# Federal Register Scraper — US Rules & Notices (`parsing_machine/federal-register-scraper`) Actor

Scrape US Federal Register documents — final rules, proposed rules, notices and presidential documents. Filter by agency, type, keyword and publication date. Official keyless API. Schedule it as a regulatory/compliance monitor. Pay per result.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parsing\_machine/federal-register-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Iakov Iudin](https://apify.com/parsing_machine) (community)
- **Categories:** Business, News, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

### Federal Register Scraper — US Rules & Notices

Pull structured records straight from the US Federal Register — final rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents — filtered by agency, document type, keyword, and publication date. Built on the official, keyless federalregister.gov API, so results are complete, accurately dated, and never blocked or rate-limited by anti-bot defenses.

#### What it does

The Federal Register is the US government's daily journal of new regulations, proposed rulemakings, agency notices, and presidential documents (executive orders, proclamations). This actor queries the official `federalregister.gov/api/v1/documents.json` endpoint directly — no HTML scraping, no login, no API key required from you — and returns one clean record per matching document. Because it reads the same API the government itself publishes, coverage and dates are authoritative, and there's nothing to break when the site's front-end changes.

Typical use: track every new rule or notice from a specific agency (EPA, SEC, FDA, etc.), monitor a keyword or topic (e.g. "PFAS", "tariff", "artificial intelligence") across all agencies, or run it on a schedule with a rolling `publishedSince` date as a daily regulatory/compliance monitor.

#### Input

- **Search term** — full-text search across document titles and bodies (e.g. `clean water`, `tariff`). Leave blank to list all documents in the date window.
- **Agencies** — filter by agency slug (e.g. `environmental-protection-agency`, `securities-and-exchange-commission`, `food-and-drug-administration`); find slugs at federalregister.gov/agencies.
- **Document types** — `RULE` (final rule), `PRORULE` (proposed rule), `NOTICE`, or `PRESDOCU` (presidential document). Empty = all types.
- **Published since / Published before** — `YYYY-MM-DD` date-window filters; combine `publishedSince` with a rolling recent date for monitoring runs.
- **Max results** — cap on documents returned (1–50,000, default 100).
- **Proxy configuration** — Apify Proxy, RESIDENTIAL by default; billed to your account, not ours.

#### Fields returned

`document_number`, `title`, `type`, `abstract`, `action` (e.g. "Final rule", "Notice of proposed rulemaking"), `agency_names`, `agency_slugs`, `publication_date`, `effective_on`, `signing_date`, `president` (for presidential documents), `citation` (e.g. "89 FR 12345"), `page_length`, `cfr_references` (CFR titles/parts referenced), `docket_ids`, `regulation_id_numbers` (RINs), `html_url` (federalregister.gov page), `pdf_url` (official govinfo.gov PDF), `json_url` (the document's own API record).

#### Pricing

Pay-per-result — billed per document pushed to the dataset. See the Store pricing tab for the current price.

#### Why it's reliable

This actor reads the Federal Register's own official public API — the same source the US government publishes for developers — not a scraped HTML page. That means zero bot-defense risk, no CAPTCHAs, no breakage from site redesigns, and complete/accurate data straight from the source of record. It runs on your Apify account's proxy allocation at effectively zero marginal cost, and is a good fit for scheduled, recurring compliance-monitoring runs.

# Actor input Schema

## `term` (type: `string`):

Full-text search across document titles and bodies (e.g. "clean water", "tariff", "PFAS"). Leave blank to list all documents in the date window.

## `agencies` (type: `array`):

Filter by agency slug, e.g. environmental-protection-agency, securities-and-exchange-commission, food-and-drug-administration. Find slugs at federalregister.gov/agencies.

## `documentTypes` (type: `array`):

Filter by type: RULE (final rule), PRORULE (proposed rule), NOTICE, PRESDOCU (presidential document). Empty = all types.

## `publishedSince` (type: `string`):

Only documents published on or after this date. Use a rolling recent window (e.g. yesterday) for monitoring.

## `publishedBefore` (type: `string`):

Only documents published on or before this date.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of documents to return.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify proxy used to reach the API. Residential is the reliable default; the run is billed to your account.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "term": "artificial intelligence",
  "agencies": [],
  "documentTypes": [],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Dataset of Federal Register documents (document\_number, title, type, agency\_names, publication\_date, effective\_on, action, abstract, cfr\_references, html\_url, pdf\_url).

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "term": "artificial intelligence",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parsing_machine/federal-register-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "term": "artificial intelligence",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parsing_machine/federal-register-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "term": "artificial intelligence",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}' |
apify call parsing_machine/federal-register-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parsing_machine/federal-register-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/eY6BhjGhKAa5p5RRH/builds/Y2SSBQ0wWVidYpSAs/openapi.json