FDA & CPSC Product Recalls API: Food, Drug & Device

Is anything you sell recalled? Every new US recall from FDA (food, drugs, medical devices) and CPSC (consumer products) as clean JSON. Official sources, no API key, $2 per 1,000.

One call searches four official sources: the FDA enforcement reports for food, drugs and medical devices (via openFDA) and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalls database. Each recall becomes one typed row with the product, hazard, FDA class and severity, firms, lots, UPCs, remedy and dates, plus an apiUrl that returns that recall from the official API so you can check it.

What you get

field	what it is
source	fda-food, fda-drug, fda-device or cpsc
recallId / eventId	FDA recall number (e.g. H-1339-2026) or CPSC recall number (e.g. 26789); FDA event ID / CPSC RecallID
title	CPSC recall title (FDA has none, so null)
productDescription, productTypes, productNames	the product as published
reason	FDA reason for recall or CPSC hazard
hazardClass, severityRank	FDA Class I / II / III and 1 / 2 / 3 for sorting (CPSC: null)
status	FDA Ongoing / Completed / Terminated
firms	business names as published, with role (recalling_firm, manufacturer, importer, distributor, retailer)
soldAt	CPSC "Sold at / Sold online at" text (where, when, price)
firmCity, firmState, firmCountry	FDA recalling firm location (city level, no street address)
manufacturerCountries, distributionPattern, quantity	where it was made / distributed and how many units
codeInfo, upcs	FDA lot and batch codes; CPSC UPCs
remedy, remedyOptions, injuries	CPSC remedy (Refund, Replace, Repair...) and incident summary
voluntaryMandated, recallInitiationDate, classificationDate	FDA details
publishedDate	FDA report date or CPSC recall date. The date window filters on this
url, apiUrl	cpsc.gov recall page; official API URL for this one recall
images	CPSC image URLs and captions (only with includeImages)
matchedKeywords, isNew	which of your keywords matched; true in monitor mode
licence, fetchedAt	attribution and fetch time

Example rows (real):

{"recordType":"recall","source":"fda-food","recallId":"H-1339-2026","eventId":"99737","title":null,
 "productDescription":"Everything Sprouts Crunchy Protein Sprout Mix, containing Alfalfa Fenugreek, Cabbage, Mung, Adzuki, Lentils, Green Pea, Net Wt. 5.0 oz (142 g) UPC 0 87906-01018 7.  everythingsprouts.com",
 "productTypes":["Food"],"productNames":[],"reason":"Sprouts may be contaminated with STEC E. coli and/or Salmonella.",
 "hazardClass":"Class I","severityRank":1,"status":"Ongoing","firms":[{"name":"Everything Sprouts, LLC","role":"recalling_firm"}],"soldAt":null,
 "firmCity":"Minneapolis","firmState":"MN","firmCountry":"United States","manufacturerCountries":[],"distributionPattern":"MN, WI",
 "quantity":"201.56 pounds","codeInfo":"Lot# 222, 223, 226, 230","upcs":[],"remedy":null,"remedyOptions":[],"injuries":null,
 "voluntaryMandated":"Voluntary: Firm initiated","recallInitiationDate":"2026-08-22","classificationDate":"2026-09-14","publishedDate":"2026-09-23",
 "url":null,"apiUrl":"https://api.fda.gov/food/enforcement.json?search=recall_number:%22H-1339-2026%22",
 "matchedKeywords":[],"isNew":false,"licence":"openFDA, public domain (CC0 1.0). Do not rely on openFDA to make decisions regarding medical care.","fetchedAt":"2026-10-04T21:20:00.000Z"}

