US Government Spending & Contracts (USASpending)

Search the official USASpending.gov API - the US government's definitive open database of federal awards. Contracts, grants and loans: who won what, for how much, from which agency. No login, no API key, no scraping of SAM.gov.

Why USASpending data

Federal spending is public, but making it useful is work. USASpending is the post-award system of record: every obligated dollar, tied to a recipient, an agency, a NAICS industry code and a product/service code. GovCon BD teams use it to find incumbents and expiring contracts, analysts to map agency spending, journalists to follow the money, and sales teams to size government markets. This Actor turns the official API into clean rows with pay-per-award pricing.

Modes

• search-awards - search across contracts, grants and loans with rich filters
• award-detail - the full record for one award (transactions, place of performance, sub-awards) by its internalId

What you get per award

• awardId, recipient, amount
• startDate, endDate
• awardingAgency, awardingSubAgency, fundingAgency
• naics, psc - industry and product/service codes with descriptions
• awardType, internalId, detailUrl on usaspending.gov

Inputs

Field	Required	Description
mode	yes	search-awards or award-detail
keywords	no	Comma-separated, matched against award descriptions
agency	no	Top-tier agency, e.g. Department of Defense
naics	no	Comma-separated NAICS codes, e.g. 541512
recipientName	no	e.g. Booz Allen Hamilton
awardType	no	contracts (default), grants, loans, all
minAmount	no	Minimum award dollars
dateFrom / dateTo	no	Start-date bounds (default: last 90 days)
awardId	award-detail	internalId from a search result
maxResults	no	Default 100, max 1000

Example

Recent large cybersecurity contracts from the Department of Energy:

{ "mode": "search-awards", "keywords": "cybersecurity", "agency": "Department of Energy", "awardType": "contracts", "minAmount": 1000000 }

FAQ

Is this official? Yes - api.usaspending.gov is the US Treasury's public API, no key required.

Contracts only? No - contracts, grants, loans, direct payments; filter with awardType.

How current? Awards appear as agencies report them; typically days to weeks after obligation.

What does it cost? Pay-per-event: $3 per 1,000 awards.

Can I track a competitor's awards? Yes - recipientName plus a schedule gives you their new wins automatically.

Can agents call it? Yes - limited-permissions and pay-per-event.

Pipeline patterns

Competitive incumbent tracking. recipientName on a competitor, scheduled monthly, answers "what did they win lately" - including award amounts and which agency is buying.

Whitespace discovery. keywords plus naics maps who is buying in your niche; cross-reference with minAmount to focus on contracts worth pursuing.

Recompete pipeline. Contracts have endDate. Filter a competitor's awards or an agency's awards and flag everything ending in the next 12 months - that is your recompete target list.

Agency budget research. Aggregate by awardingAgency across keywords to see which agencies actually spend on a capability, with real dollars attached.

Field notes

amount is the current total obligation (base plus modifications to date), so re-running later can show growth on the same award. internalId (the CONT_AWD_... style ID) is the join key for award-detail mode and for usaspending.gov links. naics and psc come back with their official descriptions, so rows are self-explanatory. Awards report with a lag - days for DoD, sometimes weeks for civilian agencies - so absolute freshness varies by agency.

More FAQ

Does this replace SAM.gov? Complementary. SAM.gov hosts pre-award opportunities; USASpending is post-award actuals. For opportunity scraping you would pair this with a SAM.gov source; for who-won-what intelligence, USASpending is the system of record.

State and local spending? Federal only - USASpending covers US federal awards, including sub-awards visible in award-detail.

Sub-award data? award-detail includes sub-award rollups where reported.

Why is awardType sometimes empty? Some older records lack the type description; the code-based filters still classify them correctly.

Grants research use? Yes - set awardType=grants with keywords like SBIR or research-area terms to map federal grant funding.

Cost for large sweeps? $3 per 1,000 awards; a full quarterly agency sweep is typically cents.

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