FRED Data Scraper — Economic Series Without API Key

FRED Data Scraper downloads FRED economic data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis as one row per dated observation, with the series title, units, seasonal adjustment, frequency, source, release and notes repeated on every row. It is built for analysts, economists, researchers and AI agents who know the series IDs they need (such as GDP, CPIAUCSL, UNRATE, FEDFUNDS or DGS10), and it costs USD 6.69 per 1,000 observations on the FREE tier (USD 4.39 per 1,000 on GOLD), with no FRED API key required.

The Actor reads each series' public page on fred.stlouisfed.org for metadata and FRED's own CSV export for the values.

What FRED data does the scraper return?

Each dataset row is one observation of one series. Series context is repeated so every row stands on its own in a spreadsheet or database.

Field	What it contains
seriesId	FRED series ID, for example UNRATE
title	Series name, for example "Unemployment Rate"
observationDate	Date of the observation (YYYY-MM-DD)
value	Numeric value, or null for a kept missing value
rawValue	The value text exactly as in FRED's CSV (. marks a gap)
units	Units shown by FRED, for example "Percent"
seasonalAdjustment	For example "Seasonally Adjusted" when FRED shows it
frequency	Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual and so on
source, release	Originating agency and the named release
notes	FRED's series notes
lastUpdated	Last-updated time shown on the series page
observationStart, observationEnd	Full date coverage of the series
sourceUrl, csvUrl	Series page and the exact CSV export used
scrapedAt	Retrieval time (UTC)

The OUTPUT and SUMMARY key-value records report per-series status (DATA, EMPTY, NOT_FOUND, BLOCKED, FAILED), observations available and returned, truncation flags and warnings.

Do I need a FRED API key?

No. FRED Data Scraper reads the public series pages and CSV exports, so you only need an Apify account. Use FRED's documented API with your own key instead when you need keyword search, release calendars, vintage (ALFRED) data or server-side transformations, which this Actor does not offer.

How do I download FRED series data to CSV or Excel?

Enter the series IDs and a date range, run the Actor, and export the dataset as CSV, Excel or JSON from Apify Console or the API. Example input:

{
  "seriesIds": ["GDP", "CPIAUCSL", "UNRATE", "FEDFUNDS"],
  "startDate": "2024-01-01",
  "endDate": "2026-09-30",
  "maxResults": 500,
  "maxObservationsPerSeries": 150,
  "sortOrder": "descending",
  "includeMissingValues": false
}

• seriesIds: 1 to 50 exact IDs. Copy them from the FRED page URL (fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE). Search words and full URLs are rejected.
• startDate / endDate: inclusive observation dates. startDate defaults to 2020-01-01.
• maxResults: total rows across all series, 1 to 10,000 (default 1,000).
• maxObservationsPerSeries: per-series cap, 1 to 5,000 (default 1,000). With descending, the newest observations are kept first.
• includeMissingValues: keep FRED gaps (holidays, suspended releases) as value: null.

Series are fetched four at a time and written in the order you listed them. A wrong ID is reported as NOT_FOUND in OUTPUT while the other series still return data.

When should I use this Actor, and when not?

Use it when you want a repeatable FRED data pull without managing an API key: refreshing a dashboard, feeding a notebook or BI tool, scheduling a weekly export of rates and inflation, or giving an AI agent a tool that returns clean observations.

Use another Actor when:

• You need IMF country forecasts (GDP growth, inflation, debt) for many countries: IMF World Economic Outlook Scraper.
• You need U.S. Census tables: US Census Bureau Data API Scraper.
• You need company financial filings: SEC EDGAR Scraper.

This Actor does not search FRED by keyword, return vintage revisions, or apply FRED's unit transformations (percent change, logs) or frequency aggregation. It returns the series as published.

Use it from an AI assistant

FRED Data Scraper works from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client through Apify's MCP server. Add it with https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=muhammadafzal/fred-economic-data-scraper, then ask, for example: "Pull the monthly unemployment rate and CPI from FRED since 2023 and chart them side by side."

Run it with the API

JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('muhammadafzal/fred-economic-data-scraper').call({
    seriesIds: ['UNRATE', 'CPIAUCSL'],
    startDate: '2024-01-01',
    maxResults: 100,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.map((i) => `${i.seriesId} ${i.observationDate} ${i.value}`));

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("muhammadafzal/fred-economic-data-scraper").call(
    run_input={"seriesIds": ["DGS10", "FEDFUNDS"], "startDate": "2026-01-01", "maxResults": 600}
)
for row in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(row["seriesId"], row["observationDate"], row["value"], row["units"])

What does the output look like?

