Download the full latest release of the Catalogue of Life updated monthly or scroll down to download our past releases.

Not sure which format to choose? Check out the ChecklistBank’s information on the available formats. For versions from previous months, please visit COL’s archive. ChecklistBank also offers partial downloads if you are only interested in a certain group of the checklist. Please note that this requires a free GBIF user account.

Looking for just a part of the Catalogue of Life?

You can easily download data for a specific taxon or taxonomic group, such as an order, family, or any other rank.

On each taxon’s page, click the download icon, next to the taxon identifier or at the bottom of the page. This option redirects you to a pre-filled download form the Catalogue of Life’s infrastructure, ChecklistBank.

Example for Myriapoda

You can also customise your download directly in ChecklistBank by following these steps:

1. Log in to ChecklistBank using your GBIF account. Don’t have one? You can register at gbif.org.
2. In the left menu, go to Datasets and click on the blue button “COL Releases”.
3. A list of the available releases will be displayed. It begins with the most recent, choose the one you prefer.
4. In the left menu, click Download.
5. Refine your download with the advanced filters:
   • Taxon of your interest
   • Archive format
   • Fields to include
   • Minimum rank for search: Family, Genus, or Species
   • Exclude ranks below a selected level
   • Exclude synonyms
   • Extinct only

Please read the information on the available data formats if you are unclear which one to use.

Past Releases

We archive all our releases which can be downloaded from our annual or monthly archive. Annual versions of the catalogue have been published since 2000.

The annual versions remain permanently accessible via ChecklistBank and its API, while we only keep monthly versions in ChecklistBank for a year.

The table below lists every annual version with its accepted families, genera and species, the total number of names (synonyms included), and the available download archives. Species counts include extinct species. Figures for 2000–2019 were recomputed from the original annual-checklist databases; 2021 onward come from ChecklistBank. Every annual version is available as ColDP; Darwin Core archives exist from 2012 onward, and the original database dumps for 2000–2019.

Release	Families	Genera	Species	Names	Downloads
2025	14,914	217,931	2,221,237	5,302,873	ColDP · DwCA · TextTree
2024	14,142	210,948	2,172,471	5,189,179	ColDP · DwCA · TextTree
2023	13,510	206,521	2,109,214	4,983,455	ColDP · DwCA · TextTree
2022	13,126	203,597	2,065,448	4,716,121	ColDP · DwCA · TextTree
2021	12,850	196,613	2,008,947	4,359,064	ColDP · DwCA · TextTree
2019	12,265	184,523	1,900,983	3,981,199	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2018	12,081	177,800	1,803,488	3,801,441	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2017	10,558	161,936	1,713,852	3,579,069	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2016	8,968	149,037	1,640,969	3,406,699	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2015	8,582	144,122	1,608,236	3,243,133	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2014	8,227	141,251	1,578,063	3,153,443	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2013	8,022	133,224	1,352,112	2,537,619	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2012	8,345	130,901	1,404,038	2,479,704	ColDP · DwCA · MySQL
2011	8,050	126,613	1,347,226	2,544,931	ColDP · MySQL
2010	7,851	118,530	1,257,735	2,424,622	ColDP · MySQL
2009	7,441	110,511	1,160,711	2,171,280	ColDP · MySQL
2008	7,219	105,708	1,105,589	2,080,792	ColDP · MySQL
2007	7,012	102,283	1,008,998	1,774,281	ColDP · MySQL
2006	6,697	91,785	883,234	1,579,962	ColDP · MySQL
2005	6,177	68,533	511,637	1,072,077	ColDP · MySQL
2004	5,751	48,545	323,680	639,024	ColDP · MS Access
2003	5,271	40,772	270,743	533,697	ColDP · MS Access
2002	5,288	37,586	242,269	462,357	ColDP · MS Access
2000	4,715	34,221	207,636	399,175	ColDP · MS Access

Changes over time

How the number of accepted families, genera and species — and the total of all names including synonyms — has changed across past Base releases of the Catalogue of Life. Figures reach back to the historical annual checklists since 2000. Each measure has its own linear scale, since families, genera and species/names differ by orders of magnitude.