Craigslist Listings Scraper - Housing, For Sale, Jobs, Cars

Scrape Craigslist listings from craigslist.org in any city and any category: apartments and housing, items for sale, cars and trucks, jobs, gigs and services. Each Craigslist listing comes out with title, price, location, coordinates, street address, bedrooms, square feet, attributes, full description, photos and posted date, ready to export as JSON, CSV or Excel or to call as a Craigslist API. Type an area such as newyork and a keyword, or paste a Craigslist search URL, and press Start.

Target website: craigslist.org

⚖️ Is it legal to scrape Craigslist?

This actor only collects listings that are publicly visible on craigslist.org, with no login and no private content. Scraping publicly available data is generally considered lawful (see hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn), but you are responsible for following Craigslist's Terms of Service and laws such as GDPR or CCPA if you process personal data.

✨ Features of this Craigslist listings scraper

• Craigslist listing extraction — title, price, currency, area, subarea, category, neighborhood, latitude and longitude, address, bedrooms, bathrooms, square feet, attributes (condition, make, odometer, laundry, parking...), description, photos, posted and updated dates.
• Any city, any category — search one or many Craigslist areas (newyork, sfbay, chicago, london, toronto...) in any category code (sss, apa, hhh, cta, jjj...) or paste search URLs in the new or the old URL format.
• Pagination support — goes through result pages until Max items is reached, up to the 10,000 results Craigslist shows per search.
• Keyword, price and housing filtering — keywords, titles only, min and max price, min and max bedrooms, cats OK, dogs OK, has image, posted today, ZIP code with search distance and sort order.
• Only new listings on scheduled runs — a cache project name skips listings you already scraped, and they are not charged.
• Proxy support — runs without a proxy by default; switch on Apify Proxy for large runs.
• No browser required — plain HTTP requests keep runs fast and cheap.

🚀 How to scrape Craigslist listings in 5 steps

1. Sign up for a free Apify account — includes $5 monthly credit.
2. Open the actor page and click Try for free.
3. Fill in the Input fields (an area or a Craigslist search or posting URL is required).
4. Click Start and wait for the run to complete.
5. Download results from the Output tab in JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

You can also run this actor via the Apify API or integrate it directly into your workflows using Zapier, Make, or n8n.

💰 Craigslist scraper pricing

This actor uses pay-per-result billing: you pay for each listing saved to the dataset.

• New Apify accounts include $5 of free monthly credit.
• It uses plain HTTP requests instead of a headless browser, so it costs significantly less to run than browser-based scrapers.
• Proxies are off by default, which keeps runs cheapest.
• Listings skipped by the cache are not charged (see below).

♻️ Scrape only new Craigslist listings with the cache (no repeat charges)

Set a Cache project name (for example sfbay-apartments) and the scraper remembers every listing it saves under that name. On every later run with the same name:

• Already-scraped listings are skipped — they are not saved again, so you never get duplicates across runs.
• Skipped listings cost nothing — you only pay for listings saved to the dataset, and cached ones are never saved.
• Max items counts only new listings — the scraper keeps paging past cached listings until it finds Max items new ones (or the search runs out).
• New listings are marked — each saved record gets changeType: "new".

Example: a daily schedule on an SF Bay Area apartments search with Max items 50. Day 1 saves 50 listings. On day 2 the same 50 are skipped for free, and you get and pay for only the next 50 new ones.

The cache is a named key-value store in your own Apify account (craigslist-<your project name>). Use a different name for each separate search you want to track, and use a new name (or delete that store) to start from scratch. Leave the field empty to scrape everything on every run.

