US Federal Contract and Grant Awards: Search and Alerts

Search who won US federal money. Every row is one award from USAspending.gov, the Treasury's public spending database: the recipient organisation and its UEI, the dollar amount, award date and period, awarding agency, award type, NAICS or ALN program, place of performance and a link to the award page. Filter by keyword, ALN (CFDA) number, NAICS or PSC code, agency, state, date range and amount. Switch on watch mode and a scheduled run returns only awards that are new since the last run.

The data comes from the documented USAspending API (api.usaspending.gov), which is published for public use without a login or key under the DATA Act. It is US federal government information.

What you can do with it

• Daily or weekly list of new federal contracts in your NAICS code, as a lead list of companies that just won work.
• Grant writers: see who won past awards under an ALN number and how large they were.
• Track SBIR and STTR awards by agency, keyword or state.
• Competitor and teaming research: find recipients by agency, state and size.
• Feed a CRM, spreadsheet or AI agent with structured award data.

Input example

{
  "keywords": ["cybersecurity"],
  "naicsCodes": ["541512"],
  "agency": "Department of Defense",
  "startDate": "2026-09-01",
  "minAmount": 250000,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Daily watch of new SBIR awards:

{
  "watchMode": true,
  "storeName": "sbir-watch",
  "keywords": ["SBIR", "STTR"],
  "maxResults": 500
}

An empty input runs a small example (5 recent SBIR awards) so you can see the output.

Output example

{
  "mode": "search",
  "awardId": "80NSSC27C0017",
  "kind": "contracts",
  "recipientName": "CHI3 OPTICS LLC",
  "recipientUei": "TKGYDCDKBEM7",
  "amount": 1274897,
  "awardDate": "2026-10-30",
  "startDate": "2026-11-01",
  "endDate": "2028-10-31",
  "agency": "National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
  "awardType": "DEFINITIVE CONTRACT",
  "naics": {"code": "541715", "description": "RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES"},
  "placeCity": "BOULDER",
  "placeState": "CO",
  "url": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_80NSSC27C0017_8000_-NONE-_-NONE-"
}

Pricing

Pay per award row: $0.002 per award returned. Notice and error rows, and awards left out because the recipient is an individual, are free. Set a maximum charge on the run to cap spend.

Good to know

• Individuals are left out. USAspending masks individual recipients ("REDACTED DUE TO PII", "MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS") and gives them no recipient profile. The Actor drops those rows, plus recipients flagged as individuals or sole proprietors in USAspending business categories and recipients whose name reads like a person with no organisation word (LLC, INC, UNIVERSITY, COUNTY and so on). This is conservative, so a few small organisations with a two-word name may be left out. Dropped rows are never billed and are counted in the run status message.
• Awards, not transactions. Amount is the total obligated to the award so far. Modifications to old awards are not reported as new.
• Contracts and assistance differ. NAICS and PSC exist for contracts, ALN for grants and other assistance, so each filter applies only to its family. Loans and insurance awards are not covered.
• Data lag. Agencies report to USAspending on their own schedule, from days to months.
• Watch mode keeps the last-seen award IDs in a named key-value store. A run capped by maxResults re-checks the same window next time, so nothing is skipped.
• The Actor identifies itself with a contact address and paces its requests politely.

Removal requests

The data is US federal public-domain spending data from USAspending.gov, and the Actor is built to return organisations only. If a row names you as a person (for example a sole trader the filters missed), email datagleaner@gmail.com with the award ID. We answer within 30 days, record each request with its date and answer, and add the recipient to the Actor's exclusion filter in the next release. The Actor keeps no copy of the data; corrections at the source go to USAspending.gov.