🏛 Congress.gov Bills Scraper

🚀 Export US federal legislation in seconds. House and Senate bills with chamber, action, sponsors, and dates.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-26 · 📊 11 fields per record · Federal scale · All US bills since the 93rd Congress

Congress.gov is the official source for US federal legislative information. This actor queries the api.congress.gov bills endpoint and returns clean, one-row-per-bill records.

Coverage spans every Congress, every bill type (HR, S, HJRES, SJRES, and resolutions), with chamber, latest action, and timestamps.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Policy researchers	Track bill movement
Government affairs teams	Monitor relevant legislation
Journalists	Cover Congress
Civic tech developers	Power dashboards

📋 What the Congress.gov Bills Scraper does

• Pulls bills from the official congress.gov API
• Filters by Congress number and bill type
• Returns title, chamber, latest action, update date, and direct URL
• Sortable by update date

💡 Why it matters: Tracking legislation is essential for policy, compliance, and advocacy work.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Description
maxItems	integer	Cap on rows
congress	integer	Congress number (e.g. 118)
billType	enum	hr, s, hjres, sjres, etc.
sort	enum	Sort order
apiKey	string	Optional congress.gov key

{ "maxItems": 50, "congress": 118 }

{ "maxItems": 100, "congress": 119, "billType": "hr", "sort": "updateDate+desc" }

⚠️ Good to Know: The DEMO_KEY is rate-limited. For high volume, get a free key at api.congress.gov.

📊 Output

Field	Type	Description
📌 congress	integer	Congress number
billType	string	hr, s, hjres, sjres, etc.
🔢 billNumber	string	Bill number
📝 title	string	Official bill title
🏛 originChamber	string	House or Senate
latestActionDate	string	Date of last action
latestActionText	string	Text of last action
updateDate	string	Last update timestamp
🔗 url	string	API URL
🌐 congressGovUrl	string	Public bill page
🕒 scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Direct congress.gov API: no scraping fragility
• Real-time data, no cached responses
• Works with Make, Zapier, Airbyte, GitHub Actions, Google Sheets

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Maintenance	Coverage
This actor	Pay per result	None	Full
Manual congress.gov scrape	Free	High	Limited UI
Commercial legislative trackers	$$$	None	Curated

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free account w/ $5 credit
2. Open the actor page
3. Set inputs
4. Run
5. Download dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML

💼 Business use cases

Competitor and market monitoring

Track legislation affecting your industry as it moves through Congress.

Pipeline expansion

Build lobbying or advocacy targeting lists by committee or sponsor.

Compliance and due diligence

Audit compliance exposure as new bills are introduced.

Market sizing and research

Quantify legislative activity per session for political-science research.

🔌 Automating Congress.gov Bills Scraper

Connects with Make, Zapier, Slack, Airbyte, GitHub Actions, and Google Drive via Apify's standard integrations.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Research

Academic studies on legislative productivity.

Personal

Civic engagement and constituent education.

Non-profit

Non-profit advocacy and watchdog work.

Experimentation

Train models on US legislative text.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Copilot can explain inputs, sample outputs, and integration patterns.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need an API key? A: DEMO_KEY works for light use. Get a free key from api.congress.gov for high volume. Q: How current is the data? A: Within hours of official congress.gov updates. Q: Are sponsors included? A: This actor returns headline metadata. Sponsor detail is a future enhancement. Q: How far back does data go? A: To the 93rd Congress (1973). Q: Can I filter by status? A: Filter by Congress and type; status is in latestActionText. Q: Are amendments included? A: No, this actor focuses on bills and resolutions. Q: Does this include treaties? A: No, treaties have a separate endpoint. Q: Can I get full bill text? A: Use congressGovUrl to fetch text; this actor returns metadata. Q: How accurate is the data? A: As accurate as congress.gov. Q: Are votes included? A: Not directly; use the linked URL.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Make, Zapier, Slack, Airbyte, GitHub Actions, Google Sheets, Webhooks.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with the source organization. Only publicly available data collected.