📡 FCC Licenses Scraper

Export FCC radio licenses from the Universal Licensing System as flat rows: call sign, licensee, FRN, status, expiry, site coordinates, frequency band, antenna and transmit power. No API key, no registration, no login.

The FCC's Universal Licensing System is the public record of who is licensed to transmit in the United States, where, and on what frequencies. The search at wireless2.fcc.gov answers one query at a time, paginates a handful of results per page, and has no export. This Actor drives that search and writes every matching license into a dataset you can open in a spreadsheet.

Who uses it	What they use ULS for
💼 Buyers of wireless ISPs and tower businesses	Confirming the licenses on the asset schedule exist, are active, and are held by the entity being sold
📋 Lenders and insurers	Checking call sign, FRN, status and expiry before writing a facility against licensed spectrum
🎯 Sourcing and lead generation	Listing every licensee in a state, with their sites, to find operators that never appear on a broker site
🗺 Network and RF planners	Mapping licensed sites, bands and transmit power around a coverage area

📋 What it does

💡 Why it matters: when the asset being bought is spectrum, the licence record is the asset. Status, expiry and the FRN on the licence are what tell you whether the seller still holds what they are selling.

• 🔎 Searches ULS four ways. By state, by exact call sign, by licensee name substring, or by application status.
• 🏢 Returns the licensee and its FRN, the FCC Registration Number that ties licences to a single legal entity across the whole database.
• 📅 Status and dates. Application status, status date, application receipt date and expiry, so a dead licence is visible as dead.
• 📍 Site detail. Location name, city, county, state, latitude and longitude for the licensed site.
• 📶 RF detail. Lower and upper frequency, EIRP, emission designator, antenna make and model, and equipment designation type.
• 📦 One flat row per licence, the same 25 fields every run, so several searches append into a single clean dataset.
• 💾 Exports to CSV, Excel, JSON or XML, from the run page or the API.

📊 Output

Every licence is one flat row with 25 fields. A field is null where ULS publishes no value for that licence.

Field	Type	Description
📻 callSign	string	The licence call sign, for example WQJW268
🆔 licenseId	string	FCC licence key, the id used in the ULS record URL
🏢 licenseName	string	Licensee as recorded, the legal entity holding the licence
🔢 frns	string	FCC Registration Number of the licensee
✅ applicationStatus	string	Licence status, for example Active, Deleted or Terminated
📅 statusDate	string	Date the current status took effect
📄 fileNumber	string	FCC file number of the application behind the licence
📥 applicationReceiptDate	string	Date the FCC received the application
⏳ expiredDate	string	Licence expiry date
🏷 locationName	string	Site name as the licensee registered it
🏙 locationCity	string	City of the licensed site
🗺 locationState	string	Two-letter state code of the site
🧭 locationCounty	string	County of the site
📍 latitude	number	Site latitude in decimal degrees
📍 longitude	number	Site longitude in decimal degrees
📉 lowerFrequency	string	Lower edge of the authorised band, with unit, for example 3650.00000000 MHz
📈 upperFrequency	string	Upper edge of the authorised band, with unit
⚡ eirp	string	Effective isotropic radiated power as recorded
🛰 antennaMake	string	Antenna manufacturer, for example Ubiquiti
🔧 antennaModel	string	Antenna model as filed
🧪 emissionDesignator	string	ITU emission designator, for example 17M8D7D
🏗 fccEquipmentDesignationType	string	Equipment role, for example CPE or Dual Use/Pt-Pt
🔗 url	string	Direct link to the licence record in ULS
🕒 scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of collection
⚠️ error	string	null on a normal row

Example rows

{
  "callSign": "WQJW268",
  "licenseId": "3072529",
  "licenseName": "The Corporation",
  "frns": "18344861",
  "applicationStatus": "Deleted",
  "statusDate": "2018-12-14T00:00:00.000",
  "fileNumber": "6757878",
  "applicationReceiptDate": "2015-04-15T00:00:00.000",
  "expiredDate": "2019-01-21T00:00:00.000",
  "locationName": "Highland",
  "locationCity": "St. Maries",
  "locationState": "ID",
  "locationCounty": "BENEWAH",
  "latitude": 47.31152778,
  "longitude": -116.57072222,
  "lowerFrequency": "3650.00000000 MHz",
  "upperFrequency": "3675.00000000 Mhz",
  "eirp": "42",
  "antennaMake": "Ubiquiti",
  "antennaModel": "AMS 3G-120-18",
  "emissionDesignator": "17M8D7D",
  "fccEquipmentDesignationType": "Dual Use/Pt-Pt",
  "url": "https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=3072529",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-14T16:27:15.815Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "callSign": "WQJC938",
  "licenseId": "3032444",
  "licenseName": "Intelliwave LLC",
  "frns": "15876352",
  "applicationStatus": "Deleted",
  "statusDate": "2018-11-19T00:00:00.000",
  "fileNumber": "6762516",
  "applicationReceiptDate": "2015-04-16T00:00:00.000",
  "expiredDate": "2018-07-29T00:00:00.000",
  "locationName": "3560",
  "locationCity": "Circleville",
  "locationState": "OH",
  "locationCounty": "PICKAWAY",
  "latitude": 39.67138889,
  "longitude": -82.85611111,
  "lowerFrequency": "3650.00000000 MHz",
  "upperFrequency": "3675.00000000 Mhz",
  "eirp": "39",
  "antennaMake": "Motorola",
  "antennaModel": "Integrated",
  "emissionDesignator": "9M50W7D",
  "fccEquipmentDesignationType": "CPE",
  "url": "https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=3032444",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-14T16:27:15.815Z",
  "error": null
}