🔧 Craigslist scraper input configuration

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
Search or posting URLs (startUrls)	array	—	[]	Craigslist search URLs or single posting URLs. Filters inside a search URL are kept.
Areas (areas)	array	—	["newyork"] (prefill)	Craigslist area hostnames to search, e.g. newyork, sfbay, chicago, london. Each area is searched separately.
Category (category)	string	—	sss	Category code used with Areas: sss (for sale), apa (apartments), hhh (housing), cta (cars and trucks), bia (bicycles), jjj (jobs), ggg (gigs), bbb (services). Hub names such as studio-apartment work too.
Search keywords (searchQuery)	string	—	bike (prefill)	Keywords to search for in the chosen areas.
Max items per search (maxItems)	integer	—	5	Maximum unique listings saved for each area or search URL.
Cache project name (cacheProjectName)	string	—	—	Same name on every run skips listings already scraped; they are not charged and do not count towards Max items.
Scrape full posting (scrapeDetails)	boolean	—	true	Open every posting for the description, address, attributes, bathrooms, all photos and dates.
Search titles only (titlesOnly)	boolean	—	false	Search filters section. Match the keywords in listing titles only.
Min price (minPrice)	integer	—	—	Lowest price, in the area's currency.
Max price (maxPrice)	integer	—	—	Highest price, in the area's currency.
Min bedrooms (minBedrooms)	integer	—	—	Housing categories only.
Max bedrooms (maxBedrooms)	integer	—	—	Housing categories only.
Cats OK (catsOk)	boolean	—	false	Housing only: listings that allow cats.
Dogs OK (dogsOk)	boolean	—	false	Housing only: listings that allow dogs.
Has image (hasImage)	boolean	—	false	Only listings with at least one photo.
Posted today (postedToday)	boolean	—	false	Only listings posted today.
ZIP / postal code (postal)	string	—	—	Search around this ZIP or postal code.
Search distance (searchDistance)	integer	—	—	Radius around the ZIP code (miles in the US).
Sort by (sort)	string	—	—	date, dateoldest, priceasc, pricedsc or rel. Empty uses the site default.
Proxy configuration (proxyConfiguration)	object	—	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Proxy section. Craigslist works without a proxy for normal runs.
Max concurrency (maxConcurrency)	integer	—	5	API only: maximum parallel requests.

The Search filters apply to searches built from Areas, Category and Search keywords. Search URLs keep the filters already in the URL.

Supported URL types:

• New search URLs: https://www.craigslist.org/search/area/sfbay?cat=apa, https://www.craigslist.org/search/subarea/sfc?cat=apa, https://www.craigslist.org/search/area/sfbay?hub=studio-apartment
• Old search URLs: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=loft, https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sfc/apa
• Posting URLs: https://www.craigslist.org/view/d/<title>/<id> and the old https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/apa/d/<title>/7977442854.html

📦 Craigslist scraper output data

Each listing is one JSON record with the fields id, uuid, url, title, price, priceText, currency, area, subarea, category, categoryName, location, neighborhood, latitude, longitude, streetAddress, city, region, postalCode, country, bedrooms, bathrooms, sqft, attributes, description, images, postedAt, updatedAt, petsAllowed, smokingAllowed, scrapedAt and, with a cache project name, changeType. The dataset has 1 view: Overview, a compact table with the ID, title, price, area, location, category, bedrooms, square feet, posted date, change type and URL.

Output at a glance:

Title	Price	Location	Category	Posted
Bike 1978 Schwinn Fairlady	—	Upper West Side	bicycles - by owner	2026-08-11
Bike Schwinn 1970s Mellow Yellow Lowrider	—	Upper West Side	bicycles - by owner	2026-10-11
Bike BMX Mongoose Lowrider	$150	Upper West Side	bicycles - by owner	2026-08-02
2 Motors for Bikes,Go-Peds,Scooters.	$150	Upper West Side	bicycles - by owner	2026-10-14
Bikes Schwinn Muscle	—	Upper West Side	bicycles - by owner	2026-05-23

Sample output (raw JSON):

{
    "id": "7983498744",
    "uuid": "o1rYphBeZtLCR7JU5A7HqP",
    "url": "https://www.craigslist.org/view/d/new-york-motors-for-bikesgo-pedsscooters/o1rYphBeZtLCR7JU5A7HqP",
    "title": "2 Motors for Bikes,Go-Peds,Scooters.",
    "price": 150,
    "priceText": "$150",
    "currency": "USD",
    "area": "newyork",
    "subarea": "mnh",
    "category": "bia",
    "categoryName": "bicycles - by owner",
    "location": "Upper West Side",
    "neighborhood": "Upper West Side",
    "latitude": 40.7975,
    "longitude": -73.9683,
    "streetAddress": "102st",
    "city": "New York",
    "region": "NY",
    "postalCode": "10025",
    "country": "US",
    "bedrooms": null,
    "bathrooms": null,
    "sqft": null,
    "attributes": [
        "condition: good"
    ],
    "description": "Two motors,both working as of last summer. Drained fuel for storage. Both have brackets to mount on a bike. Everything in pics will be in a storage bin ready to go.",
    "images": [
        "https://images.craigslist.org/00808_hF5vuOaM7Jn_0CI0sy_600x450.jpg",
        "https://images.craigslist.org/00505_9ppXcnnZ4Kq_0nz0t2_600x450.jpg"
    ],
    "postedAt": "2026-10-14T18:04:17.000Z",
    "updatedAt": "2026-10-14T18:08:17.000Z",
    "petsAllowed": null,
    "smokingAllowed": null,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-14T18:17:54.689Z"
}

🐍 How to scrape Craigslist with Python, JavaScript or the API

Run the actor programmatically with the official Apify clients. Replace <YOUR_API_TOKEN> with the token from your Apify Console.

