SAM.gov Contract Opportunities, No API Key Needed

SAM.gov Contract Opportunities: Search by Keyword, NAICS, Set-Aside, State

Search US federal contract opportunities from SAM.gov by keyword, NAICS, set-aside, notice type, state, agency and date, and get flat rows you can export to JSON, CSV or Excel. No API key is needed to start. You pay Apify for the results returned.

Two data sources

	Keyless (default with no key)	Live API (you enter your own key)
Source	SAM.gov's public Contract Opportunities data extract (a CSV that SAM.gov rebuilds about once a day)	Official Get Opportunities Public API
Freshness	Up to about a day old. The run report shows the file's last-modified time.	Live
Notices	Active notices only (about 70,000 at the time of writing)	Latest active version of each notice
Key / quota	None	Your own free key; requests count against your own daily quota
Extra	Full notice text with includeDescription at no extra cost	awardeeUei, resourceLinks, full agency code path

Choose with source: auto (default) uses the live API when you enter a key and the daily file otherwise; api and bulk force one. If the daily file cannot be downloaded and you gave no key, the run returns one setup-required row and charges no results.

Field differences in keyless mode: same field names as the live API. resourceLinks is empty and awardeeUei is null (not in the file). agency is the department, sub-tier and office names joined by dots; agencyCode holds the CGAC code only. postedDate is the date part. Contact details are the primary and secondary contacts the file lists.

Who is this for?

• Small contractors and bid teams who want a daily table of new solicitations matching their NAICS codes.
• Set-aside hunters (small business, 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, WOSB) who filter by set-aside type and state.
• Capture managers and analysts tracking an agency, sources-sought notices, presolicitations or awards.
• Developers who want the SAM.gov Opportunities API behind a simple form, schedule and dataset instead of writing a client that handles paging, the 1-year date limit and retries.

What you get

One row per notice: noticeId, title, solicitationNumber, agency (full path), postedDate, responseDeadline, type, baseType, setAside, setAsideCode, naicsCode, classificationCode, placeOfPerformance (plus city, state, country, zip), pointOfContactName, pointOfContactEmail, pointOfContactPhone (and a pointOfContacts list), uiLink, samUrl, resourceLinks, award fields when present (awardNumber, awardAmount, awardDate, awardeeName, awardeeUei), optional description text, and fetchedAt.

The contact names and emails are exactly what the government published on the notice for bidders to use. samUrl is built from the notice ID; uiLink is the link the API returns (SAM.gov may ask you to sign in to open it).

Every run also saves a RUN_REPORT (key-value store) with the API calls used, the date windows, retries, and whether the run stopped at your call limit.

Optional: live API key (free)

Only needed for the live API source.

1. Create or sign in to your account at SAM.gov (sign-in is through Login.gov).
2. Open Account Details.
3. Request a Public API Key, then enter your account password to view it. The key is shown only while you stay on that page, so copy it right away.
4. Paste it into the apiKey field (stored as a secret). SAM.gov asks you to renew keys about every 90 days.

Your quota

SAM.gov sets a daily request limit per key by account type, and publishes it on open.gsa.gov. Accounts without a SAM.gov role get a small limit (documented as 10 requests per day at the time of writing); accounts with a role get far more. One request returns up to 1,000 notices, so small runs are cheap. The Actor has a Max API calls setting (default 10) so it never spends more of your quota than you intend, and it ends cleanly when it reaches it. If SAM.gov reports your quota is used up, the run stops with a clear message and keeps what it already fetched.

Quick test

{ "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "keywords": ["cybersecurity"], "maxResults": 10 }

That uses one API request.

How to use it

1. Paste your SAM.gov API key, set keywords, NAICS codes or dates, and click Start.
2. Open the Overview table or download the dataset.

With no key, the run streams the daily file, applies your filters and stops reading as soon as maxResults is reached. Apify's start event is charged by the platform; result events are charged only for rows returned.

Example inputs

Note on filters: SAM.gov's own state filter is loose, so this Actor also checks each notice and keeps only those whose place-of-performance state equals your state (notices with a different or missing state are dropped and not charged; the count is in RUN_REPORT as filteredOutByState). In keyless mode agency is a case-insensitive substring match on the department, sub-tier and office names (for example ARMY finds DEPT OF THE ARMY; covered by tests). In API mode it is passed to SAM.gov's organizationName search, whose matching rules are not documented in detail (an earlier live check of state plus agency=ARMY returned nothing), so try a small run or use the keyless source. NAICS code and set-aside filters were confirmed to match exactly.

