We present **nerblackbox**, a python library to facilitate the use of state-of-the-art transformer-based models for named entity recognition. It provides simple-to-use yet powerful methods to access data and models from a wide range of sources, for fully automated model training and evaluation as well as versatile model inference. While many technical challenges are solved and hidden from the user by default, **nerblackbox** also offers fine-grained control and a rich set of customizable features. It is thus targeted both at application-oriented developers as well as machine learning experts and researchers.