Illustrative records showing the row shape (shortened; run the Actor for current values, which FRED revises over time). The second row is a holiday gap kept with includeMissingValues: true:

[
  {
    "seriesId": "GDP",
    "title": "Gross Domestic Product",
    "observationDate": "2024-01-01",
    "value": 28708.161,
    "rawValue": "28708.161",
    "units": "Billions of Dollars",
    "seasonalAdjustment": "Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate",
    "frequency": "Quarterly",
    "source": "U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis",
    "release": "Gross Domestic Product",
    "observationStart": "1947-01-01",
    "sourceUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP",
    "csvUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=GDP&cosd=2024-01-01",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T12:00:00.000Z"
  },
  {
    "seriesId": "DGS10",
    "title": "Market Yield on U.S. Treasury Securities at 10-Year Constant Maturity, Quoted on an Investment Basis",
    "observationDate": "2025-12-25",
    "value": null,
    "rawValue": ".",
    "units": "Percent",
    "frequency": "Daily",
    "source": "Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US)",
    "sourceUrl": "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS10",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T12:00:00.000Z"
  }
]

Pricing: how much does FRED data cost?

FRED Data Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing. Platform usage is included in the event prices.

Event	FREE	BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD	PLATINUM / DIAMOND
FRED observation (one dataset row)	USD 0.00669	USD 0.00669	USD 0.00669	USD 0.00439	USD 0.00439
Actor start (per started GB of allocated memory)	USD 0.005	USD 0.005	USD 0.005	USD 0.005	USD 0.005

Worked totals on the FREE tier at the default 512 MB memory (one start event):

• One monthly series for one year, 12 observations: 12 × USD 0.00669 + USD 0.005 = USD 0.0853
• 1,000 observations: 1,000 × USD 0.00669 + USD 0.005 = USD 6.695

The Console example input (GDP, CPIAUCSL and UNRATE, newest 4 observations each) returns 12 observations, about USD 0.085 on FREE. An API call that leaves out the limits uses the defaults (every observation since 2020-01-01, up to 1,000), which for those three series is roughly 185 to 190 observations, about USD 1.28 on FREE. A run that returns nothing charges only the start fee.

What are the limits?

• 50 series, 10,000 observations and 5,000 per series in one run.
• Three attempts per request with backoff for timeouts, HTTP 429 and 5xx errors.
• Partial results are kept. If one series fails, the others are still saved and the failure is listed in OUTPUT.
• Data revisions. FRED sources revise history, so repeated runs can return different values and update times.
• If you set a maximum cost per run, the run stops at the last row that fits within it, sets truncatedByChargeLimit in OUTPUT and counts only the rows saved.

FAQ

Is this the official FRED data?

Yes. Values come from FRED's own CSV export and metadata from the series page on fred.stlouisfed.org, both linked on every row.

How do I find a FRED series ID?

Open the series on fred.stlouisfed.org; the ID is the last part of the URL and appears in brackets after the title, for example CPIAUCSL for the Consumer Price Index.

Can I search FRED by keyword?

No. Enter exact series IDs. Keyword and category search are FRED API features this Actor does not cover.

How often is FRED data updated?

It depends on the series: daily for Treasury yields, monthly for CPI and unemployment, quarterly for GDP. lastUpdated shows the latest update on the series page.

Can I get real-time vintages or revisions?

No. The Actor returns the current published values, not ALFRED vintage history.

Can I schedule it?

Yes. Save the input as an Apify task, add a schedule, and send each finished dataset to a webhook, Google Sheets or your database.

Related Actors

Public and economic data from the same developer:

• IMF World Economic Outlook Scraper for country forecasts
• FDA Drug Approvals Scraper for Drugs@FDA approval history
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper for IRS Form 990 data
• IDFPR License Lookup for Illinois professional licenses
• USAspending Federal Awards Scraper for federal contracts and grants

Legal and compliance

FRED is a service of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This Actor is independent and not endorsed by it. It reads public pages and exports only, does not bypass access controls, and collects no personal data. Some FRED series carry copyright or citation terms from their original source; check the series notes before redistributing.

Last verified: 2026-10-27