USAspending Federal Awards & Contracts

USAspending awards scraper returns public federal prime award records with recipients, amounts, agencies, dates, and source links. USAspending API search exports matching contracts, grants, loans, direct payments, other awards, or IDVs as structured dataset rows.

What it does

Filter the official USAspending award search by category, dates, agency, recipient, or classification. Select the date basis with dateType; the default uses action dates. Error rows have status and error details. This actor returns prime awards, not subawards or solicitations.

Input example

{
  "awardType": "contracts",
  "keyword": "software",
  "maxItems": 10
}

The example uses fields defined in the actor input schema. Other filters can be set in the Apify input form.

Output fields

Examples below come from the first record in sample_output.json; long strings and arrays are shown as excerpts. Other modes and error rows can have different fields.

Field	Type in sample	Example value
record_type	string	"award"
status	string	"ok"
error	null	null
award_id	string	"VA11817F1888"
generated_internal_id	string	"CONT_AWD_VA11817F1888_3600_GS35F0884P_4730"
internal_id	number	347651074
award_group	string	"contracts"
award_type	string	"DELIVERY ORDER"
recipient	string	"DELL FEDERAL SYSTEMS L.P"
recipient_uei	string	"N1C5QLNPJLS4"
recipient_duns	null	null
award_amount	number	1730532626.58
total_outlays	number	196186.26
loan_value	null	null
subsidy_cost	null	null
description	string	"THE PURPOSE OF THIS ACQUISITION IS TO PROVIDE THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS …
awarding_agency	string	"Department of Veterans Affairs"
awarding_sub_agency	string	"Department of Veterans Affairs"
funding_agency	string	"Department of Veterans Affairs"
funding_sub_agency	string	"Department of Veterans Affairs"
start_date	string	"2017-04-01"
end_date	string	"2022-03-31"
last_date_to_order	null	null
last_modified_date	string	"2024-05-07 14:12:54"
naics_code	string	"541519"
naics_description	string	"OTHER COMPUTER RELATED SERVICES"
psc_code	string	"D319"
psc_description	string	"IT AND TELECOM- ANNUAL SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE SERVICE PLANS"
assistance_listings	array	[]
recipient_location	object	{"location_country_code": "USA", "country_name": "UNITED STATES", "state_code": "T…
place_of_performance	object	{"location_country_code": "USA", "country_name": "UNITED STATES", "state_code": "T…
source_url	string	"https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_VA11817F1888_3600_GS35F0884P_4730"
fetched_at	string	"2026-10-05T12:22:51.961Z"

Output example

A trimmed record copied from sample_output.json:

{
  "record_type": "award",
  "status": "ok",
  "award_id": "VA11817F1888",
  "generated_internal_id": "CONT_AWD_VA11817F1888_3600_GS35F0884P_4730",
  "award_group": "contracts",
  "award_type": "DELIVERY ORDER",
  "recipient": "DELL FEDERAL SYSTEMS L.P",
  "award_amount": 1730532626.58,
  "total_outlays": 196186.26,
  "awarding_agency": "Department of Veterans Affairs",
  "start_date": "2017-04-01",
  "last_modified_date": "2024-05-07 14:12:54",
  "naics_code": "541519",
  "source_url": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_VA11817F1888_3600_GS35F0884P_4730",
  "fetched_at": "2026-10-05T12:22:51.961Z"
}

FAQ

What limits the search? maxItems caps all saved rows, including errors. The source search window is 10,000 results; narrow filters for larger searches.

Do I need an API key, proxy, or login? The public USAspending endpoint used here requires none of those.

What is the pricing model? The proposed award event costs $0.0015 per unique usable award saved. Error rows and within-run duplicates have no custom event. The owner must configure monetization in Apify before publication.

How does the actor handle rate limits? Network failures and HTTP 429/500/502/503/504 receive up to four attempts with bounded backoff and Retry-After handling. A failed page produces an error row.

How current are awards and amounts? The actor retrieves published records when run, but USAspending reporting can lag or be corrected. Use last_modified_date and fetched_at when comparing results; loan_value is not an obligation.

Use with AI agents / MCP

After this actor is available to your account, configure it as an actor tool in the Apify MCP server, or start a run through the Apify API with the same input JSON. Give the agent the actor identifier and access through your Apify credentials. Read the completed run’s default dataset through the returned run or dataset reference, check error fields before using records, and keep source URLs with quoted data. Limit the input to the task the agent is answering.

Source and reuse notes

A source field can be null when it is unavailable or inapplicable. An IDV value need not equal the sum of child contracts. Within-run deduplication does not make repeated runs incremental.