{"recordType":"recall","source":"cpsc","recallId":"26789","eventId":"10992",
 "title":"5Color Recalls Children’s Bicycle Helmet and Pads Sets Due to Risk of Serious Injury or Death from Head Injury; Violate Mandatory Standard for Bicycle Helmets",
 "productTypes":["Helmets & Helmet Accessories"],"productNames":["5Color Children’s Bike Helmet and Pads Sets"],
 "hazardClass":null,"severityRank":null,
 "firms":[{"name":"Hengqin Guangwei Consulting Co., Ltd., dba. 5Color, of China","role":"retailer"}],
 "soldAt":"Sold Online At: Amazon.com in May 2026 for between $25 and $26.","manufacturerCountries":["China"],"quantity":"About 324",
 "remedyOptions":["Refund"],"injuries":"None reported","publishedDate":"2026-09-24",
 "url":"https://cpsc.gov/Recalls/2026/5Color-Recalls-Childrens-Bicycle-Helmet-and-Pads-Sets-Due-to-Risk-of-Serious-Injury-or-Death-from-Head-Injury-Violate-Mandatory-Standard-for-Bicycle-Helmets",
 "apiUrl":"https://www.saferproducts.gov/RestWebServices/Recall?format=json&RecallNumber=26789"}

(The CPSC row is shortened here; real rows have every field.)

Why this Actor

• 4 official sources in one call: FDA food, drugs and medical devices plus CPSC consumer products, in one schema.
• FDA class and severity: filter on Class I (serious harm or death) and sort by severityRank.
• Firms, lots and UPCs: recalling firm, manufacturers, importers, retailers, lot codes and UPCs, so you can match against your catalogue.
• Monitor mode: schedule it daily and get only recalls you haven't seen. Recalls already returned are skipped and not charged.
• Fast, time-budgeted calls for AI agents: a default run returns 50 recalls in seconds, and timeBudgetSeconds (default 45) guarantees an answer.
• Privacy-first: no street addresses, no consumer-contact details, no adverse-event (patient) data.

Use cases

• Marketplace sellers (Amazon, Shopify, eBay): check whether a product, brand or UPC you sell has been recalled.
• Retail and buying teams: a daily recall feed for category managers and store operations.
• Food, pharma and medtech QA: watch recalls by competitors and suppliers, by firm state or FDA class.
• Insurance and legal research: recall history by firm, product type or hazard.
• Journalism: spot new Class I recalls and CPSC hazards early.

How to use

How to search FDA recalls (food, drug and device enforcement reports)

{"sources":["fda-food"],"keywords":["listeria"],"fdaClassifications":["Class I"],"daysBack":90,"maxItems":25}

Add fdaStatus (Ongoing, Completed, Terminated) or firmStates (two-letter codes such as CA) to narrow it down. FDA filters are applied by openFDA itself, so even long windows need only a few requests.

How to get CPSC product recalls via API

{"sources":["cpsc"],"keywords":["stroller","crib"],"daysBack":180,"maxItems":0}

The whole window is fetched in one request and keywords are matched against the title, description, hazard, product names and firm names. To match product names only (so a hazard sentence like "children can be injured" doesn't count), add "keywordFields":["productName"]:

{"sources":["cpsc"],"keywords":["children's"],"keywordFields":["productName"],"daysBack":180,"maxItems":25}

How to set up daily recall alerts (monitor + schedule + webhook to Slack/email/Make/n8n)

1. Create a task with {"monitorMode":true,"monitorId":"my-alerts","maxItems":500} (add keywords for a watchlist). We recommend maxItems 500 for daily monitors so a weekly FDA report never gets cut off.
2. Schedule it daily, e.g. 08:00 ET.
3. Add a webhook on Run succeeded pointing to Slack, email, Make, Zapier or n8n, and read the dataset (?view=alerts).

The first run catches up on the backlog. A new monitorId has seen nothing yet, so its first run returns every recall in its window as new. To keep that first run small, it looks back only firstRunDaysBack days (default 10, so it always includes at least one weekly FDA report) unless you set daysBack or fromDate yourself (then your window is used, e.g. "daysBack":14 to start with two weeks of recalls). Later runs use daysBack (default 30).

Each run returns only recalls this monitor has not returned before (isNew: true). The overlap is free: FDA publishes enforcement reports weekly and sometimes late, and recalls already seen are not charged. Use a different monitorId for each watchlist. maxItems caps each run: if more new recalls exist, the run says e.g. "Returned 50 of 120+ new recalls. Raise maxItems to get them all." (the + means at least that many), the newest are returned and the rest come in the next runs.