Small-business IT solicitations in Virginia, last 30 days (default window):

{ "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "naicsCodes": ["541512", "541519"], "setAside": "SBA", "noticeTypes": ["o", "k"], "state": "VA", "maxResults": 200 }

Sources-sought notices from the Army, one quarter:

{ "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "agency": "ARMY", "noticeTypes": ["r"], "postedFrom": "2026-07-01", "postedTo": "2026-09-30", "maxResults": 500 }

Contract awards for a keyword over two years (split automatically into windows of at most one year):

{ "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "keywords": ["janitorial"], "noticeTypes": ["a"], "postedFrom": "2024-11-01", "postedTo": "2026-10-31", "maxResults": 2000, "maxApiCalls": 50 }

Use it from code (JavaScript and Python)

JavaScript (npm install apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('datawharf-tools/sam-gov-opportunities').call({ naicsCodes: ["541512"], setAside: "SBA", noticeTypes: ["o", "k"], maxResults: 50 });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.length, 'rows');

Python (pip install "apify-client>=3"):

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("datawharf-tools/sam-gov-opportunities").call(run_input={"naicsCodes": ["541512"], "setAside": "SBA", "noticeTypes": ["o", "k"], "maxResults": 50})
items = list(client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items())
print(len(items), "rows")

More examples: https://github.com/datawharf-tools/examples

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.0004 per notice, about $0.40 per 1,000 notices, plus a tiny per-run start fee. A keyless run downloads about 220 MB and takes a few seconds (stops sooner when maxResults is reached). Set the maximum charge per run to cap spend. An invalid key or invalid input stops the run before any item is returned or charged.

Limits and behaviour

• The API only accepts a posted-date range of up to one year per request. Longer ranges are split into windows automatically (newest first); each window costs at least one request.
• The API searches titles for keywords (not the full text). Each keyword, NAICS code and notice type you list is a separate request; duplicates are removed by notice ID.
• Set-aside accepts one value per run.
• Keyless mode matches keywords as case-insensitive text inside the title (any keyword), NAICS by prefix, and only sees active notices; use the API for archived or older notices.
• The API returns only the latest active version of a notice. For full version history use SAM.gov Data Services.
• includeDescription costs one extra request per notice against your quota, so it is off by default.
• Failed requests are retried with backoff (HTTP 429 without a quota message and 5xx). Quota-used-up and invalid-key errors stop the run immediately.
• If a run stops part-way, the status message starts with "PARTIAL RESULT" and the rows already saved (and charged) are kept.

FAQ

How do I find small-business set-aside contracts by NAICS code? Set naicsCodes (for example 541512), setAside (for example SBA) and noticeTypes (o solicitations, k combined synopsis/solicitation, r sources sought). No key is needed in keyless mode.

Can I get new SAM.gov opportunities by email or in a spreadsheet every day? Yes. Save the input as a Task, add a daily Schedule, and use the email, Slack or Google Sheets integration.

Do I need a key? No. Without one the Actor uses SAM.gov's public daily file. A key is optional and gives live data. Quota and terms of a key belong to its owner, so the Actor never provides, shares or pools keys.

Is this scraping? No web pages are scraped. The Actor reads SAM.gov's published public data extract (listed on data.gov as public) or the documented Get Opportunities Public API.

Does it use the restricted or sensitive versions of the API? No. It uses the public API only.

Can I schedule it? Yes. Use Apify schedules, the Apify API and webhooks; the key is a secret input.

Your key, your terms, your data

• Your own key only. Each user must use their OWN SAM.gov API key. We never provide or share keys, and you must not share yours with anyone outside your organization, as the SAM.gov Terms of Use require.
• You are responsible for following the SAM.gov Terms of Use and the API documentation on open.gsa.gov.
• The Actor keeps no data of its own. Results live in your own run dataset and the RUN_REPORT record in your Apify account, under your account's retention settings. The key is a secret input and is never written to the dataset, the key-value store or the logs; error messages have it removed.
• This Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) or SAM.gov. "SAM.gov" is a service of the U.S. government and is named here only to describe the data source.

Sources: SAM.gov Data Services public Contract Opportunities extract (https://sam.gov/data-services/Contract%20Opportunities?privacy=Public, listed at https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/contract-opportunities-from-sam-gov) and SAM.gov Get Opportunities Public API (https://open.gsa.gov/api/get-opportunities-public-api/). Data is published by the US government; no license is stated on the extract, so check the SAM.gov terms for your use.

Related Actors

• EU TED Tenders for the same kind of table on the EU side.
• SEC EDGAR Filings & XBRL Data for company filings and financials.

Privacy policy

Publisher: datawharf-tools. Contact: datawharf@gmail.com. Last updated 2026-11-07.

• What we process. (1) If you use the API source, your own SAM.gov API key: Apify stores it encrypted as a secret input; the Actor uses it in memory for that run only, sends it only to api.sam.gov, and never logs, stores or copies it anywhere else. (2) Public opportunity notices that the API returns, including the contact names, emails and phone numbers the government publishes on them. They go straight into your own run's dataset.
• What we keep. Nothing. We keep no copy of your key, your inputs or the data returned, and the Actor has no analytics, tracking or third-party sharing.
• Where your data lives. Your run datasets, key-value records and logs live in your own Apify account under Apify's retention rules and Apify's privacy policy. You control and can delete them at any time. If you use published contact details for outreach, you are responsible for complying with the laws that apply to you (for example CAN-SPAM).
• Questions or deletion requests. Write to datawharf@gmail.com.