We provide homogeneous optical (UBVRI) and near-infrared (NIR, JHK) time series photometry for 254 cluster (omega Cen, M4) and field RR Lyrae (RRL) variables. We ended up with more than 551000 measurements. For 94 fundamental (RRab) and 51 first overtones (RRc) we provide a complete optical/NIR characterization (mean magnitudes, luminosity amplitudes, epoch of the anchor point). The NIR light curves of these variables were adopted to provide new light-curve templates for both RRc and RRab variables. The templates for the J and the H bands are newly introduced, together with the use of the pulsation period to discriminate among the different RRab templates. To overcome uncertainties in the fit of secondary features of the light curves we provide two independent sets of analytical functions (Fourier and periodic Gaussian series).