📊 FRED Scraper

Collect economic data from the Federal Reserve's FRED database without coding. Whether you're tracking inflation rates, unemployment figures, or GDP trends, this actor makes it easy to search, filter, and download thousands of economic indicators including CPI, unemployment rates, and other key series. Perfect for economists, researchers, analysts, and data scientists who need accurate economic data for analysis, forecasting, or research without manual spreadsheet work.

The FRED Scraper collects up to 1,000,000 economic data series from the Federal Reserve Economic Data with advanced filtering by frequency, units, and seasonal adjustment, plus optional historical observations.

✨ What Does It Do

• 📝 Series ID - Unique identifier to reference data series in reports and dashboards
• 📊 Title - Descriptive name of the economic indicator for identification in your analysis
• 📈 Units - Measurement units such as dollars, percent, or index so you understand the numbers
• 📅 Frequency - Update frequency (daily, monthly, annual) to know how current your data is
• 📋 Seasonal Adjustment - Information about whether data is adjusted for seasonal patterns
• 🔗 Series URL - Direct link to the series page for verification and additional details
• 💾 Observation Data (Optional) - Complete historical date-value pairs for time-series analysis and charting
• 📌 Metadata Fields - Popularity, last updated date, and observation ranges for prioritization

🎬 Demo Video

🔧 Input

• Search Text - Full-text search query to find economic data series. Examples: cpi, unemployment, gdp. Searches across series titles, units, frequency, and tags.
• Max Items - Maximum number of series to collect. Free users can collect up to 100 per run. Paid users can collect up to 1,000,000. Leave empty for unlimited.
• Category ID - Filter to narrow results to specific economic categories. Example: 10 for National Accounts, 1 for Production & Business Activity.
• Frequency - Filter to return series with specific update frequency, such as Daily, Monthly, or Annual data.
• Units - Filter to return series measured in specific units like Percent, Index, Dollars, or Billions.
• Seasonal Adjustment - Filter to find either seasonally adjusted or not seasonally adjusted series.
• Include Observations - When enabled, fetches all historical data points for each series. Warning: significantly increases processing time due to additional requests.
• Sort Order - Field to sort results by, such as search rank, series ID, title, popularity, or last updated date. Default is search rank.
• Order By - Sort direction: ascending or descending. Default is descending.

JSON Example:

{
  "searchText": "cpi",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "frequency": "Monthly",
  "units": "Percent",
  "seasonalAdjustment": "Seasonally Adjusted",
  "includeObservations": false,
  "sortOrder": "popularity",
  "orderBy": "desc"
}

📊 Output

Each series includes up to 20 data fields. Download as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

📝 Series ID	📊 Title	📈 Units
🎯 Units Short	📅 Frequency	⏱️ Frequency Short
🔄 Seasonal Adjustment	🔄 Seasonal Short	📋 Last Updated
📅 Observation Start	📅 Observation End	🕐 Realtime Start
🕐 Realtime End	👍 Popularity	👥 Group Popularity
📝 Notes	🔗 Series URL	💾 Observations (Optional)
⏰ Scraped Timestamp	⚠️ Error (if any)

💎 Why Choose the FRED Scraper?

Feature	FRED Scraper	Similar Tools
Search across all 500,000+ economic series	✔️	❌
Filter by multiple criteria simultaneously (frequency, units, seasonal adjustment)	✔️	Partial
Optional historical observations (date-value pairs)	✔️	❌
Category-based filtering for specific data domains	✔️	❌
Advanced sorting by popularity, date, or custom fields	✔️	Partial
Handles rate limits automatically with batch processing	✔️	❌
Paid tier up to 1,000,000 series per run	✔️	❌
Handles 403 Forbidden errors gracefully	✔️	❌
Real-time metadata including popularity scores	✔️	Partial
Multi-filter processing for equal priority results	✔️	❌
Automatic deduplication across large result sets	✔️	❌

📋 How to Use

No technical skills required. Follow these simple steps:

1. Sign Up: Create a free account with $5 credit
2. Find the Tool: Search for "FRED Scraper" in the Apify Store and configure your search terms and filters
3. Run It: Click "Start" and watch your economic data appear in real time

That's it. No coding, no setup, no configuration. Now you can export your data in CSV, Excel, or JSON format for analysis in any tool.

🎯 Business Use Cases

• 📊 Economist - Monitor CPI and employment trends monthly to forecast inflation and adjust macroeconomic models before quarterly reports
• 💼 Investment Analyst - Track Fed funds rates and treasury yields to identify rate shift signals and reposition portfolio allocations
• 🏢 Business Strategist - Collect historical GDP, consumer spending, and unemployment data to benchmark market cycles and time product launches during growth periods

❓ FAQ

🔍 How does this scraper work? The FRED Scraper connects to the Federal Reserve's public data source to search for economic data series by keyword, category, or specific filters. It retrieves series metadata instantly and optionally fetches historical observations.

📊 Is the data accurate? Yes. All data comes directly from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), the official source. The scraper retrieves exactly what FRED publishes, including seasonal adjustments and update schedules.

📅 Can I schedule regular updates? Absolutely. You can schedule this actor to run on a weekly, daily, or custom schedule using Apify's scheduler. Set it and forget it to keep your data fresh.

⚖️ Is it legal to collect this data? Yes. FRED data is public and explicitly designed for research and educational use. The data is maintained by the Federal Reserve and is freely available. You are responsible for complying with FRED's terms of service.

🛡️ Will the Federal Reserve block me? No. FRED actively encourages usage for research and does not rate-limit or block legitimate requests. This scraper follows FRED's guidelines and respects their rate limits.

⚡ How long does a run take? Speed depends on your settings. Searching 50 series without observations typically takes 10-30 seconds. Including historical observations for 50 series takes 2-5 minutes due to pagination. Larger datasets may take longer.

⚠️ Are there any limits? Free users can collect up to 100 results per run. Paid users can collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

🔗 Integrate FRED Scraper with any app

• Make - Automate workflows
• Zapier - Connect 5000+ apps
• GitHub - Version control integration
• Slack - Get notifications
• Airbyte - Data pipelines
• Google Drive - Export to spreadsheets

💡 More ParseForge Actors

• Google News Scraper - Collect news articles by topic and keyword
• Houzz Scraper - Extract home design inspiration and data
• Revzilla Scraper - Collect motorcycle gear product data and reviews
• Carparts.com Scraper - Extract automotive parts and availability data
• Indexmundi Scraper - Collect commodity prices and economic indicators

Browse our complete collection of data extraction tools for more.

🚀 Ready to Start?

Create a free account with $5 credit and collect your first 100 results for free. No coding, no setup.

🆘 Need Help?

• Check the FAQ section above for common questions
• Visit the Apify support page for documentation and tutorials
• Contact us to request a new scraper, propose a custom project, or report an issue at Tally contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Federal Reserve, FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), or any of their subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.