NIEM Releases

NIEM 4.1

NIEM version 4.1 has been released. This is the current version of NIEM. Release notes are available on GitHub.

There are several ways to access NIEM 4.1:

• You may download the complete NIEM 4.1 schema package as a zip file from release.niem.gov.

• You may browse the contents of NIEM 4.1 and download schema subsets from the NIEM Schema Subset Generation Tool (SSGT).

• NIEM releases are published on Github. NIEM 4.1 is tagged as niem-4.1, and may be downloaded as a zip file.

Please send in any comment on the NIEM release as a GitHub issue.

In addition to the schema release, 4.1 incorporates a default JSON-LD context for NIEM 4.1: NIEM JSON leverages JSON-LD (JSON for Linked Data), enabling it to maintain consistency and to connect data across exchanges. The JSON-LD context is a JSON file that identifies, for every namespace for NIEM content, the namespace prefix and its corresponding namespace URI.

NIEM 4.0

The previous release of NIEM is NIEM version 4.0. Release notes are available on GitHub.

There are several ways to access NIEM 4.0:

• You may download the complete NIEM 4.0 schema package as a zip file from release.niem.gov.

• You may browse the contents of NIEM 4.0 and download schema subsets from the NIEM Schema Subset Generation Tool (SSGT). NIEM 4.0 may be selected in the SSGT’s options, next to Change Release to.

• You may browse the contents of NIEM 4.0 using Movement.

• NIEM releases are published on Github. NIEM 4.0 is tagged as niem-4.0, and may be downloaded as a zip file.

In addition to the schema release, 4.0 incorporates technical updates:

• An updated version of the NIEM Naming and Design Rules, which describes how NIEM schemas are constructed, and what NIEM data means.

  The rules from the NDR are reflected in the Conformance Testing Assistance (ConTesA) for NIEM, which includes rules from the NDR v3 and current drafts of the NDR v4.

• An updated Code Lists Specification, which describes how to code lists formatted as CSV spreadsheets or Genericode XML documents can be used with NIEM schemas and NIEM XML documents.

• A default JSON-LD context for NIEM 4.0: NIEM JSON leverages JSON-LD (JSON for Linked Data), enabling it to maintain consistency and to connect data across exchanges. The JSON-LD context is a JSON file that identifies, for every namespace for NIEM content, the namespace prefix and its corresponding namespace URI.

NIEM 3.2

NIEM version 3.2 is accessible via:

• release.niem.gov hosts NIEM version 3.2 as a zip file archive.

• The NIEM releases repository on GitHub has NIEM version 3.2 tagged, and provides it as a zip file archive.

• The NIEM Schema Subset Generation Tool (SSGT) allows users to browse the model and to build subset schemas for use in IEPDs. NIEM 3.2 may be selected in the SSGT’s options, next to Change Release to.

Older versions

Older versions of NIEM are available:

• Major and minor version of NIEM are published as GitHub releases.
• Major and minor versions, as well as domain updates, are available on The NIEM Schema Subset Generation Tool (SSGT), which allows you to select any version of NIEM on its Options page.
• All versions of niem are available on release.niem.gov.