CSV to JSON Converter
Transform tabular spreadsheet data into structured JSON format for APIs.
What it's for
CSV to JSON in seconds
Multiple delimiters
Comma, semicolon, tab, or any custom separator. Compatible with Excel exports.
100% private
Conversion happens in your browser. Your data is never sent to any server.
RFC 4180
Respects the official CSV standard including quoted fields and internal line breaks.
Instant
Conversion in milliseconds with no waiting. JSON appears as you type.
How it works
Three steps, no hassle
Paste or upload your CSV
Enter your CSV text in the editor or drag a .csv file. The first row is automatically detected as the header.
Set the delimiter
Choose comma, semicolon, tab, or another separator. The converter respects RFC 4180 for quoted fields.
Copy the resulting JSON
Get a JSON array ready to use in your API, database, or application. Copy with one click or download the file.
FAQ
Got questions?
The converter supports comma (,), semicolon (;), tab (\t), and any custom character. Semicolons are common in Excel exports from European regions where the comma is used as a decimal separator. RFC 4180 defines the behavior for fields containing the delimiter itself, which must be enclosed in double quotes.
If your CSV has a header row (first row with column names), the converter uses it as JSON object keys for each row. If there is no header, you can disable this option and values will be converted to arrays of arrays. Headers are automatically cleaned to be valid JSON keys.
For flat CSV, each row becomes a JSON object with header keys. For nested structures (e.g., a column 'address.city'), the converter can expand dot notation into nested objects depending on the selected option. This is useful when the CSV was originally exported from a JSON structure.
Yes. Excel exports CSV with UTF-8 or Windows-1252 encoding and often uses semicolons as delimiters in European regional settings. The converter detects and handles UTF-8 BOM, Windows CRLF line endings, and fields with internal line breaks enclosed in quotes — all cases defined in RFC 4180.
The converter works with UTF-8, which is the recommended encoding for JSON per RFC 8259. If your CSV uses another encoding like ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252 (common in older Excel exports), you may need to convert the encoding first. Unicode characters including accented letters and special symbols are preserved correctly when the CSV is UTF-8.
CSV and JSON: two key formats in the data ecosystem
CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a plain-text format defined by RFC 4180 for representing tabular data. Each row in the file corresponds to a record, and fields are separated by a delimiter, typically a comma. Its simplicity makes it universal: any spreadsheet application (Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice), database, and analytics tool can import and export CSV. RFC 4180 defines precise rules for handling fields that contain the delimiter itself or line breaks, which must be enclosed in double quotes.
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), defined by RFC 8259, is the dominant data interchange format for REST APIs and web applications. Unlike CSV, JSON can represent hierarchical structures, nested arrays, and native data types (number, boolean, null) without ambiguity. Most modern programming languages include native JSON parsers, and platforms like MongoDB, Firebase, and Elasticsearch use it as their primary storage format.
Converting between CSV and JSON is a daily operation in data engineering: analysts export database records as CSV to process in spreadsheets, and developers convert them to JSON to feed APIs or load into NoSQL stores. Convertir.ai performs this transformation entirely in the browser using the native text API, without sending your data to any server, ensuring complete privacy regardless of the volume or sensitivity of the data.