Unfiltered runs return licences of every status, including deleted and expired ones. Set applicationStatus to Active if you only want live licences.

✨ Why choose this Actor

	What you get
The official record	Data comes from the FCC's own licensing database, not from a broker page or a coverage map.
The entity, not the brand	licenseName and frns identify who actually holds the licence, which is what a purchase agreement has to name.
Bulk instead of one at a time	ULS answers one search per page. Here you set a state and a cap and walk away.
Site coordinates included	Latitude and longitude come out per licence, so the dataset maps without geocoding.
You pay per row	No subscription. A search that returns nothing costs nothing.

🚀 How to use it

1. Create a free Apify account. New accounts start with $5 of credit.
2. Open the Actor and select Try for free.
3. Set any of state, callSign, licenseName or applicationStatus. Leave them blank for an unfiltered pull.
4. Set maxItems to cap the run.
5. Select Start, then export from the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML.

A first run:

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

Active licences in one state:

{
  "maxItems": 2000,
  "state": "TX",
  "applicationStatus": "Active"
}

One licensee by name:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "licenseName": "Intelliwave"
}

⚙️ Input

Field	Required	Description
maxItems	No	Maximum licences to collect per run. Default 10
state	No	Two-letter state code, for example CA or NY. Puerto Rico is PR
applicationStatus	No	One of Active, Pending, Deleted, Granted, Terminated
callSign	No	Exact call sign, for example WQJW268
licenseName	No	Licensee name substring

💰 Pricing

Pay per result. No subscription, and no Apify platform usage on top.

Apify plan	Free	Bronze	Silver	Gold	Platinum	Diamond
Per licence row	$0.021	$0.0203	$0.0197	$0.019	$0.019	$0.019

Rows collected	Cost on the Free plan
100	$2.10
1,000	$21.00
10,000	$210.00

Free plan runs return up to 10 rows as a preview. Any paid Apify plan lifts that to 1,000,000 per run.

🔌 Integrate with any app

The dataset is available through the Apify API as soon as the run finishes. Use run-sync-get-dataset-items for a one-shot call, webhooks to trigger what happens next, or the Make, Zapier, Airbyte and LangChain integrations listed on the Actor page.

🤖 Use with an AI agent

Give an agent live access to the FCC licence database over the Model Context Protocol:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=acquistion-automation/fcc-licenses-scraper"

Then ask it in plain language who holds a call sign, or which licensees operate in a county, and have it read the result back.

❓ Frequently asked questions

Which licences does this cover? Wireless licences in the FCC's Universal Licensing System, searched by state, call sign, licensee name or application status.

Why are my rows marked Deleted or expired? ULS keeps historical licences. An unfiltered search returns them alongside live ones. Set applicationStatus to Active to see only current licences.

What is the FRN for? The FCC Registration Number identifies the licensee as a legal entity. Two call signs sharing an FRN are held by the same company, which is how you find every licence a target owns.

Can I search by frequency band? Not in the input. Export the dataset and filter on lowerFrequency and upperFrequency in a spreadsheet.

Why do some rows have no antenna or power values? ULS does not publish every technical field for every licence type. Missing values come back as null rather than as a guess.

Do I need a proxy? No. Requests and retries are handled inside the Actor and included in the price.

🔗 More from Acquisition Automation Co.

• SAM.gov Contract Opportunities Scraper
• USASpending Contracts Scraper
• USCG PSIX Vessel Registry Scraper
• IRS Exempt Organizations Scraper
• BizBuySell Scraper

About Acquisition Automation Co.

We build automation for people buying businesses. The repetitive part of an acquisition search, checking listings, pulling public records, tracking owners and assets, is work a machine should do, so the buyer's time goes into judging deals instead of collecting them.

We add new Actors regularly. If there is a source you need and do not see here, tell us.

🆘 Support

Open an issue in the Issues tab of this Actor with your run ID, the input you used, and what you expected to get back.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission or any government agency. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using that data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable law.