Rough cost of a daily monitor (all sources, no filters, FREE plan), approximate: about 15 new recalls/day on average (Aug 12–Sep 30, 2026: about 760 FDA enforcement entries in 8 weekly reports plus about 1.6 CPSC recalls/day), so about $0.03/day (~$1/month); the day FDA's weekly report lands can be 100 recalls ($0.20). Keywords or class filters cost less.

Input reference

field	default	notes
sources	all four	fda-food, fda-drug, fda-device, cpsc
daysBack	30 (10 on a monitor's first run)	recalls published in the last N days (US Eastern dates). Ignored when fromDate is set
fromDate / toDate	– / today	YYYY-MM-DD
keywords	[]	any word matches (case-insensitive) in description, title, reason/hazard, firm or product names
keywordFields	[] (all fields)	limit where keywords must appear: productName, title, description, reason (reason / hazard), firm. FDA has no title, and its product name is the product description
fdaClassifications	[] (all)	FDA only: Class I, Class II, Class III. CPSC recalls have no class and are kept
fdaStatus	[] (all)	FDA only
firmStates	[] (all)	FDA only, two-letter state codes of the recalling firm
monitorMode / monitorId	false / default	only recalls this monitor hasn't returned before
firstRunDaysBack	10	monitor mode: days back for the first run of a new monitorId. Ignored when daysBack or fromDate is set
maxItems	50	0 = no limit. Shared fairly across sources, so one busy source can't crowd out the others
timeBudgetSeconds	45	0 = no limit. On expiry you get what was found so far, with truncated: true
descriptionMaxChars	1000	0 = full text
includeImages	false	CPSC image URLs and captions (not downloaded)
openFdaApiKey	–	optional, secret. Free key from open.fda.gov for heavy use. Never logged

FDA recall classes explained. Class I: a reasonable probability that the product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death. Class II: may cause temporary or medically reversible harm, or the probability of serious harm is remote. Class III: not likely to cause adverse health consequences.

FDA report date vs recall date (weekly publication lag). The firm starts a recall (recallInitiationDate); FDA classifies it (classificationDate) and then publishes it in the weekly enforcement report (report_date, our publishedDate). That can take weeks, so the date window filters on publishedDate, which means "new to the public record". Use at least 7 days back, and 14 for daily monitors.

Output reference

One row per recall (fields above). Dataset views: Overview and Alerts (adds isNew and matchedKeywords).

Each run also writes RUN_SUMMARY to the key-value store:

{"requested":{"from":"2026-09-04","to":"2026-10-04"},"covered":{"from":"2026-09-04","to":"2026-10-04"},
 "sources":{"fda-food":{"fetched":50,"kept":50,"pushed":13,"pages":1,"complete":false},"cpsc":{"fetched":15,"kept":15,"pushed":12,"pages":1,"complete":true}},
 "truncated":false,"stopReason":"maxItems","pushed":50,"fdaRequests":3,"cpscRequests":1,"note":"..."}

• stopReason: done, maxItems, timeBudget or maxCharge. truncated is true only for timeBudget and maxCharge. Reaching maxItems is a complete answer to what you asked for.
• covered: the date range fully covered (sources are read newest first).
• If a source fails (e.g. openFDA is down), the run still succeeds with the other sources and sources.<name>.error says why (QUERY_ERROR, FDA_API_KEY_INVALID, FDA_RATE_LIMITED, FDA_UNAVAILABLE, CPSC_UNAVAILABLE). The run fails only if every source failed.

Pricing

Pay per event, with no extra usage charges:

event	FREE	BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND
Recall returned	$0.0020	$0.0018	$0.0016	$0.0015
Actor start	$0.002	$0.002	$0.002	$0.002

That's $2.00 per 1,000 recalls on FREE, falling to $1.50 from GOLD up. You pay only for rows returned after your filters, and in monitor mode only for new recalls. Minimum max charge per run: $0.02.

Worked examples (FREE):

• Default run, 50 recalls: $0.002 + 50 × $0.002 = $0.102.
• Daily monitor across all sources (about 15 new recalls/day on average): about $0.03/day, ~$1/month (approximate).
• One-year backfill (about 4,000–4,500 recalls, estimated): about $8–9.

