FRED Economic Data Fetcher

Pull economic time-series straight from FRED — Federal Reserve Economic Data (St. Louis Fed) as clean, flat JSON. Pass a list of FRED series IDs — GDP, unemployment, CPI, interest rates, and 800,000+ more — and get one tidy date + value row per observation. Optional date range, units transformations (percent change, year-over-year, etc.) and frequency aggregation. No API key required.

What you get

One record per observation, ready for spreadsheets, dashboards or models:

Field	Description
series_id	The FRED series ID (e.g. UNRATE).
date	Observation date, YYYY-MM-DD.
value	The numeric value (or null for gaps/holidays).
units_transform	Transformation applied (lin, pch, pc1, …).
series_title	Human-readable series name — with a FRED API key.
native_units	The series' real units, e.g. "Percent" — with a key.
native_frequency	e.g. "Monthly", "Quarterly" — with a key.
seasonal_adjustment	e.g. "Seasonally Adjusted" — with a key.
last_updated	When FRED last revised the series — with a key.

Input

Everything is bulk by default — request as many series as you like in one run.

Field	Type	Description
seriesIds	array	One or more FRED series IDs, e.g. ["GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL"].
observationStart / observationEnd	string	Optional YYYY-MM-DD date range.
units	enum	Transformation: lin (levels), chg, ch1, pch, pc1, pca, log.
frequency	enum	Aggregate to Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly/Annual (or keep native).
aggregationMethod	enum	When aggregating: avg, sum, or eop (end of period).
sortOrder	enum	Oldest-first or newest-first.
apiKey	string	Optional free FRED key — unlocks series metadata on every row.
maxResultsPerSeries	integer	Cap on observations per series.

Input example

{
  "seriesIds": ["GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL"],
  "observationStart": "2015-01-01",
  "units": "lin",
  "sortOrder": "asc",
  "maxResultsPerSeries": 5000
}

Popular series IDs

• GDP — Gross Domestic Product
• UNRATE — Unemployment Rate
• CPIAUCSL — Consumer Price Index (CPI)
• FEDFUNDS — Federal Funds Effective Rate
• DGS10 — 10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate
• MORTGAGE30US — 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate
• PAYEMS — All Employees, Total Nonfarm (payrolls)
• T10Y2Y — 10-Year minus 2-Year Treasury Spread

Output

{
  "series_id": "UNRATE",
  "series_title": null,
  "date": "2024-01-01",
  "value": 3.7,
  "units_transform": "lin",
  "native_units": null,
  "native_frequency": null,
  "seasonal_adjustment": null,
  "last_updated": null,
  "ok": true
}

With a FRED API key the metadata fields (series_title, native_units, native_frequency, seasonal_adjustment, last_updated) are populated too.

Use cases

• Dashboards & reporting — feed live macro indicators into Sheets, Power BI, or a web app.
• Quant & research — pull deep history for many series in one run for backtests and models.
• Newsletters & content — grab the latest CPI, jobs, or rates numbers on a schedule.

FAQ

Do I need a FRED API key? No. The actor works out of the box using FRED's public CSV download. A free key (from fredaccount.stlouisfed.org/apikeys) simply adds series metadata to each row.

How do I find a series ID? Search on fred.stlouisfed.org — the ID is the short code in the series page URL and title (e.g. UNRATE).

What about missing values? Holidays/gaps come back as value: null rather than being dropped, so your time series stays aligned.

Notes

• Uses the public FRED data endpoints. Independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
• Error/"series not found" rows are returned with ok: false for transparency and are never billed.