European Central Bank — Bank Lending Survey Statistics (BLS)

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Bank Lending Survey Statistics (BLS) — official time series from the European Central Bank Data Portal, published as the BLS dataflow over SDMX 2.1 REST. One endpoint serves XML (SDMX-ML), CSV (?format=csvdata) and JSON (?format=jsondata); extract exactly the series you need with a key path and startPeriod / endPeriod / lastNObservations filters. Browse and chart the same series on the ECB Data Portal.

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Run verified request Dataflow structure Fetch observations (JSON)Read the docs Open source record

Data schema (26 fields)

Filterable via the API (11)

FREQREF_AREABANK_SELECTIONBLS_ITEMBLS_COUNTBLS_COUNT_DETAILTIME_HORIZONEFFECT_DOMAINMARKET_ROLEBLS_AGG_METHODTIME_PERIOD

Click a field to see example values.

Field	Type	Description
FREQFrequency	dimension	1 codes (e.g. Quarterly)
REF_AREAReference area	dimension	22 codes (e.g. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria)
BANK_SELECTION	dimension	1 codes (e.g. All banks)
BLS_ITEMBank lending survey item	dimension	140 codes (e.g. Impact of bank competition, Bank lending rate, Impact of cost of funds and balance sheet constraints)
BLS_COUNTBLS contract counterpart	dimension	11 codes (e.g. Enterprise, Household, Not applicable)
BLS_COUNT_DETAILBLS counterpart motivation	dimension	30 codes (e.g. Large enterprises, Small and medium-sized enterprises, Not applicable)
TIME_HORIZON	dimension	14 codes (e.g. Backward looking three months, Forward looking three months, Backward looking six months)
EFFECT_DOMAIN	dimension	31 codes (e.g. Credit standards, Margins on average loans, Margins on riskier loans)
MARKET_ROLE	dimension	3 codes (e.g. Loan supply, Loan demand, Not applicable)
BLS_AGG_METHODBLS aggregation method	dimension	19 codes (e.g. Diffusion index, Net percentage (frequency of tightened minus that of eased or reverse), Diffusion index weighted with the share of each bank in the total loan outstanding amount of the banks in the BLS sample)
TIME_PERIODTime period or range	time	Time dimension — filter with startPeriod / endPeriod query params.
OBS_VALUEObservation value	number	The observed numeric value for each cell.
TIME_FORMATTime format code	attribute	—
COLLECTIONCollection indicator	attribute	—
COMPILING_ORGCompiling organisation	attribute	—
DISS_ORGData dissemination organisation	attribute	—
DECIMALS	attribute	—
SOURCE_AGENCY	attribute	—
TITLE	attribute	—
TITLE_COMPLTitle complement	attribute	—
UNIT	attribute	—
UNIT_MULTUnit multiplier	attribute	—
OBS_STATUSObservation status	attribute	—
OBS_CONFObservation confidentiality	attribute	—
OBS_PRE_BREAKPre-break observation value	attribute	—
OBS_COMObservation comment	attribute	—

Schema captured from sdmx 1 month ago.

Query the data

Pick columns and a sort, then fetch a live preview straight from the source. Choose an API-filterable column (marked ▾) under “Where” to pick from its list of values.

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Sample data (5 records)

Record 1FREQ: Q · BLS_ITEM: BC

{
  "FREQ": "Q",
  "BLS_ITEM": "BC",
  "REF_AREA": "AT",
  "BLS_COUNT": "E",
  "OBS_VALUE": -6.25,
  "MARKET_ROLE": "S",
  "TIME_PERIOD": "2026-Q3",
  "TIME_HORIZON": "B3",
  "EFFECT_DOMAIN": "ST",
  "BANK_SELECTION": "ALL",
  "BLS_AGG_METHOD": "DINX",
  "BLS_COUNT_DETAIL": "LE"
}

Record 2FREQ: Q · BLS_ITEM: BC

{
  "FREQ": "Q",
  "BLS_ITEM": "BC",
  "REF_AREA": "AT",
  "BLS_COUNT": "E",
  "OBS_VALUE": -12.5,
  "MARKET_ROLE": "S",
  "TIME_PERIOD": "2026-Q3",
  "TIME_HORIZON": "B3",
  "EFFECT_DOMAIN": "ST",
  "BANK_SELECTION": "ALL",
  "BLS_AGG_METHOD": "FNET",
  "BLS_COUNT_DETAIL": "LE"
}

Record 3FREQ: Q · BLS_ITEM: BC

{
  "FREQ": "Q",
  "BLS_ITEM": "BC",
  "REF_AREA": "AT",
  "BLS_COUNT": "E",
  "OBS_VALUE": -7.142857142857142,
  "MARKET_ROLE": "S",
  "TIME_PERIOD": "2026-Q3",
  "TIME_HORIZON": "B3",
  "EFFECT_DOMAIN": "ST",
  "BANK_SELECTION": "ALL",
  "BLS_AGG_METHOD": "DINX",
  "BLS_COUNT_DETAIL": "SME"
}

Record 4FREQ: Q · BLS_ITEM: BC

{
  "FREQ": "Q",
  "BLS_ITEM": "BC",
  "REF_AREA": "AT",
  "BLS_COUNT": "E",
  "OBS_VALUE": -14.285714285714285,
  "MARKET_ROLE": "S",
  "TIME_PERIOD": "2026-Q3",
  "TIME_HORIZON": "B3",
  "EFFECT_DOMAIN": "ST",
  "BANK_SELECTION": "ALL",
  "BLS_AGG_METHOD": "FNET",
  "BLS_COUNT_DETAIL": "SME"
}

Record 5FREQ: Q · BLS_ITEM: BC

{
  "FREQ": "Q",
  "BLS_ITEM": "BC",
  "REF_AREA": "AT",
  "BLS_COUNT": "E",
  "OBS_VALUE": -6.25,
  "MARKET_ROLE": "S",
  "TIME_PERIOD": "2026-Q3",
  "TIME_HORIZON": "B3",
  "EFFECT_DOMAIN": "MA",
  "BANK_SELECTION": "ALL",
  "BLS_AGG_METHOD": "DINX",
  "BLS_COUNT_DETAIL": "Z"
}

Live sample captured at profiling time — values may have changed upstream.

Verification Status

Using the API

Query examples

curl -s 'https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/dataflow/ECB' -H 'Accept: application/vnd.sdmx.structure+xml;version=2.1'

All dataflows (datasets) published by this agency, as SDMX-ML.

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Machine-readable & source

JSON

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