Ready-to-run examples

Each example is a public task: open it, press Start, and change any input you like. Numbers are from real runs on Oct 4, 2026 (512 MB).

example	input	result
Class I FDA Food Recalls for Listeria (Last 90 Days)	{"sources":["fda-food"],"keywords":["listeria"],"fdaClassifications":["Class I"],"daysBack":90,"maxItems":25}	24 recalls (every Class I listeria food recall in the window, e.g. Mon Sire Brie and Requeson Mexican cottage cheese) in 4.6 s, 1 FDA request, $0.050 on FREE
CPSC Recalls of Children's Products (Last 180 Days)	{"sources":["cpsc"],"keywords":["children's"],"keywordFields":["productName"],"daysBack":180,"maxItems":25}	15 recalls, all children's products (e.g. Victgoal Children’s Bike Helmets, Cat & Jack Children's Sandals, Wiifo Children's Tower Stools), 1 CPSC request, $0.032 on FREE
Daily US Recall Alerts: FDA + CPSC Monitor	{"monitorMode":true,"monitorId":"daily-recalls","daysBack":14,"maxItems":50}	first run: 50 new recalls (FDA food 15, drug 10, device 14, CPSC 11) in 6.3 s with 3 FDA + 1 CPSC requests, $0.102 on FREE. Schedule it daily: later runs return only recalls not seen before

By default keywords match anywhere in the title, description, hazard and firm names, so "child" would also match hazard text such as "children can be injured". The children's example uses keywordFields: ["productName"] to match product names only.

Use as an MCP tool

Endpoint: https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=optimistprime/us-product-recalls-fda-cpsc. Minimal agent call:

{"sources":["fda-food"],"keywords":["listeria"],"fdaClassifications":["Class I"],"daysBack":60,"maxItems":20}

Rows have ISO dates, severityRank, source and licence for citation and apiUrl for verification; RUN_SUMMARY.covered and truncated tell the agent how complete the answer is. Prompts to try:

• "Any Class I food recalls for listeria this month?"
• "Were any strollers or cribs recalled in the last 90 days?"
• "List medical device recalls by Medtronic this year."

Data sources, licence and privacy

• FDA enforcement reports via openFDA (api.fda.gov, /food, /drug, /device/enforcement): public domain (CC0 1.0). Do not rely on openFDA to make decisions regarding medical care. openFDA allows 1,000 requests a day per IP without a key; a typical run uses 3 FDA requests, retries back off and honour Retry-After, and you can add your own free key.
• CPSC Recalls API (www.saferproducts.gov/RestWebServices/Recall): public information.
• No other hosts are contacted and nothing is scraped from web pages.

Data & privacy. Data comes from FDA enforcement reports (public domain, CC0) and the CPSC Recalls API (public information). We don't output street addresses or consumer-contact details, and never touch adverse-event (patient) data. openFDA: do not rely on this data to make decisions regarding medical care. Recalls are about products and firms; firm names are passed through as published, with no enrichment. CPSC remedy text can include the firm's published recall contact email.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by the FDA or CPSC.

FAQ

Why is a recall from today missing? FDA publishes enforcement reports weekly, and a recall can appear weeks after the firm announced it. CPSC usually publishes on the announcement day. Use daysBack ≥ 7.

Does this include car recalls? Not yet. NHTSA vehicle recalls are planned for v1.1.

Can I get adverse events? No, by design: FDA adverse-event data contains patient narratives.

Do I need an FDA API key? No. It's optional, for heavy use. Without a key openFDA allows 1,000 requests a day per IP, which may be shared with other users on the same cloud IP. If that limit is hit, the FDA sources report FDA_RATE_LIMITED (CPSC still returns) and the status tells you to add a key.

Why are some FDA entries missing? openFDA sometimes lists an entry as "Not Yet Classified" with no recall number (N/A). Those are skipped until FDA assigns a recall number and class; they then appear in a later run (or monitor run).

How do keywords work for CPSC? CPSC's API has no full-text search (its Title parameter is ignored), so the Actor fetches the whole date window in one request and matches your keywords against title, description, hazard, product and firm names.

Changelog

See the Changelog tab. 1.0.5 (2026-10-04): new keywordFields input. 1.0 (2026-10-04): first release.