USAspending Federal Awards Search

Search official US federal contracts, grants, loans, direct payments, and IDVs by keyword, agency, state, NAICS code, date, and amount. No API key required. Results are returned as clean, typed dataset rows suitable for CSV, JSON, automation, and AI-agent workflows.

What data can I extract?

Every run returns 81 columns per award. Core fields include award_family, award_id, recipient_name, award_type, amount, total_outlays, subsidy_cost, awarding_agency, awarding_sub_agency, funding_agency, funding_sub_agency, start_date, end_date, base_obligation_date, pop_state, pop_city, pop_zip, naics_code, naics_description, psc_code, psc_description, cfda_number, cfda_program_title, plus recipient identity and address (recipient_uei, recipient_address, recipient_city, recipient_state, recipient_profile_url) and emergency-appropriation splits (def_codes, covid19_obligations, infrastructure_obligations).

Turn on Fetch full award details to add the procurement columns a capture team filters on: set_aside_type, extent_competed, other_than_full_and_open, number_of_offers_received, contract_pricing_type, solicitation_id, base_and_all_options, parent_award_id, parent_recipient_name, recipient_business_categories, subaward_count, pop_congressional_district, naics_sector_description, executive_compensation, and more. It costs one extra request per award. The dataset schema documents every field before a run starts.

All 81 columns

Identity — award_id, cfda_number, cfda_program_title, covid19_obligations, covid19_outlays, funding_opportunity_number, number_of_offers_received, parent_award_id, parent_recipient_name, recipient_name, set_aside_type, solicitation_id, subsidy_cost, top_executive_name

Status — award_type, award_type_code, contract_pricing_type, parent_award_type, psc_category_code, psc_category_description

Dates — base_obligation_date, date_signed, end_date, issued_date, last_date_to_order, last_modified_date, potential_end_date, start_date

Location — pop_city, pop_congressional_district, pop_country, pop_country_code, pop_county, pop_state, pop_zip, recipient_address, recipient_city, recipient_congressional_district, recipient_country, recipient_county, recipient_state

Money — amount, total_subaward_amount

Contact — recipient_profile_url, url

Counts and measures — subaward_count, total_funding, total_outlays

Other detail — assistance_listings, award_family, awarding_agency, awarding_agency_code, awarding_office, awarding_sub_agency, awarding_sub_agency_code, base_and_all_options, base_exercised_options, def_codes, description, executive_compensation, extent_competed, funding_agency, funding_agency_code, funding_office, funding_sub_agency, funding_sub_agency_code, infrastructure_obligations, infrastructure_outlays, naics_code, naics_description, naics_sector_code, naics_sector_description, non_federal_funding, other_than_full_and_open, parent_recipient_uei, psc_code, psc_description, recipient_business_categories, recipient_uei, solicitation_procedures, top_executive_compensation

Input example

{
  "award_type": "contracts",
  "keywords": "cybersecurity",
  "place_of_performance_state": "VA",
  "min_amount": 1000000,
  "start_date": "2024-01-01",
  "max_items": 10,
  "include_details": true
}

max_items is a hard output and billing ceiling. Source fields may be null when the upstream public record does not provide them.

Output example

Each dataset item is one normalized result. The field names shown under What data can I extract are emitted as typed JSON properties and can be exported as CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS.

Common use cases

• Lead, market, compliance, and competitive research
• Scheduled monitoring and change detection
• CSV/JSON enrichment pipelines
• AI-agent retrieval and workflow automation

Pricing and cost control

Output is billed per result at $0.003 per result (about $3.00 per 1,000 results), plus a $0.0005 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.

Use with AI agents and MCP

Apify's MCP server can discover and call this Actor. Example intent:

Find federal cybersecurity contracts performed in Virginia since 2024.

Use the JSON input above as the tool arguments, changing filters and max_items as needed. The strict input schema rejects unknown properties, and the typed dataset schema describes the returned tool data.

Reliability

Runs use bounded retries, deduplication, hard result limits, and explicit failure handling. Browser-based sources are monitored by contract canaries and staged selector repair; official-API sources use deterministic contract canaries rather than DOM repair.

Limitations and responsible use

• Publicly available source data only; coverage and field availability depend on the upstream source.
• A successful search can legitimately return no matching records.
• Point-in-time fields can change after collection.
• Use the data in accordance with applicable law and source terms.
• Do not use results for prohibited eligibility, discrimination, or sensitive-person profiling decisions.

FAQ

What search phrases does this Actor support?

The input schema lists exact accepted fields and examples. Primary discovery terms: USAspending API, federal contracts search, government grants data, federal awards scraper.

Can I control cost?

Yes. Set max_items; it is enforced as the maximum number of output records.

Can an AI agent call it?

Yes. Use Apify MCP search-actors, inspect this Actor's schema, then call it with the same JSON accepted in Console.

Does it require an external API key?

No external API key is required. Searches query the official USAspending public records directly.

Changes

See ./CHANGELOG.md for contract and maintenance updates.