📜 Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper

🚀 Collect federal regulatory documents, public comments, and dockets from Regulations.gov. Filter by agency, document type, date range, and keyword across all US federal agencies.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-04-23

Whether you are a compliance officer monitoring new rules, a lobbyist tracking regulatory activity, or a researcher analyzing public comment patterns, this scraper delivers structured regulatory data from the official US government portal. Search by keyword, filter by agency (EPA, FDA, FCC, DOT, and more), and collect documents, comments, or dockets.

No coding, no manual browsing. Configure your search, click Start, and get structured data as JSON, CSV, or Excel in seconds.

🎯 Target	Regulations.gov federal regulatory data
🔎 Best for	Regulatory compliance, policy analysis, public comment research, government transparency

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📋 What it does

• Collects rules, proposed rules, notices, and supporting materials with full metadata from Regulations.gov
• Gathers public comments submitted on proposed regulations with commenter details and posting dates
• Retrieves docket records that group related documents and comments under a single docket ID
• Supports filtering by agency (EPA, FDA, FCC, DOT, HHS, OSHA, SEC, and 100+ more), document type, date range, and keyword

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🎬 Demo

🚧 Coming soon

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⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Description
Search Term	string	Full text search query (e.g. "climate change", "net neutrality", "clean water").
Document Type	select	Documents, Comments, or Dockets.
Max Items	integer	Free users: limited to 10 items. Paid users: up to 1,000,000.
Agency ID	string	Filter by federal agency acronym (e.g. EPA, FDA, FCC, DOT, HHS).
Filter by Document Subtype	string	Narrow by subtype: Rule, Proposed Rule, Notice, Supporting and Related Material.
Posted Date Start	string	Only return records posted on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
Posted Date End	string	Only return records posted on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
Docket ID	string	Look up a specific docket (e.g. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171). Overrides search term.

Example 1: Search by agency and keyword

{
    "searchTerm": "climate change",
    "documentType": "documents",
    "agencyId": "EPA",
    "maxItems": 50
}

Example 2: Lookup a specific docket

{
    "docketId": "EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171",
    "documentType": "documents",
    "maxItems": 100
}

⚠️ Good to Know: The Regulations.gov API limits results to 5,000 per search (20 pages of 250). Use date ranges or agency filters to narrow large result sets. The included DEMO_KEY works for testing (30 requests/minute). For production use, get a free key at api.data.gov/signup.

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📊 Output

🧾 Schema

Each record includes document metadata, agency info, dates, comment period windows, and direct links. Fields vary by document type.

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✨ Why choose this scraper

Feature	Details
Three document types	Regulatory documents, public comments, and dockets
100+ federal agencies	EPA, FDA, FCC, DOT, HHS, OSHA, SEC, USDA, DOE, DOD, and more
Date range filtering	Precise YYYY-MM-DD filtering for posted dates
Docket lookup	Retrieve all documents and comments for a specific docket ID
Comment period tracking	See whether comments are currently accepted on each document
Direct links included	URL to each document on Regulations.gov
Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel	Download structured data in the format you need

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🎯	Built for the job. Scoped specifically to this data source so you skip the parser engineering entirely.
🔖	Structured output. Clean, typed fields ready for analysis, dashboards, or downstream pipelines.
⚡	Fast. Optimized request patterns return results in seconds, not minutes.
🔁	Always fresh. Every run pulls live data, so the dataset reflects the source as of run time.
🌐	No infra to manage. Apify handles proxies, retries, scaling, scheduling, and storage.
🛡️	Reliable. Battle-tested across many runs and edge cases, with graceful error handling.
🚫	No code required. Configure in the UI, run from CLI, schedule via cron, or call from any language with the Apify SDK.

📊 Production-grade structured data without the engineering overhead of building and maintaining your own scraper.

