Dinitrogen (N2) fixation rates measured in the Indian Ocean, collected from previously published papers. The dataset contains 241 volumetric rates (units nmol N l-1 d-1), 89 depth-integrated rates (units µmol N l-1 d-1) and metadata (including temperature, salinity, inorganic nutrient and chlorophyll concentrations) when available in the original publications. Basin-scale N2 fixation rates calculations were done as follows: Depth-integrated rates from the literature are listed and classified according to sub-basin and season The arithmetic mean, geometric mean and median are calculated for each sub-basin and season Means and median are extrapolated to the area of each sub-basin considering the duration (days) of each season Sub-basin seasonal rates are summed for each sub-basin to obtain sub-basin yearly rates Sub-basin yearly rates are summed to obtain basin-scale (i.e., all the Indian Ocean) rates