Government Contracts API - Federal, SLED Bids, Awards, Grants

Pull federal and state and local government contract opportunities, contract and grant awards, IDVs, subcontracts, contractors and agencies from the HigherGov API with your own key, as clean dataset rows.

Works with the official HigherGov API (www.highergov.com/api-external, OpenAPI v1.2): the Opportunity endpoint (SAM.gov contract opportunities, DIBBS, SBIR and STTR, federal grant and state and local SLED bids, refreshed about every 30 minutes), Federal Contract, Federal IDV, Federal Grant, State and Local Contract, Federal Subcontract and Subgrant awards, SAM registered Awardees and Agencies. Each record becomes one row with the ID, title, agency, awardee and UEI, dollar value, posted, due, action and performance dates, NAICS, PSC, set aside and place of performance as flat columns, plus the full HigherGov record. Download as JSON, CSV or Excel, schedule it daily for new bids, or feed it into a CRM, capture pipeline, Google Sheets or an AI agent. Bring your own API key.

BYOK, not live-tested: every endpoint, parameter and ordering value comes from HigherGov's published OpenAPI document, and every route was confirmed to exist on www.highergov.com, but the actor has not been run against a live HigherGov subscription.

What it does

• Contract and grant opportunities: federal contract solicitations from SAM.gov, DIBBS (DLA) bids, SBIR and STTR topics, federal grant opportunities and state and local (SLED) bids, with title, AI summary, agency, NAICS, PSC, set aside, estimated value range, posted and due dates, place of performance and the source link. Filter by source, captured or posted date, agency, solicitation ID or a saved HigherGov search.
• Federal contract awards: prime contracts with awardee, UEI, awarding and funding agency, obligated, current and potential value, performance period, NAICS, PSC, set aside, competition fields and contract vehicle. Filter by award ID, parent IDV, awardee or parent UEI, agency, NAICS, PSC, vehicle, captured or last modified date, or a saved search.
• Federal IDV awards: IDIQs, GWACs, BPAs and schedules, with ordering period end date and who can use them.
• Federal grant awards: prime grants by assistance listing (CFDA) number, recipient, agency or date.
• State and local contract awards: SLED awards with state, agency, awardee, amount, start and end dates and contract contact, searchable by keyword.
• Subcontracts and subgrants: first tier subawards linked to their prime award, by awardee, parent company or agency.
• Awardees: SAM and DSBS registered contractors by UEI, CAGE code, primary NAICS, parent company or registration update date.
• Agencies: look up the HigherGov agency key and hierarchy that the agency filters take.
• Saved searches: paste a HigherGov SearchID (or the whole search URL) to reuse keywords, set asides, NAICS, PSC, state and value range filters built in the HigherGov app.
• Pay only for results: a search that matches nothing returns one free row that says why.

How to get an API key

API access is included in every HigherGov subscription (plans from about 500 to 2,500 USD a year, plus Enterprise). Sign in to HigherGov as an account admin, select the gear icon in the upper right, then API, and create a key. The full key is shown only once, so copy it then. Paste it into the API key field (or set the DATA_API_KEY secret). It is sent only to www.highergov.com as the api_key parameter and is never logged. Every subscription includes 10,000 API records a month; contact HigherGov for more.

Input

Field	Modes	Description
mode	all	opportunities, contracts, idvs, grants, slContracts, subcontracts, subgrants, awardees or agencies
searchId	opportunities, contracts, grants, state and local	SearchID from a saved HigherGov search URL, or the whole URL
keyword	state and local	Free text search across state and local awards
sourceType	opportunities	sam, dibbs, sbir, grant or sled
capturedDate	opportunities, contracts, state and local	Date HigherGov added or last updated the record, YYYY-MM-DD
postedDate	opportunities	Agency posting date, YYYY-MM-DD
lastModifiedDate	federal awards, subawards	Award last modified date, YYYY-MM-DD
startDate, endDate	state and local	Earliest start and latest end date of the award
registrationLastUpdateDate	awardees	Date of the last SAM registration update
agencyKey	opportunities, agencies, award modes	HigherGov agency key (awarding agency on awards)
fundingAgencyKey	award modes	Funding agency key
awardeeKey, awardeeKeyParent	award modes (parent also awardees)	HigherGov awardee keys
awardeeUei, awardeeUeiParent	award modes (UEI also awardees)	12 character SAM UEI
cageCode	awardees	5 character CAGE code
awardId, parentAwardId	contracts, IDVs (award ID also grants)	Government award ID (PIID or FAIN)
naicsCode	contracts, IDVs, awardees	NAICS code (primary NAICS on awardees)
pscCode	contracts, IDVs	Product and service code
vehicleKey	contracts, IDVs	HigherGov contract vehicle key
cfdaProgramNumber	grants	Assistance listing number, such as 93.837
oppKey, sourceId	opportunities	HigherGov opportunity key or source solicitation ID
sortBy	all but agencies	default, newest, oldest, latestAction, largest or dueSoonest
maxResults	all	Record ceiling for the run (default 100, read 100 per page)
requestsPerMinute	all	Pacing, default 30
apiKey	all	Your HigherGov API key (or the DATA_API_KEY secret)

An input set for a mode that does not document it is left off with a warning, never sent, because the API would ignore it or answer empty.

