How to Convert CSV to JSON

Going from a spreadsheet export to structured JSON your code can use is a common need. Here's how the conversion works.

The mapping

The CSV header row becomes the keys, and each subsequent row becomes an object.

name,age
Alice,30
Bob,25

becomes

[
  { "name": "Alice", "age": "30" },
  { "name": "Bob", "age": "25" }
]

Watch out: everything is a string

CSV has no types — 30 is the text "30", not a number. If you need real numbers or booleans, convert them after parsing.

Parsing pitfalls

• Quoted fields can contain commas and newlines: "Smith, John".
• Escaped quotes appear doubled: "".
• Inconsistent columns across rows cause misaligned data.

Naive splitting on commas breaks on all of these — use a proper CSV parser.

Convert online

Paste your CSV into the CSV to JSON converter (switch to CSV → JSON mode) and copy clean JSON. Then validate or format it with the config validator.

The reverse

Need to export JSON back to a spreadsheet? See how to convert JSON to CSV.