatted JSON/XML response instead of the cleaned output.
| Command | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
law-registers |
Hierarchical law register tree by ministry/topic | retsinformation law-registers |
fob-tags |
Hierarchical subject/tag tree (used for filtering) | retsinformation fob-tags |
case-statuses |
Parliamentary case-history statuses (Afvist, Vedtaget, …) | retsinformation case-statuses |
doc-types |
Document type filter tree (Regler, Afgørelser); gives documentTypeIds |
retsinformation doc-types |
law-registry |
Flat A–Z law registry; --filter <substr>, --sort, --limit <n> |
retsinformation law-registry --filter miljø --sort --limit 20 |
ressort |
List of Danish ministries | retsinformation ressort |
fob-ressort |
Ministries under the Parliamentary Ombudsman | retsinformation fob-ressort |
eli-routing |
ELI URL routing table (param key → documentTypeId) |
retsinformation eli-routing |
authority-lists |
ELI authority value summary; pass one authority to expand it | retsinformation authority-lists type_document |
uri-templates |
ELI URI template definitions | retsinformation uri-templates |
metadata-types |
ELI ontology metadata property definitions | retsinformation metadata-types |
document <id> |
Fetch a document; see below | retsinformation document eli/lta/2026/480 |
maintenance |
Active maintenance notices (usually none) | retsinformation maintenance |
sitemap |
Enumerate URLs from sitemap.xml; --filter <substr>, --limit <n> |
retsinformation sitemap --filter eli --limit 50 |
Looking up documents
document takes either an ELI path (for the document body/details) or a numeric internal ID (for --timeline / --metadata):
# Document details by ELI path (POSTs the ELI path to the document API)
retsinformation document eli/lta/2026/480
retsinformation document eli/accn/A20240001
# Timeline and metadata take the numeric internal ID
# (found in the `id` field of the document-details response)
retsinformation document 256418 --metadata # structured ELI metadata
retsinformation document 256418 --timeline # legislative history
Forming the <eli_path> argument
The ELI path is the document URI with the leading / stripped. Retsinformation uses the EU ELI standard; map the URL you have to the CLI argument like so:
| URL pattern | Example URL | CLI invocation |
|---|---|---|
/{pubMedia}/{year}/{number} (CST canonical) |
/retsinfo/1989/0001 |
retsinformation document eli/lta/2026/480 |
/eli/accn/{accn} (accession alias) |
/eli/accn/A19890001 |
retsinformation document eli/accn/A20240001 |
/eli/ft/{accn} (parliamentary doc) |
/eli/ft/A19890001 |
retsinformation document eli/ft/A19890001 |
/eli/eu/{celex} (EU/CELEX) |
/eli/eu/CELEX:31989L0048 |
retsinformation document eli/eu/CELEX:31989L0048 |
/{cls}/{docType}/{year}/{month}/{day}/{number} (classification alias) |
/eli/regel/lovh/2024/01/15/001 |
retsinformation document eli/regel/lovh/2024/01/15/001 |
Publication media codes used in CST paths: lta, ltb, ltc, mt, retsinfo, ft, fob.