Tropical cyclones (TCs) pose a major risk to societies worldwide. While data on observed cyclones tracks (location of the center) and wind speeds is publicly available these data sets do not contain information on the spatial extent of the storm and people or assets exposed. Here, we provide a collection of tropical cyclone exposure data (TCE-DAT) derived with the help of spatially-explicit data on population densities and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), also available at http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2017.007. Up to now, this collection contains: 1) A global data set of tropical cyclone exposure accumulated to the country/event level http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2017.0052) A global data set of spatially-explicit tropical cyclone exposure available for all TC events since 1950 http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2017.008 TCE-DAT is considered key information to 1) assess the contribution of climatological versus socioeconomic drivers of changes in exposure to tropical cyclones, 2) estimate changes in vulnerability from the difference in exposure and reported damages and calibrate associated damage functions, and 3) build improved exposure-based predictors to estimate higher-level societal impacts such as long-term effects on GDP, employment, or migration. We expect that the free availability of the underlying model and TCE-DAT will make research on tropical cyclone risks more accessible to non-experts and stakeholders.