Example: the 50 largest federal IT services contracts (NAICS 541512) modified since October 1.

{
    "mode": "contracts",
    "naicsCode": "541512",
    "lastModifiedDate": "2026-10-01",
    "sortBy": "largest",
    "maxResults": 50
}

Example output

An illustrative opportunity row, shaped like HigherGov's documented Opportunity schema (values are an example, not real data). The full provider record is kept under record.

{
    "mode": "opportunities",
    "recordType": "opportunity",
    "found": true,
    "id": "a1b2c3d4e5",
    "title": "Enterprise Cloud Migration Support Services",
    "description": "The agency seeks a contractor to migrate legacy applications to a FedRAMP authorized cloud.",
    "agencyName": "Department of Veterans Affairs",
    "agencyKey": 1234,
    "awardeeName": null,
    "awardeeUei": null,
    "awardeeKey": null,
    "amount": null,
    "amountLow": 1000000,
    "amountHigh": 5000000,
    "postedDate": "2026-10-15",
    "dueDate": "2026-11-14",
    "actionDate": null,
    "startDate": null,
    "endDate": null,
    "lastModifiedDate": null,
    "capturedDate": "2026-10-15",
    "naicsCode": "541512",
    "pscCode": "DA01",
    "setAside": "Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business",
    "placeState": "DC",
    "placeCity": "Washington",
    "sourceType": "sam",
    "highergovUrl": "https://www.highergov.com/contract-opportunity/example/",
    "sourceUrl": "https://sam.gov/opp/example/view",
    "note": null,
    "record": { "opp_key": "a1b2c3d4e5", "source_type": "sam", "document_path": "..." }
}

FAQ

What is the HigherGov API?

HigherGov (GOV ALPHA INC, part of Procurement Sciences) is a government market intelligence platform that aggregates federal and state and local procurement data: SAM.gov, DIBBS, SBIR and grants.gov opportunities, FPDS and USAspending contract and grant awards, SAM entity registrations and thousands of state and local bid sites. Its REST API at www.highergov.com/api-external serves that data as paginated JSON, authenticated with an api_key parameter.

Do I need my own HigherGov API key?

Yes. This is a bring-your-own-key actor: it calls HigherGov with your key, under your HigherGov subscription and its terms. A missing or rejected key ends the run cleanly with a status message that explains what to change, and nothing is charged.

How do I get only new opportunities every day?

Schedule the actor in Opportunities mode with a captured date (and a source type, or a SearchID for your keywords, NAICS and set asides) and sort Newest first. HigherGov adds opportunities about every 30 minutes and recommends the captured date as the update check field; awards use the last modified date and update daily.

Can I search by keyword?

Keyword search is a direct filter only on state and local contract awards. For opportunities, federal contracts and grants, build the keyword search on highergov.com, save it and paste its SearchID; the API applies the saved keywords, agency, NAICS, PSC, set aside, state and value range fields it supports.

How do I find an agency key or awardee key?

Run the Agencies mode to list agencies with their keys, or read agencyKey and awardeeKey from any opportunity or award row. Awardees can also be looked up by UEI or CAGE code.

How many records can I pull?

HigherGov includes 10,000 API records a month in every subscription, counted per record returned. Keep maxResults modest and filter by date; ask HigherGov for a higher allowance if you need more.

What do I pay?

Pay per result: 0.01 USD per record returned (opportunity, award, subaward, awardee or agency). Searches that match nothing are never charged. Your HigherGov subscription is billed separately by HigherGov.

Pricing

Event	Price	Charged for
gov-record	0.01 USD	Each opportunity, award, subaward, awardee or agency record

Keyword map

government contracts API, federal contracts API, SAM.gov opportunities API, government bids API, RFP data, SLED bids, state and local contracts, DIBBS solicitations, SBIR opportunities, grants API, federal grant awards, FPDS contract awards, USAspending alternative, IDIQ and GWAC data, subcontract data, government contractor database, UEI lookup, CAGE code lookup, NAICS contract search, HigherGov API, GovCon data for AI agents.

Terms and data use

HigherGov data is licensed under the HigherGov Terms of Service (highergov.com/tos, effective 2025-03-15). API access is a paid service for subscribers. Data obtained from HigherGov may be shared only with users under the same HigherGov account, must not be sold, and must not be used to provide competing services; HigherGov also prohibits the mass contacting of individuals or organizations from contact details in its data. The terms do not forbid storing the data you pull. Run this actor with your own key, keep the results for your own internal use within your subscription, and contact HigherGov before sharing them outside your account. This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by HigherGov.