How to search and download NPRI data for a Canadian facility

NPRI data is Canada's facility-by-facility record of pollutant releases to air, water and land, plus disposals and transfers. Use the National Pollutant Release Inventory data search to look up one facility by name, NPRI ID, substance or location. For every year back to 1993, download the bulk CSV files through 2024.

The NPRI is "Canada's public inventory of releases, disposals and transfers". It tracks over 300 pollutants from more than 7,000 facilities (ECCC). It started in 1993, and sections 46 to 53 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA 1999) are its main legal basis (NPRI 101). For 2024, 7,887 facilities reported, and the inventory totalled about 5.47 million tonnes of pollutants (2024 Data Highlights).

Search one facility with the NPRI data search

Use the NPRI data search for a single site. You can filter by:

• year range
• company or facility name, or NPRI ID
• substance
• release, disposal or transfer category
• province, community or postal code
• sector and NAICS code
• pollution prevention (P2) plan and P2 activities

Results show the NPRI ID, GHGRP ID, year, facility, city, province, NAICS code, P2 status and quantities by medium (air, water, land). Set the province to Ontario when you want NPRI Ontario results. For NPRI oil and gas, filter by sector or NAICS code.

Search by NPRI ID once you have it. Facility names repeat. Two unrelated companies both report a facility named SARNIA, under NPRI IDs 6547 and 7053 (reported example). Old bookmarks to the "archived" search now redirect to this same tool, so there's no separate archive to hunt for.

The NPRI map and dashboard

The NPRI Map is an interactive Power BI map. The page itself points you back to the data search for the fully accessible dataset.

The NPRI Dashboard shows reviewed 2015 to 2024 data plus preliminary 2025 data in charts and tables (Explore NPRI data).

If you work in GIS, the map layers are on open.canada.ca. The disposals and transfers map dataset comes as ESRI REST for ArcGIS and as WMS, with a facility CSV. For Google Earth, the virtual globe dataset has KMZ files for 2022 to 2024 and a KML for 2024. Explore NPRI data also lists facility-location, air, water and land layers, plus off-site transfer routes for 2013 to 2021.

Download NPRI open data

The Access to the NPRI page calls the bulk download "the complete contents of the NPRI database since 1993". Pick the file by job:

To pull one site's history from the bulk CSVs, filter on its NPRI ID. Filtering by name can mix up facilities that share a name.

Which years are covered

As of October 2026, reviewed data runs from 1993 to 2024, and 2025 data is preliminary (Explore NPRI data). The search tool says the 2025 NPRI data are preliminary, and that reviewed 2025 data will be made available "once the annual quality control process is complete".

Reports go in through ECCC's Single Window Information Manager (SWIM). Under the current notice, 2025 data was due 1 June 2026 and 2026 data is due 1 June 2027 (Canada Gazette notice, 8 March 2025). ECCC's service standard is preliminary data within one month of that deadline and the reviewed dataset within six months. Check each dataset's coverage and last-modified date before you cite a number. Right now the search tool includes preliminary 2025, and the bulk files stop at 2024.

Why a facility might be missing

A missing facility isn't a recorded zero. The 2025 to 2027 notice, issued under CEPA 1999 subsection 46(1), sets the reporting requirements. The usual employee-hours threshold is 20,000 hours or more in the year. Schedule 3 of that notice lists activities that trigger reporting regardless of hours worked, including hazardous waste incineration, wood preservation, terminal operations, and wastewater systems discharging an average of 10,000 m3 or more per day.

The NPRI list to start with is the substance list by threshold. Part 1A core substances are reportable at 10 tonnes or more manufactured, processed or otherwise used, at 1% by weight or more (requirements fact sheet). Other parts use a different mass, a release threshold or an activity test. Check concentration limits in the notice before you decide a facility had to report. The same fact sheet says the full list tracks almost 500 substances. That is the list count, not the homepage's "over 300 pollutants".

The 2025 to 2027 notice added 163 PFAS as Part 1C and moved hydrogen cyanide from 1A to 1B. A substance absent in older years may not have been listed yet. Check the history of reporting requirements before treating that absence as zero.

Read the numbers with care

ECCC's guide to using NPRI data says "NPRI data is not enough to assess the risks and impacts posed by pollution to the environment and human health." Facilities estimate in different ways, from continuous monitoring to engineering estimates. Estimates "based solely on judgement are the least accurate".

Long trends need care. The same guide says criteria air contaminants were added in 2002 and oil and gas facilities in 2003. Together, those changes "tripled the number of facilities required to report". The NPRI does not cover natural sources such as forest fires, diffuse sources such as agriculture, or mobile sources such as vehicles and aircraft.

Facility greenhouse gas emissions sit in the separate Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. You can search that program by an NPRI or GHGRP identifier.

Known reporting errors include wrong units and total use reported as the amount released. An outlier deserves a second look.

You can also ask RegAffairs AI the same question and get a cited answer on searching NPRI data that links back to the stored sources.