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📈 How it compares

Capability	This scraper	Manual browsing
Batch collection	Up to 5,000 records per search	Browse 25 at a time
Multi-type search	Documents, comments, and dockets	Switch between tabs
Agency filtering	Any agency by acronym	Limited dropdown
Date range precision	Exact YYYY-MM-DD	Basic date picker
Structured output	JSON, CSV, Excel	HTML pages only
Automated scheduling	Daily or weekly monitoring	Manual visits
Comment period status	Included in every record	Check each page

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🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account (includes $5 credit)
2. Search for Regulations.gov Scraper in the Apify Store
3. Enter your search term, select document type, and set agency or date filters
4. Click Start and wait for results
5. Download your data as JSON, CSV, or Excel

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💼 Business cases

Use case	How it helps
Regulatory compliance monitoring	Track new rules and proposed regulations affecting your industry
Lobbying and policy tracking	Monitor regulatory activity across multiple agencies and dockets
Legal research	Build databases of regulatory actions for client advisories and case prep
Journalism and investigations	Research public comments and agency actions on policy issues

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💼 Business use cases

📊 Data & Analytics Build trend reports and dashboards from live source data Feed BI tools, warehouses, and ML pipelines with structured records Run periodic snapshots to track changes over time Compare segments, regions, or categories with consistent fields	🏢 Operations & Strategy Monitor competitor moves, pricing, and inventory shifts Build internal directories and lookup tools backed by current data Power workflows that depend on fresh source records Cut manual data-gathering time from hours to minutes
🎯 Marketing & Growth Identify market opportunities and trending topics Research target audiences and customer personas at scale Power lead-generation pipelines with verified records Track sentiment, reviews, or social signals over time	🛠️ Engineering & Product Prototype features that need real-world data without owning a crawler Replace fragile in-house scrapers with a managed Actor Wire datasets into your apps via the Apify API or webhooks Skip the proxy, retry, and parsing maintenance entirely

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Empirical datasets for papers, thesis work, and coursework Longitudinal studies tracking changes across snapshots Reproducible research with cited, versioned data pulls Classroom exercises on data analysis and ethical scraping	🎨 Personal and creative Side projects, portfolio demos, and indie app launches Data visualizations, dashboards, and infographics Content research for bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters Hobbyist collections and personal trackers
🤝 Non-profit and civic Transparency reporting and accountability projects Advocacy campaigns backed by public-interest data Community-run databases for local issues Investigative journalism on public records	🧪 Experimentation Prototype AI and machine-learning pipelines with real data Validate product-market hypotheses before engineering spend Train small domain-specific models on niche corpora Test dashboard concepts with live input

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

💰 How much does it cost?

Apify gives you $5 in free monthly credits on the Apify Free plan, enough to test Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper and pull a real sample dataset. For ongoing usage:

• Starter plan ($49/month) — Recommended for individuals running Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper regularly. Includes higher concurrency and larger datasets.
• Scale plan ($499/month) — Recommended for teams running Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper at production scale.

Pay-Per-Event pricing means you only pay for what you actually use. Failed runs are never charged. See the Pricing tab on this Actor's page for exact event prices.

💡 Tips for using Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper

• Start with a small maxItems (3-10) to validate output format before running larger jobs.
• Use Apify Schedules to run Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper on a recurring basis and keep your dataset fresh.
• Export via Integrations: Apify connects to Google Sheets, Airbyte, Make, Zapier, and direct webhooks — pipe your data anywhere.
• Monitor with webhooks: trigger downstream workflows the moment a run finishes.
• Re-run failed items: if any individual records error out, re-run with their inputs only. Failed events are not charged.

⚖️ Is it legal to use Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper?

Yes. Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper only collects publicly available data. Web scraping public data has been confirmed as legal by US courts (see hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn) and is widely used for research, market analysis, and business intelligence.

However, you are responsible for:

• Respecting the source website's Terms of Service.
• Complying with GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable data-protection laws when personal data is involved.
• Not republishing copyrighted content without permission.

If you have specific compliance concerns, consult your legal team. See the Apify legal docs for more.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔌 Automating runs

Schedule the Regulations.gov Scraper to run daily or weekly to catch new regulatory activity as it is published. Connect with Make, Zapier, or webhooks to trigger workflows when new rules appear. Pair with Slack to alert your compliance team about new comment period openings or Google Sheets to track rulemaking timelines.

🔌 Integrate with your tools

• Make - Automate regulatory monitoring workflows
• Zapier - Get alerts on new rules and notices
• Slack - Notify your team about comment period deadlines
• Google Sheets - Track regulatory activity in spreadsheets
• Airbyte - Build regulatory data pipelines
• Webhooks - Trigger workflows on run completion

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🔌 Integrate with any app

Regulations.gov Federal Regulatory Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe results into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh data into your product backend, or alert your team in Slack.

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🆘 Need help?

Contact us through our support form to request a new scraper, report an issue, or propose a custom project.

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Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Regulations.gov, the eRulemaking Program, or any federal agency. It accesses only publicly available data through the official Regulations.gov public API.

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