Grants.gov Funding Opportunities Scraper

Pulls US federal funding opportunities from Grants.gov, the single government-wide portal for federal grant announcements, through its official public search2 and fetchOpportunity APIs. No API key, no account, no browser automation. You get one flat JSON record per opportunity with the agency and its department, the Assistance Listing Number (ALN/CFDA) and programme title, open and close dates, the award ceiling, floor and estimated total funding, the expected number of awards, the cost-sharing flag, eligible applicant types, funding categories and instruments, the plain-text synopsis and the agency contact's name, email and phone - filtered by status, open-date window, keyword, agency, funding category, applicant eligibility, funding instrument and ALN prefix. On 8 September 2026 the API held 83,368 opportunities (1,024 posted, 561 forecasted, 8,701 closed, 73,082 archived) and about 295 new opportunities per 30 days across all four statuses.

What you get

Every record contains:

Field	Description
id	Grants.gov opportunity id, for example 363816
source	grants.gov, constant
url	https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/{id} - the public opportunity page
opportunityNumber	The agency's own funding-opportunity number, e.g. USDA-NIFA-ICGP-012261
title	Opportunity title, with the agency's HTML character references decoded - –, ’, &,   and the rest come out as the real characters (see Limits and freshness)
agencyCode	Grants.gov agency code, e.g. USDA-NIFA, HHS-NIH11, NSF
agencyName	Sub-agency name, e.g. National Institute of Food and Agriculture
departmentCode / departmentName	Parent department, e.g. USDA / Department of Agriculture (detail only)
status	posted, forecasted, closed or archived
docType	synopsis (a real posting) or forecast (announced in advance)
opportunityCategory	Discretionary, Mandatory, Continuation, Earmark, ... (detail only)
openDate	Date applications open, YYYY-MM-DD. For a forecast, the estimated posting date
closeDate	Application due date, YYYY-MM-DD, or null when the agency published none
archiveDate	Date the opportunity leaves the active list (detail only; always null for forecasts)
lastUpdatedDate	Date the agency last revised the synopsis or forecast (detail only)
alns	Assistance Listing Numbers (the former CFDA numbers), e.g. ["10.443"]
alnTitles	The matching programme titles (detail only)
fundingCategories	Funding-activity categories, e.g. ["Agriculture"] (detail only)
fundingInstruments	Grant, Cooperative Agreement, Procurement Contract, Other (detail only)
eligibleApplicants	Applicant types the agency will accept, in full text (detail only)
awardCeiling / awardFloor	Largest and smallest single award, in USD (detail only)
estimatedTotalFunding	Total programme funding, in USD (detail only)
expectedNumberOfAwards	How many awards the agency expects to make (detail only)
costSharingRequired	true, false, or null when unstated (detail only)
description	The synopsis or forecast text, HTML stripped, trimmed to 2,000 characters (detail only)
contactName / contactEmail / contactPhone	The agency contact published on the notice (detail only). Where the agency leaves the email field empty and writes the mailbox into the free-text contact description instead - 30 of 400 records sampled, State Department notices in particular - the address is taken from that text, and a value published as Email: x@agency.gov is reduced to the address itself
fetchedAt	ISO timestamp of the run that produced the record

Fields marked detail only come from the second API call and are null (or []) when includeDetails is false. The dataset has three views: Overview (dates, agency, ALN, award sizes, link), Agency contacts (name, email, phone) and Eligibility and terms (applicant types, instruments, cost sharing, archive date).

