FRED Release Calendar: Upcoming CPI, Jobs and GDP Releases

Know which day CPI, the jobs report, GDP and every other US economic data release comes out, and get told when a new date appears or a release has just come out. One row per release date, from the St. Louis Fed's FRED release calendar: release name, date, whether it is upcoming, today or already published, and how many days away it is. Turn on monitoring and run it daily to get only the release dates you have not seen before, charged per row and free on a quiet day.

Who uses it: traders and analysts who schedule around data releases, newsletter and research teams that publish a weekly "what is coming" post, and automation builders who want a Slack, Sheets or n8n trigger on the day a number lands.

You bring your own free FRED key. The calendar comes from the FRED API, which requires a key. Create a free FRED account (the key is shown instantly), paste it into the Your FRED API key field, and your requests run on your own key and your own FRED request limit. This actor never ships, stores or shares a key. Without a key a run still succeeds: every search comes back as one NEEDS_KEY row that says where to get the key, and nothing is charged.

What you get, and what you do not: release dates only. FRED does not publish a clock time, a consensus forecast or the actual figure, so there is no "8:30 ET" or "expected 0.3%" column. Dates are US Eastern calendar dates and FRED itself notes that a published date is not always the moment the data appears on its website.

How to use

1. In the Apify Console. Open the actor page and click Start — the releases field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found.
2. Via the API. Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token:

   curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~fred-release-calendar-alerts/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
     -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"releases":["CPI","jobs","GDP"]}'
   

3. On a schedule. Save this actor as an Apify Task with the input you want, then add a Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required.

Input

{
  "releases": [
    "CPI",
    "jobs",
    "GDP"
  ]
}

One per line: a short alias for the headline release (CPI, jobs, GDP, PPI, PCE, retail sales), a numeric FRED release ID (10 is Consumer Price Index, 50 is Employment Situation, 53 is Gross Domestic Product) or any part of a release name ("Gross Domestic Product by State"). Leave empty to get every release in the window. Accepted formats: CPI, jobs, GDP, 53, "Producer Price Index".

Each line of Releases to follow is one search. An alias (CPI, jobs, GDP) picks the headline release only, so CPI does not also return "Research Consumer Price Index". A plain phrase matches any part of the release name, and a number matches a FRED release ID exactly. A release that matches two lines is returned once. The window is Days back (default 7) before today to Days ahead (default 14) after it. The first request of a run takes about 15 to 20 seconds because FRED answers the calendar slowly; the rest are instant.

Output

One row per release date. This is what a run with the key pasted in returns for CPI, jobs and GDP (from a real run on 2026-10-11, trimmed to three rows):

{"query": "CPI", "found": true, "status": "OK", "source": "FRED API fred/releases/dates", "releaseId": 10, "releaseName": "Consumer Price Index", "releaseDate": "2026-10-14", "releaseStatus": "UPCOMING", "daysUntil": 3, "lastUpdated": "2026-09-11T15:51:26.000Z", "releaseUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=10", "isNew": null, "firstSeenAt": null}
{"query": "jobs", "found": true, "status": "OK", "source": "FRED API fred/releases/dates", "releaseId": 50, "releaseName": "Employment Situation", "releaseDate": "2026-10-02", "releaseStatus": "PUBLISHED", "daysUntil": -9, "lastUpdated": "2026-10-02T15:21:39.000Z", "releaseUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=50", "isNew": null, "firstSeenAt": null}
{"query": "GDP", "found": true, "status": "OK", "source": "FRED API fred/releases/dates", "releaseId": 53, "releaseName": "Gross Domestic Product", "releaseDate": "2026-10-29", "releaseStatus": "UPCOMING", "daysUntil": 18, "lastUpdated": "2026-10-01T15:09:22.000Z", "releaseUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=53", "isNew": null, "firstSeenAt": null}

Every row carries scrapedAt and a source naming the route. lastUpdated is FRED's own "data last updated" stamp for that release and is null when FRED does not send one. With monitoring on, isNew and firstSeenAt are filled and monitorStatus says NEW_RELEASES or NO_NEW_RELEASES.

Without a key, each search is one free row like this:

{"query": "CPI", "found": false, "status": "NEEDS_KEY", "message": "No FRED API key was supplied, so nothing was fetched for this search. Get a free key in about a minute ... and paste it into the \"Your FRED API key\" field. The key and its request limit are yours.", "scrapedAt": "2026-10-11T22:26:24.689Z"}

query	found	status	searchSummary	releaseCount	truncated	monitorStatus	releaseDates	source	releaseId	releaseName	releaseDate	releaseStatus	daysUntil	lastUpdated	releaseUrl	isNew	firstSeenAt	scrapedAt
CPI	true	OK					<all release dates (full list)>									<is this release date new?>		1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

A miss (no key, a wrong key, or a search that matched no release in the window) comes back as a row with "found": false and a plain-English message, and is never charged. A rejected key is INVALID_KEY, a hit request limit is BLOCKED.

Pricing

Pay-per-event. A flat per-run fee covers session/proxy warmup; you're billed per item only when data is actually found and returned — see .actor/pay_per_event.json for exact prices. A miss is never charged.

You are billed one release returned event per release date row. A search with no match, a NEEDS_KEY or INVALID_KEY row, and a monitoring run with nothing new are never charged. The FRED API key and its request limit are yours, not ours.

Example runs

Paste any of these into the Input tab and press Start. None of them contains a key: add your own in the Your FRED API key field to get release dates; leave it empty and each search returns one free NEEDS_KEY row that shows the shape.

The three headline releases, a week back and two weeks ahead. The default.

{
  "releases": ["CPI", "jobs", "GDP"]
}

Everything scheduled in the next 30 days, upcoming only. An empty list means every release.

{
  "releases": [],
  "daysBack": 0,
  "daysAhead": 30
}

A daily release alert. Run it on a daily schedule; each run returns only release dates you have not been given, including a release that has just moved from upcoming to published.

{
  "releases": ["CPI", "jobs", "GDP", "PPI", "retail sales"],
  "daysBack": 3,
  "daysAhead": 30,
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": true,
  "deltaName": "macro-calendar"
}

Terms and notice

This product uses the FRED® API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

By using this actor you agree to be bound by the FRED® API Terms of Use (fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/terms_of_use.html). Your key is yours and your use of it must follow those terms. This actor returns release dates only, not data series; series data can carry third-party copyright. FRED applies request limits per key, so a very large schedule can hit your own limit (the actor then reports BLOCKED and charges nothing).

Use it from Clay, n8n, Make, or an AI agent

This actor runs synchronously over plain HTTP — call it directly from a script, a workflow tool, or an AI agent, no Apify Console needed once you have an API token.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~fred-release-calendar-alerts/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"releases":["CPI","jobs","GDP"]}'

n8n. Add an HTTP Request node: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~fred-release-calendar-alerts/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body Content Type JSON, JSON Body {"releases":["CPI","jobs","GDP"]} (swap in an expression from an earlier node for a real value).

Clay. Add an "HTTP API" column: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~fred-release-calendar-alerts/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body {"releases":["{{search}}"]}, mapping the row's search into the releases array.

MCP. In Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client with the Apify MCP server, ask for "economic release calendar alerts" — the agent will find and run this actor.