USASpending.gov Scraper

Extract federal spending data from USASpending.gov. Search contracts, grants, loans, and awards by keyword, agency, recipient, date range, and amount.

What does USASpending.gov Scraper do?

This actor extracts US federal spending data from the official USASpending.gov API, including:

• Federal contracts — defense contracts, IT services, consulting, research
• Grants — research grants, education funding, community development
• Loans — federal loan programs with amounts and subsidy costs
• IDVs — indefinite delivery vehicles and blanket purchase agreements
• Direct payments — subsidies, entitlements, and other direct federal payments

Who is it for?

• 📊 Government contractors — tracking federal spending patterns and contract opportunities
• 🏢 Policy researchers — analyzing government budget allocation and spending trends
• 📰 Investigative journalists — following the money trail in federal spending data
• 💼 Business development teams — identifying agencies and programs with active funding
• 🎓 Academic researchers — studying public finance and government procurement patterns

Why use USASpending.gov Scraper?

• Official government data — sourced directly from the USASpending.gov API, the official source for US federal spending
• No API key needed — the USASpending API is fully public with no registration required
• Powerful filters — search by keyword, agency, recipient, date range, amount, state
• All award types — contracts, grants, loans, IDVs, and direct payments
• Structured output — clean JSON with consistent field names for analysis
• Automatic pagination — handles multi-page results seamlessly

Use cases

• Government contract research — find contracts awarded to specific companies or in specific sectors
• Grant discovery — identify federal grant opportunities and historical awards
• Competitive intelligence — track competitors' government contracts and award amounts
• Policy analysis — analyze federal spending patterns by agency, state, or category
• Investigative journalism — research government spending for reporting
• Business development — identify agencies and programs with active procurement
• Academic research — collect federal spending data for economic and policy studies
• Market sizing — understand government spending in specific industries (AI, cybersecurity, healthcare)

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
keywords	array	—	Search keywords (e.g., artificial intelligence, cybersecurity)
awardType	string	contracts	Award type: contracts, grants, loans, idvs, direct_payments, all
startDate	string	—	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
endDate	string	—	End date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
agency	string	—	Awarding agency name (e.g., Department of Defense, NASA)
recipient	string	—	Recipient/contractor name
minAmount	number	—	Minimum award amount (USD)
maxAmount	number	—	Maximum award amount (USD)
state	string	—	Recipient state (2-letter code: CA, TX, NY)
sortBy	string	Award Amount	Sort field
sortOrder	string	desc	Sort direction: desc or asc
maxResults	number	100	Maximum awards to return

Output example

{
    "awardId": "W56KGZ24C0011",
    "generatedId": "CONT_AWD_W56KGZ24C0011_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-",
    "recipientName": "ECS FEDERAL, LLC",
    "awardAmount": 118579059,
    "awardingAgency": "Department of Defense",
    "fundingAgency": "Department of Defense",
    "description": "RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EFFORT TO DESIGN AND DEVELOP PROTOTYPES TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE...",
    "startDate": "2024-07-31",
    "endDate": "2026-07-30",
    "awardType": "DEFINITIVE CONTRACT",
    "naicsCode": "541715",
    "naicsDescription": "RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES",
    "recipientState": "VA",
    "recipientCity": "FAIRFAX",
    "placeOfPerformanceState": "VA",
    "placeOfPerformanceCity": "FAIRFAX",
    "url": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_W56KGZ24C0011_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-03T08:47:15.123Z"
}

How much does it cost to scrape USASpending.gov?

This actor uses a pay-per-event pricing model:

Event	Price
Run started	$0.001
Per award extracted	$0.001

Cost examples

Scenario	Awards	Cost
Quick search (10 awards)	10	$0.011
Sector analysis (50)	50	$0.051
Agency deep dive (200)	200	$0.201
Large dataset (500)	500	$0.501

Platform costs (compute, storage) are additional but minimal.

How to scrape USASpending.gov federal spending data

Via Apify Console

1. Open USASpending.gov Scraper in Apify Console
2. Enter search keywords (e.g., "artificial intelligence", "cybersecurity")
3. Select the award type and set date range
4. Click Start and download results from the Dataset tab

Via API (Node.js)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/usaspending-scraper').call({
    keywords: ['artificial intelligence'],
    awardType: 'contracts',
    startDate: '2024-01-01',
    endDate: '2025-12-31',
    maxResults: 50,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((award) => {
    console.log(`$${award.awardAmount.toLocaleString()} | ${award.recipientName} | ${award.awardingAgency}`);
});

Via API (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')

run = client.actor('automation-lab/usaspending-scraper').call(run_input={
    'keywords': ['artificial intelligence'],
    'awardType': 'contracts',
    'startDate': '2024-01-01',
    'endDate': '2025-12-31',
    'maxResults': 50,
})

for award in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(f"${award['awardAmount']:,.0f} | {award['recipientName']} | {award['awardingAgency']}")

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~usaspending-scraper/runs" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keywords": ["artificial intelligence"], "awardType": "contracts", "maxResults": 50}'

Use with AI agents via MCP

USASpending.gov Scraper is available as a tool for AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com"
        }
    }
}

Example prompts

• "Find federal contracts awarded to this company"
• "Search USASpending for NASA grants in 2025"

Learn more in the Apify MCP documentation.

Integrations

Connect USASpending.gov Scraper with your tools:

• Google Sheets — automatically populate spreadsheets with federal contract data
• Slack — get notified when new contracts match your criteria
• Zapier / Make — build automated government spending monitoring workflows
• PostgreSQL / BigQuery — store award data for long-term analysis and reporting
• Webhooks — push data to your application when extraction completes

Tips and best practices

• Use specific keywords — narrow searches produce better results. "artificial intelligence" is better than just "AI".
• Filter by date range — always set a date range to avoid pulling the entire database.
• Search one type at a time — searching by specific award type (contracts, grants) is faster than "all".
• Use agency filters — if you know the agency, add it to significantly reduce result volume.
• State filter — combine with keywords to find local contractors and recipients.
• Sort by amount — use descending amount sort to find the largest awards first.

Limitations

• Maximum ~10,000 records per query (split into multiple searches for larger datasets)
• API response times vary (2-10 seconds per page depending on query complexity)
• Award types cannot be mixed in a single API call — the actor handles this automatically for "all" type searches
• Some older awards may have incomplete data fields

Legality

Scraping publicly available data is generally legal according to the US Court of Appeals ruling (HiQ Labs v. LinkedIn). This actor only accesses publicly available information and does not require authentication. Always review and comply with the target website's Terms of Service before scraping. For personal data, ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable privacy regulations.

FAQ

The API is slow or returns errors — what should I do? The USASpending.gov API response times vary by query complexity (2-10 seconds per page). Broad queries without date filters are especially slow. Always set a date range and use specific keywords to improve performance.

My search returns duplicates or unexpected results — why? When using awardType: "all", the actor queries multiple endpoints separately. Some awards may appear under different categories. Use a specific award type (contracts, grants) for cleaner results.

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