Input

Input	Type	Default	Description
statuses	string[]	["posted"]	Any of posted (open now), forecasted (announced in advance), closed (due date passed), archived (historical back-catalogue).
daysBack	integer	30	Look-back window in days on openDate, ending today. Ignored when dateFrom/dateTo are set. Max 9,000, which reaches the start of the archive (22 March 2004).
dateFrom	string	-	Start of the open-date window, YYYY-MM-DD, inclusive.
dateTo	string	today	End of the open-date window, YYYY-MM-DD, inclusive.
keywords	string[]	none	Passed to the Grants.gov full-text search (title, opportunity number, agency, description). Terms are ORed; a term with spaces is searched as an exact phrase.
agencies	string[]	all	Grants.gov agency codes. A department code keeps every sub-agency under it: HHS matches HHS-NIH11 and HHS-HRSA.
fundingCategories	string[]	all	Funding-activity codes: HL health, ED education, ENV environment, ST science and R&D, AG agriculture, EN energy, and 22 more (see the input form).
eligibilities	string[]	all	Applicant-type codes: 23 small businesses, 12 501(c)(3) nonprofits, 06 public higher education, 00 state governments, and 13 more.
fundingInstruments	string[]	all	G grant, CA cooperative agreement, PC procurement contract, O other.
alnPrefixes	string[]	all	ALN (CFDA) numbers or prefixes. 93 = Health and Human Services, 47 = NSF, 84 = Education, 10 = Agriculture; 93.310 picks one programme.
includeDetails	boolean	true	Call fetchOpportunity once per kept opportunity for the synopsis, money, eligibility and contact fields.
maxItems	integer	200	Stop after this many opportunities. You are charged per opportunity, so this is also the cost cap. Newest open date first, so a value below the window's volume drops the oldest opportunities in the window.

Example - open NIH and other HHS health grants from the last 90 days that a small business can apply for:

{
  "statuses": ["posted"],
  "daysBack": 90,
  "agencies": ["HHS"],
  "eligibilities": ["23"],
  "alnPrefixes": ["93"],
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example - a daily watch on everything new, including forecasts, run on a schedule:

{ "statuses": ["posted", "forecasted"], "daysBack": 3, "maxItems": 100 }

Example - the fast bulk mode: every opportunity opened in the last year, headline fields only:

{ "statuses": ["posted", "forecasted", "closed", "archived"], "daysBack": 365, "includeDetails": false, "maxItems": 5000 }

Bad input fails fast: an unknown status, agency code, category, eligibility code, funding instrument, ALN prefix or malformed date stops the run with the validation message as its status, before any request is made.

Output example

A real record from a live run on 8 September 2026 ({"daysBack": 14, "maxItems": 6, "includeDetails": true}), unedited:

{
  "id": "363816",
  "source": "grants.gov",
  "url": "https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/363816",
  "opportunityNumber": "USDA-NIFA-ICGP-012261",
  "title": "Outreach and Assistance for Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program",
  "agencyCode": "USDA-NIFA",
  "agencyName": "National Institute of Food and Agriculture",
  "departmentCode": "USDA",
  "departmentName": "Department of Agriculture",
  "status": "posted",
  "docType": "synopsis",
  "opportunityCategory": "Discretionary",
  "openDate": "2026-09-04",
  "closeDate": "2026-09-10",
  "archiveDate": "2026-10-10",
  "lastUpdatedDate": "2026-09-04",
  "alns": ["10.443"],
  "alnTitles": ["Outreach and Assistance for Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program"],
  "fundingCategories": ["Agriculture"],
  "fundingInstruments": ["Grant"],
  "eligibleApplicants": ["Others (see text field entitled \"Additional Information on Eligibility\" for clarification)"],
  "awardCeiling": 1500000,
  "awardFloor": 250000,
  "estimatedTotalFunding": 23800000,
  "expectedNumberOfAwards": 36,
  "costSharingRequired": false,
  "description": "The purpose of the OAVFR program, under assistance listing number 10.443, is to assist Veterans in owning and operating farms and ranches and to ensure they are knowledgeable and participating in full range of USDA programs. With OAVFR funding, recipient organizations can provide outreach, technical assistance, and education in agriculture, agribusiness, forestry, and agricultural-related services. The program encourages technical assistance with accessing USDA programs, which includes working with local USDA Service Centers (Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Rural Development).",
  "contactName": "Joseph Perez Lead Policy Analyst",
  "contactEmail": "grantapplicationquestions@usda.gov",
  "contactPhone": "202-445-5402",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-09-08T02:19:09.244Z"
}

A forecast from the same API looks the same but carries "status": "forecasted", "docType": "forecast", "archiveDate": null, an openDate that is the estimated posting date and a closeDate that is the estimated application due date - for example opportunity 363800, RFA-RM-28-004, "NIH Director's Early Independence Award (DP5 Clinical Trial Optional)", openDate 2026-09-03, closeDate 2027-09-10, awardCeiling 350000, estimatedTotalFunding 5700000.

