USAspending Federal Awards Scraper

Who the US government pays, and how much. Federal contracts, contract vehicles (IDVs), grants, direct payments, loans and other assistance from USAspending.gov, the official source under the DATA Act: recipient name and UEI, award amount and outlays, awarding and funding agency, NAICS / PSC or assistance program, dates, recipient address, place of performance, and links to the award and recipient pages.

Search by keyword, awarding agency, recipient, NAICS code, state and amount range. Official public API: no key, no login, no proxy.

What it is for

• Competitor intelligence for government contractors — which companies win cybersecurity work at DOD, and for how much.
• Lead generation — recipients of federal money in your NAICS code or state, with their UEI and address.
• Grant research — which organisations received a program's grants.
• Pairs with our Government Tenders scraper, which covers open SAM.gov opportunities before they are awarded; this Actor covers who won.

Input

field	what it does
keywords	One search per keyword (3+ characters). Empty = filters only.
awardType	contracts, idvs, grants, direct_payments, loans, other. One per run: USAspending refuses to mix them.
dateFrom / dateTo	Window, YYYY-MM-DD. Default: the last 12 months. The search API starts at 2007-10-01.
dateMeaning	activity (default) or new_awards — read the next section.
agencies	Awarding agency: official name or abbreviation, any case (DOD, nasa, Department of Energy).
recipients	Recipient name / UEI text, e.g. Lockheed Martin.
naicsCodes	2–6 digit NAICS codes (541512, 5415).
placeOfPerformanceStates	2-letter state codes.
minAmount / maxAmount	Award amount range in dollars.
sortBy	Largest / smallest first, newest / oldest start date, recipient A–Z.
maxItems	Awards per search (default 200, 0 = all).

Things about this data worth knowing before you trust a run

1. "Awards in 2026" includes awards from 2013

By default USAspending matches any award that had activity — a payment, a modification — in your window. In a DOD cybersecurity search for fiscal 2026, 141 of the top 150 contracts had started years earlier, one in 2013; only 9 were first signed in the window. And awardAmount is the award's lifetime amount, not what was spent in your window.

Set dateMeaning: "new_awards" for awards first signed in the window (from 771 to 265 matches in the example). Check baseObligationDate for the signing date: startDate is the period-of-performance start, which is often backdated — grants signed in 2025 routinely start in 2023.

2. The API stops saying "more" at 10,000 rows — this Actor keeps going

On a search with 502,305 matches, USAspending's hasNext turns false at page 100, yet pages 101, 102 and 200 all return new awards. A client that trusts the flag stops at 10,000 without warning. This Actor pages on the official match count instead; the summary shows matchingAwards and hasNextFlagIgnored.

3. Agency names must be exact

"Department of Defense" returns 322 awards; "department of defense" returns 0, with no error. This Actor looks names and abbreviations up in USAspending's own agency list first, and stops with the valid names if one doesn't match.

4. Many contract descriptions start with a code

IGF::OT::IGF, IGF::CL,CT::IGF (inherently-governmental-function markers) prefix — or sometimes end, or entirely make up — contract descriptions. The Actor moves the marker to igfCode and keeps the text in description; descriptionRaw is the original.

5. Loans are measured differently

Loans have loanValue and subsidyCost instead of awardAmount, and an issuedDate instead of start/end dates. Sorting by amount or date uses those for loans.

Output

One AWARD row per award, one SEARCH_SUMMARY per search, ERROR rows for questions the API refused.

{
  "recordType": "AWARD",
  "awardId": "FA862118F6251",
  "recipientName": "LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION",
  "recipientUei": "KDT2YLB34NT6",
  "awardAmount": 666315748.84,
  "totalOutlays": 242708.65,
  "description": "AFSOC ACTS AWARD OF CONTRACT FOR CLS, ENGINEERING, INSTRUCTION, CYBERSECURITY, DMO",
  "igfCode": "IGF::OT::IGF",
  "awardTypeDescription": "DELIVERY ORDER",
  "startDate": "2018-02-08",
  "endDate": "2027-01-31",
  "baseObligationDate": "2018-02-08",
  "awardingAgency": "Department of Defense",
  "awardingSubAgency": "Department of the Air Force",
  "naicsCode": "336413",
  "pscCode": "J069",
  "placeOfPerformanceStateCode": "FL",
  "awardUrl": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA862118F6251_9700_FA862115D6276_9700",
  "recipientUrl": "https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/ea75ddee-2d00-ac7f-5e72-6f42d7c88c8c-C/latest"
}

{
  "recordType": "SEARCH_SUMMARY",
  "keyword": "cybersecurity",
  "awardType": "contracts",
  "matchingAwards": 322,
  "returnedCount": 150,
  "pagesFetched": 2,
  "stoppedBecause": "maxItems",
  "hasNextFlagIgnored": false,
  "filtersSent": {"...": "the exact filters sent to USAspending"}
}

Limits

• Prime awards only (no sub-awards). Transactions (each modification) are not listed individually; each row is the award as a whole.
• Before 2007-10-01, use USAspending's bulk downloads; earlier dateFrom values are raised and noted in the summary.
• Broad keyword searches are slow on USAspending's side: 10–30 s per page of 100 was measured from Apify.