SAM.gov Opportunities Scraper – US Federal Contracts & Bids

Scrape live US federal contracting opportunities from SAM.gov — presolicitations, solicitations, combined synopses, sources sought, special notices and award notices — with no API key, no login, no proxy and no browser. Filter by keyword, NAICS code, set-aside type, notice type, place-of-performance state and issuing organization, and optionally enrich every row with the contracting officer's contact details, NAICS codes, set-aside and place of performance.

What it does

• Calls the same backend that powers sam.gov's own public opportunity search page, so results match what you see on the site. SAM.gov's official developer API (api.sam.gov/opportunities/v2) requires a free registered API key — this Actor needs none. You do not have to register with GSA, wait for key approval, or rotate a key across a team.
• enrichDetail joins each row with the per-opportunity record, which is where the fields a bidder actually qualifies on live: naicsCodes, setAside, placeOfPerformanceState/placeOfPerformanceCountry, and pointOfContact (the contracting officer's name, email and phone, primary and secondary). None of these are on the search row. Off by default because it costs one extra HTTP call per row; turn it on when you are qualifying, not just listing.
• Multi-value filters really OR. naicsCodes: ["541511", "541512"] returns the union of both, not just the first. This is worth stating because SAM.gov's backend silently accepts a repeated query parameter and then honours only the first value — verified live: naics=541511 → 607 hits, naics=541512 → 312, repeated-key form → 607 (wrong, and no error), comma-joined form → exactly 919. This Actor sends the comma-joined form for every multi-value filter (naicsCodes, setAsideTypes, noticeTypes, states), so a two-code search does not quietly drop half your pipeline.
• noticeTypes uses SAM's own notice-type codes — p presolicitation, o solicitation, k combined synopsis/solicitation, r sources sought, a award notice, s special notice, g sale of surplus, i intent to bundle, u justification. Every row also comes back with both the raw noticeTypeCode and the human-readable noticeType.
• states filters on place of performance, not the issuing office. SAM's official API calls this state; on this backend that parameter name is silently ignored and returns zero rows, a trap this Actor sidesteps by sending pop_state.
• activeOnly (default on) restricts to opportunities still open for response. Turn it off for historical and award research.
• Pay per result: charged only for rows actually returned, with no Actor-start fee — a search that matches nothing costs nothing.
• watchLabel — only what's new since your last run. Name a saved search and every run after the first returns just the opportunities not already delivered under that label and filter combination. The first run for a label is a free baseline (0 results, 0 charged); it records what already matches in a key-value store on your own Apify account, keyed by the label plus a fingerprint of your other filters, so editing a filter starts a fresh baseline instead of dumping every previously-excluded opportunity as "new". Built for a daily/weekly scheduled run.
• watchChanges — also catch a deadline extension, a lifecycle transition, or an award landing. Add this to watchLabel and an opportunity you already have gets re-delivered (at the normal per-row price, tagged _watchChangeType/_watchPrevious) if its isActive flag, noticeTypeCode (a presolicitation turning into a solicitation, or a solicitation turning into an award), responseDate (deadline moved), modifiedDate, modificationsCount or awardeeName (an award landing) has changed since you last saw it — not just brand-new opportunities. Off by default so existing watches keep their current behaviour.

Use cases

• GovCon bid pipelines — pull every active solicitation in your NAICS codes and set-aside category (naicsCodes + setAsideTypes + noticeTypes: ["o", "k"]) into a CRM, already qualified by place of performance.
• Small-business / 8(a) / SDVOSB capture — filter to the set-asides you actually hold and stop reading opportunities you are not eligible for.
• Contracting-officer outreach on sources-sought notices — noticeTypes: ["r"] plus enrichDetail gives you the pre-RFP notices where a vendor can still shape the requirement, together with the officer's published contact details.
• Competitive award research — activeOnly: false with noticeTypes: ["a"] returns award notices including awardeeName and awardeeUeiSAM, so you can see who is winning in your NAICS.
• Agency- or state-specific monitoring — organizationId for one department/agency, or states for the geographies your team can actually staff.
• Daily cron alerts — watchLabel on a narrow keyword/NAICS search on a schedule returns only the handful of new notices, instead of refreshing sam.gov by hand or re-paying for the whole result set every run.
• Deadline-extension / lifecycle alerts — watchLabel + watchChanges flags a presolicitation turning into a solicitation, a deadline extension, or an award landing on a solicitation you're already tracking.

Example input

{
  "keyword": "solar",
  "naicsCodes": ["221122"],
  "maxResults": 15,
  "enrichDetail": true
}

Input

Field	Type	Description
keyword	string	Full-text search across the opportunity index (default contract)
naicsCodes	array	NAICS codes, e.g. ["541511", "541512"] — multiple codes are ORed
setAsideTypes	array	Set-aside codes, e.g. ["SBA"] — multiple values are ORed
noticeTypes	array	Notice-type codes p/o/k/r/a/s/g/i/u — multiple values are ORed
states	array	Two-letter place-of-performance state codes, e.g. ["TX", "CA"] — ORed
organizationId	string	Restrict to one issuing department/agency/office by SAM organization id
activeOnly	boolean	Only opportunities still open for response (default true)
enrichDetail	boolean	Join each row with NAICS / set-aside / place of performance / contacts (default false)
maxResults	integer	Cap on rows returned (default 200)
watchLabel	string	Optional. Name a saved search to get only opportunities new since your last run under that label — see FAQ
watchChanges	boolean	Optional, requires watchLabel. Also re-deliver an already-seen opportunity if isActive, noticeTypeCode, responseDate, modifiedDate, modificationsCount, awardeeName or description changed (default false) — see FAQ