Python (pip install apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("confidential_gnat/craigslist-listings-scraper").call(run_input={
    "areas": ["newyork"],
    "category": "sss",
    "searchQuery": "bike",
    "maxItems": 20,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

JavaScript (npm install apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' });

const run = await client.actor('confidential_gnat/craigslist-listings-scraper').call({
    areas: ['newyork'],
    category: 'sss',
    searchQuery: 'bike',
    maxItems: 20,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

cURL — start a run and wait for the dataset:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/confidential_gnat~craigslist-listings-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"areas": ["newyork"], "category": "sss", "searchQuery": "bike", "maxItems": 20}'

💡 What you can use Craigslist listings data for

• Rental market research: rents, bedrooms, square feet and pet policies by city and neighborhood.
• Used car and resale price tracking by make, model, condition and odometer.
• Deal alerts: scheduled runs that return only new listings for a keyword and price range.
• Lead generation for movers, dealers, landlords and service businesses.
• Mapping supply with the latitude and longitude of each listing.

Real estate investors, property managers, car dealers, resellers, market researchers and data teams use Craigslist classifieds data to watch prices and inventory across US, Canadian and international cities.

⚠️ Limitations & known issues

• No contact details — phone numbers and reply emails sit behind Craigslist's reply button and are not collected.
• 10,000 results per search — Craigslist shows at most 10,000 results for one search; split large searches by subarea or price range.
• Rate limiting — Craigslist can slow down or block very fast crawlers; keep concurrency moderate and enable a proxy for large runs.
• Search-only runs — with Scrape full posting off, the description, street address, attributes, bathrooms and posted date stay empty.

❓ Frequently asked questions

What data does the Craigslist scraper return?

Every listing gets its ID, URL, title, price, currency, area, subarea, category, location, neighborhood, coordinates, bedrooms, square feet and photos. With Scrape full posting on (the default) you also get the description, street address, city, ZIP code, bathrooms, all attributes, pet and smoking policy and the posted and updated dates.

How many listings can I scrape from one Craigslist search?

Max items limits the listings saved for each area or each search URL, so three areas with Max items 100 give up to 300 listings. Craigslist itself shows at most 10,000 results per search.

Do I need a proxy to scrape craigslist.org?

No. The default input has the proxy switched off and normal runs work fine. For large runs or if requests start failing, enable Apify Proxy with the datacenter group.

How do I scrape Craigslist with Python?

Use the Python example above: call the actor with your input through the Apify client and iterate over the items of the run's dataset.

Can I run this Craigslist scraper on a schedule?

Yes, with Apify Schedules. Set a cache project name and keep it the same on every run: listings already scraped under that name are skipped, not charged and not counted towards Max items, and new ones get changeType: "new".

What output formats are supported?

JSON, CSV, Excel, XML and RSS, either from the Output tab or through the Apify API.

Can I get the seller's phone number or email from Craigslist?

No. Craigslist hides contact details behind its reply button, so the scraper returns the public listing data only.

🔗 Other actors you may find useful

Scraper	Description
🛍️ Carousell Products Scraper	Marketplace listings from Carousell.sg by category, search or listing URL: title, price, seller rating, condition, photos and likes.
🚗 Copart Search Scraper	Salvage and used vehicle auction lots from Copart: damage, odometer, current bid, sale date, yard, photos and VIN decoding.
🏁 Cheapest Cars & Bids Scraper	The cheapest vehicle listings from Cars & Bids, to find the best-value auction deals.
🏠 OnTheMarket Property Scraper	UK property listings for sale and rent: price, address, GPS, bedrooms, agent contacts, floorplans and EPC.
💼 Dice Jobs Scraper	Tech job listings from Dice: title, company, location, salary, skills, remote status and full description.

💬 Support & contact

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please open an issue or reach out via the Apify Community Forum.

You can also find more of our actors on the Actor Flow page.