# Federal Register API - US Regulations & Rules Scraper (`captainhandsome/federal-register-search`) Actor

Wraps the official Federal Register API, no key required, pulling rules, proposed rules, notices and presidential documents. Filter by type and sort newest, or use it as a federal register scraper to track new federal regulations as clean JSON, CSV or Excel rows.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/captainhandsome/federal-register-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Joseph McRell](https://apify.com/captainhandsome) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Business
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.75 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Federal Register Search

Search the official US Federal Register and export clean, spreadsheet-ready rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents with agencies, publication dates, abstracts, and source links. No API key or browser automation is required. Set `max_items` before each run to keep output and cost predictable.

### What data can I extract?

- Official Federal Register API data
- Rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents
- 52 flat columns: agencies, citation and page range, CFR parts, RIN,
  docket IDs, effective and comment-close dates, regulations.gov comment
  links and counts, presidential order numbers, and full-text URLs
- Automatic pagination with a hard result ceiling

Every result is written to the default dataset and can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML.

### Input example

```json
{
  "query": "artificial intelligence",
  "type": [
    "RULE",
    "PRORULE"
  ],
  "order": "newest",
  "max_items": 10
}
```

The default input is deliberately bounded and produces a small, useful Store test. `max_items` is a hard output ceiling.

### Output example

```json
{
  "document_number": "2026-17163",
  "title": "Request for Comment on the Listing of Compute Derivatives Contracts",
  "type": "Proposed Rule",
  "agencies": "Commodity Futures Trading Commission",
  "agency_count": 1,
  "publication_date": "2026-08-21",
  "abstract": "The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (\"CFTC\" or \"Commission\") is seeking public responses to this Request for Comment to better inform its understanding and oversight of derivatives markets in compute.",
  "html_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/21/2026-17163/request-for-comment-on-the-listing-of-compute-derivatives-contracts",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-21/pdf/2026-17163.pdf",
  "citation": "91 FR 54259",
  "volume": 91,
  "start_page": 54259,
  "end_page": 54264,
  "page_length": 6,
  "subtype": null,
  "action": "Request for comment.",
  "toc_subject": null,
  "excerpt": "below, this request for comment addresses an emerging class of derivatives contracts that reference the price of access to computing power (“compute”), 4 which is the processing power primarily used by the large language models (“LLMs”) at the center of the artificial intelligence (“AI”) economy. AI anchors a large and growing share of the U.S. economy and public equity markets and, accordingly, compute has become a multi-hundred-billion-dollar enterprise 5 and is a scarce, capital-intensive commodity. 4 This request for comment",
  "significant": null,
  "topics": null,
  "topic_count": 0,
  "dates": "Comments must be received on or before October 20, 2026.",
  "effective_on": null,
  "comments_close_on": "2026-10-20",
  "signing_date": null,
  "cfr_references": "17 CFR 1, 17 CFR 38",
  "cfr_reference_count": 2,
  "docket_ids": null,
  "regulation_id_numbers": "3038-AF77",
  "rin_priority_category": null,
  "unified_agenda_url": null,
  "comment_url": "http://www.regulations.gov/commenton/CFTC-2026-1850-0001",
  "regulations_gov_docket_id": "CFTC-2026-1850",
  "regulations_gov_document_id": "CFTC-2026-1850-0001",
  "regulations_gov_comments_count": 10,
  "regulations_gov_comments_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/docketBrowser?rpp=50&so=DESC&sb=postedDate&po=0&dct=PS&D=CFTC-2026-1850",
  "president": "Donald Trump",
  "presidential_document_number": null,
  "executive_order_number": null,
  "proclamation_number": null,
  "disposition_notes": null,
  "correction_of_document_number": null,
  "correction_document_numbers": null,
  "correction_count": 0,
  "page_views_count": 932,
  "image_count": 0,
  "image_urls": null,
  "public_inspection_pdf_url": "https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17163.pdf?1787229923",
  "body_html_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/html/2026/08/21/2026-17163.html",
  "full_text_xml_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/xml/2026/08/21/2026-17163.xml",
  "raw_text_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/text/2026/08/21/2026-17163.txt",
  "mods_url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/metadata/granule/FR-2026-08-21/2026-17163/mods.xml"
}
```

One real record from the default input. Nullable fields remain explicit when the upstream source does not supply a value - a notice carries no effective date, a rule carries no proclamation number.

### Common use cases

- Regulatory monitoring and compliance alerts
- Policy and government-affairs research
- Tracking agency action by topic
- Building rulemaking datasets

### Use with AI agents and MCP

Apify's MCP server can discover and call this Actor from an AI workflow. Example intent:

> Find the 10 newest Federal Register rules and proposed rules about artificial intelligence.

Use the JSON from **Input example** as the tool arguments. The strict input schema rejects unsupported parameters, and the documented dataset schema tells the agent how to interpret each returned field.

### Pricing and cost control

Output is billed per result at **$0.0025 per result** (about $2.50 per 1,000 results), plus a $0.0002 Actor-start charge billed once per gigabyte of memory at run start. Use `max_items` to cap both output volume and charges. The price shown on the Apify Store listing is authoritative.

`max_items` limits both output volume and result-based charges. Start with 10 records, inspect them, and then scale deliberately.

### Reliability

The Actor validates input, bounds pagination, retries transient upstream failures, writes structured records, and fails explicitly when the source cannot produce usable output. A production default-input canary is monitored by the fleet.

### Limitations and responsible use

- The abstract is the official summary; full document text is linked, not inlined.
- Free-text matching is supplied by the source API, not semantic search.
- Source records may omit an abstract or PDF URL.
- Very deep result sets remain subject to upstream API limits.

Use the data lawfully, respect source terms, and independently validate records before making consequential decisions.

### FAQ

#### Does it need my own API key?\n\nNo, the default workflow does not require a customer-supplied API key.

#### Can I export the results?

Yes. Download the default dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML, or retrieve it through the Apify API.

#### How do I control cost?

Set `max_items` to the most records you want returned. Begin with the bounded default input.

#### Can an AI agent call it?

Yes. The Actor has strict input and semantic output schemas and can be called through Apify's MCP tooling.

#### What happens when a source field is missing?

The relevant field is returned as null or an empty normalized value rather than being merged into another field.

# Changelog

This Actor's version history is a separate document: https://apify.com/captainhandsome/federal-register-search/changelog.md

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Free text across titles and abstracts, e.g. 'emissions' or 'tariff'

## `type` (type: `array`):

Limit to these types. Leave empty for all.

## `order` (type: `string`):

How to sort results.

## `max_items` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on documents returned. Also caps your spend.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "emissions",
  "type": [
    "RULE",
    "PRORULE"
  ],
  "order": "newest",
  "max_items": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Structured records from the default dataset.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "emissions"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("captainhandsome/federal-register-search").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "query": "emissions" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("captainhandsome/federal-register-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "emissions"
}' |
apify call captainhandsome/federal-register-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,captainhandsome/federal-register-search"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/Y3apNfabUdhdc0wQj/builds/N5IUPhEPPvQLgMRcg/openapi.json