Every run also writes a SUMMARY record to the key-value store with the resolved date window, the filters used, how many hits each filter dropped, the number of pages read, any failed detail calls, and the two completeness flags limitReached and windowExhausted (see Limits and freshness).

Pricing

Pay per result: US$0.003 per opportunity delivered (US$3 per 1,000 opportunities). You are charged only for records pushed to the dataset; a run that returns nothing costs nothing. Runs on the Apify free plan are limited by the platform's free-tier usage allowance.

Data source and licence

• Search: POST https://api.grants.gov/v1/api/search2. Details: POST https://api.grants.gov/v1/api/fetchOpportunity. Both are public and, in the words of the Grants.gov API guide, "Authentication and authorization are not required" for them. Documentation: https://www.grants.gov/api/api-guide (read 8 September 2026).
• Licence. A funding notice on Grants.gov is written by federal agency staff as part of their official duties, which makes it a US Government work: not subject to domestic copyright under 17 U.S.C. § 105, and free to reuse commercially. The Grants.gov entry in the federal data.gov catalogue (https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/grants-gov, identifier US-GOV-SSA-386, registered by the Social Security Administration) lists its licence as the bare URL https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright - the standard U.S. Government Work terms. That catalogue entry is a metadata registration only: it publishes no distribution of its own and carries the DCAT flag Access Level: non-public, which says the catalogue offers no download, not that the API is restricted - the Grants.gov API guide above is explicit that these two endpoints need no authentication. Both pages read 8 September 2026.
• The two restrictions https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright does state: you may not use government material in a way that implies endorsement by a government agency, official or employee, and you may not use federal government trademarks or agency logos without permission. Attribute as "Source: Grants.gov" and link to the opportunity page.
• Personal data. contactName, contactEmail and contactPhone are the programme contact each agency publishes on its own funding notice - a named federal employee's work contact details, or a shared programme mailbox such as grantapplicationquestions@usda.gov. The agency publishes them so applicants can ask questions about that opportunity. Using them for anything else, marketing in particular, is the buyer's responsibility under the applicable regime (CAN-SPAM in the US, GDPR/PECR if you are contacting from or into the EU/UK). Some agencies also paste names into description.