Sample output row

{
  "opportunityId": "c8092b56b2c14be9bea3ac6081207963",
  "title": "This is a sources sought to identify contractors who possess the capabilities to provide CFE and associated EACs produced using domestically-manufactured solar panel systems.",
  "solicitationNumber": "47PA0723SS0001",
  "noticeTypeCode": "r",
  "noticeType": "Sources Sought",
  "isActive": true,
  "isCanceled": false,
  "publishDate": "2023-07-12T19:23:54+00:00",
  "modifiedDate": "2023-07-12T19:23:54+00:00",
  "responseDate": "2023-06-27T20:00:00+00:00",
  "responseDateActual": "2023-06-27T16:00:00-04:00",
  "responseTimeZone": "America/New_York",
  "department": "GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION",
  "agency": "PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE",
  "office": "PBS R00 CPF CLEAN ENERGY",
  "description": "<p><strong>THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT ANNOUNCEMENT ONLY - </strong>A solicitation is not available at this time...",
  "awardeeName": null,
  "awardeeUeiSAM": null,
  "modificationsCount": 0,
  "sourceUrl": "https://sam.gov/opp/c8092b56b2c14be9bea3ac6081207963/view",
  "naicsCodes": ["221122"],
  "setAside": null,
  "placeOfPerformanceState": null,
  "placeOfPerformanceCountry": "USA",
  "pointOfContact": [
    { "name": "Bonnie Bueter", "email": "bonnie.bueter@gsa.gov", "phone": "202-227-1635", "type": "primary" }
  ]
}

FAQ

Do I need a SAM.gov API key? No. The official api.sam.gov developer API does require a free registered key, but this Actor uses the unauthenticated backend behind sam.gov's own public search page instead. Nothing to register, nothing to rotate.

Is there a posted-date range filter? Not on this backend — it exposes no postedFrom/postedTo equivalent. Use activeOnly to separate open from closed opportunities, and filter on the publishDate / modifiedDate fields on each row afterwards. (responseDate is the deadline.)

Is description the full notice text? No — the search row carries a truncated description (roughly 250 characters, with the original HTML markup preserved). No full-text field was found on either the search or the detail record, so for the complete statement of work follow sourceUrl to the notice page on sam.gov, where the attachments also live.

How deep can a search go? The backend caps paging at 10,000 rows per query, so a very broad keyword will stop there. Narrow with naicsCodes, noticeTypes or states rather than trying to page past it.

Is pointOfContact personal data? These are government contracting officers' official work contact details, published by the agency itself as a required part of the statutory public notice — the same disclosure class as the contacts on our NIH RePORTER and EU TED Actors. They are returned as SAM.gov publishes them; they are not aggregated across sources, cross-referenced with any other dataset, or resold as a people-lookup product.

How does the price compare? $0.0015 per returned row with no Actor-start fee. The comparable paid SAM.gov Actors on the Store charge $0.003–$0.008 per row, and several add a $0.01 per-run start fee on top.

How does watchLabel know what's already new, and where is that baseline stored? In a key-value store on your own Apify account, keyed by the label plus a fingerprint of keyword/naicsCodes/setAsideTypes/noticeTypes/states/organizationId/activeOnly. The first run for a label just records every currently-matching opportunity id and returns zero rows (you pay nothing); every run after that returns only ids not already in that record. Changing any of those filters starts a fresh baseline under the same label instead of comparing against the old filter's results.

Does watchChanges cost extra? No extra fee — a changed opportunity is billed at the same $0.0015/row as a new one, so you only pay when there's actually something to see. Plain watchLabel never re-delivers an opportunity it has already sent you, even if the agency later extends the deadline or the notice moves from presolicitation to solicitation to award. Set watchChanges: true and each run also compares every already-delivered opportunity's isActive/noticeTypeCode/responseDate/modifiedDate/modificationsCount/awardeeName (plus an internal fingerprint of description) against what it looked like last time; if anything moved, the row is re-delivered tagged with _watchChangeType (which field(s) changed) and _watchPrevious (their prior values — description's previous value is a fixed note, since only a fingerprint of that text is stored, never the full text). Verified live: seeding a baseline, editing a delivered opportunity's recorded isActive flag and responseDate directly in the stored snapshot, then rerunning returned exactly those 2 rows with the correct change tags and nothing else — and a plain unchanged rerun after that returned 0 rows again.

Related guides

• https://fetchsmith.com/blog/usaspending-federal-awards-json-api
• https://fetchsmith.com/blog/grants-gov-federal-grant-opportunities-json-api
• https://fetchsmith.com/tools

Source code

https://github.com/Fetchsmith/fetchsmith/tree/main/actors/sam-gov-opportunities-scraper

More tools: fetchsmith.com/tools — 22 HTTP-only Actors for public data sources, no browser required.