USASpending Scraper — Government Contracts, Grants & Awards

Extract federal government contracts, grants, and award data from USASpending.gov. Search by keyword, agency, recipient, date range, and minimum dollar amount. Returns structured award data including recipients, agencies, dollar amounts, descriptions, and performance dates.

Disclaimer: This actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury or the USASpending.gov platform.

What data can you extract from USASpending?

This government contracts scraper wraps the free USASpending API to extract federal spending data across all U.S. government agencies:

• Government contracts — procurement awards (Types A-D) issued by federal agencies to private contractors
• Federal grants — financial assistance awards (Types 02-05) given to organizations, state/local governments, and individuals
• All federal awards — combined view of contracts and grants for comprehensive spending analysis

Each award record includes: Award ID, Recipient Name, Award Amount, Funding Agency, Award Description, Start Date, End Date, and a direct link to the award on USASpending.gov.

How to search federal spending data

By award type: Choose contracts, grants, or all awards to narrow your search to specific spending categories.

By keyword: Search across award descriptions and NAICS codes. Example: cybersecurity, construction, IT services, medical research.

By recipient: Filter by contractor or grantee name. Supports partial matches. Example: Lockheed Martin, Deloitte, Johns Hopkins.

By agency: Filter by funding agency. Example: Department of Defense, NASA, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy.

By date range: Set start and end dates to focus on specific fiscal periods or recent awards.

By amount: Set a minimum dollar threshold to filter out smaller awards and focus on major contracts.

Output example

Each award in the output dataset contains:

{
    "awardId": "CONT_AWD_0001_9700_SPE4A620F0123_4730",
    "recipientName": "LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION",
    "awardAmount": 15000000.00,
    "fundingAgency": "Department of Defense",
    "awardingAgency": "Department of Defense",
    "awardingSubAgency": "Defense Logistics Agency",
    "description": "Aircraft engine maintenance and repair services",
    "awardType": "Definitive Contract",
    "startDate": "2025-01-15",
    "endDate": "2026-01-14",
    "contractAwardType": "Definitive Contract",
    "internalId": "CONT_AWD_0001_9700_SPE4A620F0123_4730",
    "usaspendingUrl": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_0001_9700_SPE4A620F0123_4730"
}

How much does it cost to scrape USASpending?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay per award result returned.

• $0.00005 per actor start (Apify default)
• Per-result charge based on the number of awards extracted
• No proxy costs — USASpending is a free government API, no proxy needed

A typical keyword search returns 100 results at minimal cost. Broad searches across all agencies can return thousands of results.

Tip: Set the maxResults parameter to control costs. Start with 100 results and increase as needed.

Who uses government contracts data?

• Government contractors — identify new opportunities and track competitor awards
• Business development teams — find agencies spending in their industry vertical
• Journalists and watchdog organizations — investigate federal spending patterns and large awards
• Policy researchers — analyze government spending trends across agencies and categories
• Grant seekers — discover grant award patterns and funding agency priorities
• Compliance officers — monitor subcontractor and vendor award histories
• Data analysts — build dashboards tracking federal procurement and grant spending

Tips for best results

• Start with contracts mode for procurement data or grants mode for financial assistance.
• Use specific keywords like NAICS descriptions or product categories for targeted results.
• Combine filters — use agency + keywords + date range together for precise results.
• Set a minimum amount to focus on significant awards and skip micro-purchases.
• Date ranges help narrow results — the USASpending database contains millions of records.

USASpending API details

This actor calls the USASpending API at https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2. No authentication is required. The actor self-throttles to 0.3 seconds between requests to be respectful of the free government API. Automatic retry with exponential backoff handles any transient errors.

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	string	Award type: contracts, grants, or all_awards
keywords	string	Search terms for award descriptions
recipientName	string	Filter by contractor/grantee name
agency	string	Filter by funding agency name
dateFrom	string	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateTo	string	End date (YYYY-MM-DD)
minAmount	number	Minimum award dollar amount
maxResults	integer	Maximum awards to return (1-10000, default 100)

Integrations

Export your data as JSON, CSV, or Excel. Schedule runs to monitor new contract awards automatically. Use webhooks to trigger downstream workflows when new awards are detected.

This actor works as an MCP server — AI agents can discover and use it to access federal spending data programmatically.