Limits and freshness

• Volumes, measured 8 September 2026 by running this Actor over each window (includeDetails: false): opportunities with an open date in the last 30 days - 183 posted, 62 forecasted, 44 closed, 6 archived, 295 in total; last 7 days - 51 posted; last 90 days - 332 posted; last 365 days - 527 posted and 2,525 across all four statuses. Roughly 10 new opportunities a calendar day, concentrated on business days. The whole archive on that date was 83,368 records (1,024 posted, 561 forecasted, 8,701 closed, 73,082 archived) going back to an open date of 22 March 2004, so {"statuses": ["posted", "forecasted", "closed", "archived"], "dateFrom": "2004-01-01", "includeDetails": false, "maxItems": 100000} is a complete historical download.
• Size maxItems to the window, and check windowExhausted. maxItems counts records kept after filtering and the stream is newest-first, so a value below the window's volume drops the oldest opportunities in it - but never silently. The run stops the moment the cap is filled and warns maxItems (N) reached before the window was exhausted, and the SUMMARY record carries limitReached: true with windowExhausted: false. windowExhausted: true is the guarantee that you hold the complete window: it is set only when the Actor read past the start of the window (or reached the end of the API's results) with no in-window opportunity left unread and every record it kept delivered. The default 200 covers a 30-day posted-only window with room to spare; a full year of all statuses needs about 2,600.
• Speed, measured 8 September 2026. With includeDetails: true the Actor delivered 100 opportunities in 22.5 s (about 4.4 a second, capped by its own detail-request throttle). With includeDetails: false it delivered 500 in 3.4 s. A full-year, all-status, no-detail run of 2,525 records takes well under a minute; at the same measured rates the run with details would take about ten minutes.
• Rate limits. Grants.gov documents none for these two endpoints, and 15 consecutive fetchOpportunity calls with no pacing all returned HTTP 200 (measured 8 September 2026). The Actor still caps detail calls at 5 per second and retries 429 and 5xx responses with exponential back-off, honouring Retry-After.
• Paging. Search results come 500 rows per request, sorted by open date descending; paging stops as soon as a page runs past the start of your window, the API runs out of results, or maxItems is filled - so a capped run never fetches a page, or a detail record, that it cannot deliver. The API itself returned 5,000 rows in one response in testing, so 500 is a deliberately conservative page size, not a ceiling.
• The dateRange API parameter is deliberately not used. Sending it makes the API ignore oppStatuses: on 8 September 2026, {"oppStatuses": "closed", "dateRange": "30"} returned posted opportunities. This Actor therefore filters the open-date window itself, on the openDate the API returns for every hit. In 11,585 hits sampled across all four statuses, every single one had an open date.
• agencies and alnPrefixes are matched locally, on the agencyCode and ALN the search returns, because the API's own agencies parameter needs an exact leaf code (USDOJ returns nothing, USDOJ-OJP-BJA returns 20) and its cfda parameter takes one full ALN and no prefixes. Local matching is what lets HHS and 93 behave as you would expect. keywords, fundingCategories, eligibilities and fundingInstruments are applied by the API itself.
• Text arrives decoded, not raw. Agencies type their notices into an HTML editor and the character references leak out of the synopsis into the plain fields: on 8 September 2026, 786 of the 11,585 titles the API returns across the four statuses carried at least one, and 10 of the 183 records in this Actor's default 30-day posted run did (– is the commonest, then ’, &,   and —, plus Latin-1 names such as ô and ü and numeric ones such as Ō). Both endpoints send the identical encoded string, so includeDetails is not a repair path. Every text field this Actor publishes is decoded - named, numeric and hexadecimal references, and twice over where the agency itself encoded twice (Children’s Advocacy Centers becomes Children’s Advocacy Centers).   becomes a real space so neighbouring words do not run together, zero-width marks and soft hyphens are dropped so exact matching on a title works, and a reference the table does not know is left exactly as published rather than mangled. description additionally has its HTML tags stripped, keeping the paragraph breaks.
• Missing values are the agency's, not the Actor's. 84 of the 1,024 posted opportunities published no closeDate, and all 561 forecasts leave it to the detail record's estimated response date; 1 posted and 11 of 5,000 archived opportunities carry no ALN; estimatedTotalFunding, awardCeiling and awardFloor are frequently absent. These stay null rather than being guessed. contactEmail is the one field the Actor will read out of free text: of 400 detail records sampled on 8 September 2026, 30 left agencyContactEmail empty and put the mailbox in the contact description instead, and 2 filled it with something that is not an address at all (an opportunity number), which the Actor returns as null rather than as a fake contact. With that handling, 149 of the 150 records in a live 30-day posted-and-forecast run carried a well-formed contact email and none carried a malformed one.
• Freshness. Agencies post on business days. Measured 8 September 2026: the newest posted opportunity in the API had an open date of 2026-09-07, and 51 opportunities had opened in the previous 7 days. Publication lag was not separately measured, so run an overlapping window (daysBack: 3 daily) rather than a window that exactly abuts the previous run. Dates are calendar dates as Grants.gov publishes them (US Eastern), with no time component. An opportunity is revised in place, so re-run with an overlapping window and use lastUpdatedDate to spot changes.

Use cases

• Grant pipeline for a nonprofit, university or small business: a scheduled daily run over your ALN prefixes and eligibility code, with awardCeiling, closeDate and the programme officer's email already on the record, so a bid/no-bid call takes minutes.
• Grant-consultancy and RFP-response lead generation: watch forecasted opportunities to reach applicants months before the notice is posted, and use agencyCode, estimatedTotalFunding and expectedNumberOfAwards to size the market.
• Federal funding research and dashboards: download the full 83,000-record archive with {"statuses": ["archived", "closed"], "dateFrom": "2004-01-01", "includeDetails": false, "maxItems": 100000} and analyse funding by department, ALN, category or award size back to March 2004.

Support

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab on Apify Store. Replies within 14 days. Bug reports that name the run id and the input used are fixed fastest.