Searching and Consulting Persons
Read here how to search and consult current persons from the BRP for your application using their identifying data. In the BRP, persons are uniquely identified by their citizen service number (burgerservicenummer, BSN).
- Is the citizen service number of the person or persons known? Then your application must use the Consult person by citizen service number operation to consult one or more persons.
- Is the citizen service number not known? Then have it looked up using the Search person operations.
Use the BAG API as well
Does your application offer searching for persons using their address data? Then also use the BAG API Individuele Bevragingen to find the unique identification of an address, and use that to query the BRP API Personen. That way you query only the data of persons you need.
Unlike the BAG API, the operations search by postal code and house number and search by street, house number and municipality of registration of the BRP API search for persons at an address, not for addresses. Searching by postal code and house number in the BRP also often returns personal data of occupants of more than one address. So use this search function only where search by addressable object identification or search by house number designation identification via the BAG is not possible — for example because you do not know the exact address of the person you are looking for, or because the address does not appear in the BAG. That way you contribute to data minimization without compromising usability. The search options of the BAG API are more extensive and support search-as-you-type.
Search for persons
Use the search operations below to find a person by supplying (non-uniquely) identifying personal data. The overviews and error cases contain examples showing the requirements the parameters must meet, and how to use wildcards and diacritics.
- search by surname and date of birth
- search by surname, given names and municipality of registration
- search by postal code and house number
- search by street, house number and municipality of registration
- search by house number designation identification
- search by addressable object identification
Each of these operations has an overview page and an error cases page. Those pages are part of the feature files and are delivered in part C.
Two response types when searching
The result of the search operations is a list of all persons matching the parameters supplied. For these persons you receive a limited set of identifying data, so that your application or your user can choose which person to consult. All search operations return a persoonBeperkt response, except the operation zoek-met-adresseerbaar-object-identificatie.
To make it possible to request all parental authority relationships at an address, the response of the zoek-met-adresseerbaar-object-identificatie operation has been extended with the information product Gezag. If you search using the zoek-met-adresseerbaar-object-identificatie search operation, you receive the gezagPersoonBeperkt response.
For the persons in both response types you receive only the data you ask for and are entitled to.
Maximum number of search results
For all search operations there is a maximum number of persons in the answer that meet the criteria supplied. As soon as the maximum number of persons is exceeded, an error message follows.
The number of persons found in the answer is at most 10 for the search operations:
The number of persons found in the answer is at most 30 for the search operations:
- search by postal code and house number
- search by street, house number and municipality of registration
- search by house number designation identification
- search by addressable object identification
Searching within your own municipality only
Are you authorized only to search among the residents of your own municipality? Then use the query parameter gemeenteVanInschrijving with your own municipality code. Residents of other municipalities are then filtered out of the answer automatically. Each of the search operations above offers the option of supplying this parameter. Read more about searching and consulting persons within your own municipality only.
Searching for deceased persons
By default only persons who are alive are found. To find deceased persons, you must supply the inclusiefOverleden parameter with the value “true”. For more information, read searching for deceased persons.
For deceased persons the opschortingBijhouding field is always supplied, with reason code 'O' and description 'overlijden' (death). For more information, read the death overview.
Consulting persons
If the citizen service number is known, you must use this operation to consult the data of the person or persons:
The result of this operation is a list of persons whose citizen service number matches the citizen service numbers supplied. For these persons you receive only the data you ask for and are entitled to.
Consulting within your own municipality only
Are you authorized only to consult residents of your own municipality? Then use the query parameter gemeenteVanInschrijving with your own municipality code. If the person consulted does not live in the municipality supplied, the response will be empty.
Consulting deceased persons
The “raadpleeg met burgerservicenummer” operation returns the persons whose citizen service number matches the citizen service numbers supplied. These may also be persons who have died.
For deceased persons the opschortingBijhouding field is always supplied, with reason code 'O' and description 'overlijden' (death). See the death overview feature for more information about this field.