import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET t = """<response> <error>OK</error> <limit>1</limit> <offset>0</offset> <number_of_page_results>1</number_of_page_results> <number_of_total_results>1</number_of_total_results> <status_code>1</status_code> <results> <count_of_issues>403</count_of_issues> </results> <version>1.0</version> </response>""" tree = ET.parse(t) root = tree.getroot() for data in root[1]: print data.text