USAspending Scraper: 6 Award Types, 18 Fields, No Key

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Every US federal contract, grant, loan and direct payment, filterable by agency, recipient, NAICS, state and dollar amount. 18 fields per award, no API key.

Why use this federal awards scraper

USAspending.gov publishes every dollar the US federal government awards, but its search API expects award-type code arrays, tiered agency objects and field lists that differ depending on what you are asking for. This actor takes plain inputs and builds that request for you.

Six award categories are supported, each mapping to the correct set of USAspending type codes: contracts, idvs (indefinite delivery vehicles), grants, direct_payments, loans and other_assistance. Pick one per run.

Eight filters compose freely: keywords, awarding agency, recipient name, NAICS codes, place-of-performance state, minimum amount, maximum amount and a date window. Results come back sorted by award amount descending, so the biggest awards arrive first and a modest maxResults still gives you the ones that matter.

Contract and IDV runs additionally carry NAICS and PSC codes with their descriptions. Assistance awards carry the assistance award type instead, because that is what USAspending exposes for them.

No API key. USAspending's API is fully open.

Find the largest federal contracts in a category

Keywords search across award descriptions and recipient names. Results are sorted by award amount descending, so this returns the biggest matching contracts first.

{
  "keywords": [
    "cybersecurity"
  ],
  "awardType": "contracts",
  "maxResults": 200,
  "dateFrom": "2025-01-01"
}

Track every award to one recipient

recipientSearch matches the recipient name. Use it to build a company's full federal revenue picture across agencies.

{
  "recipientSearch": "Booz Allen Hamilton",
  "awardType": "contracts",
  "dateFrom": "2024-01-01",
  "maxResults": 500
}

Pull grants from a specific agency in a state

Agency names must match how USAspending lists them, for example Department of Health and Human Services. placeOfPerformanceState takes a two-letter code.

{
  "awardType": "grants",
  "agencies": [
    "Department of Health and Human Services"
  ],
  "placeOfPerformanceState": "CA",
  "minAmount": 1000000,
  "maxResults": 300
}

Filter contracts by industry code and dollar band

naicsCodes only applies to contract-like award types. Combine with minAmount and maxAmount to isolate a specific deal size in a specific industry.

{
  "awardType": "contracts",
  "naicsCodes": [
    "541512"
  ],
  "minAmount": 500000,
  "maxAmount": 10000000,
  "dateFrom": "2025-06-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-06-01",
  "maxResults": 400
}

What data you get back

18 fields per award.

Field	What it is
award_id	USAspending award identifier
recipient_name	Awarded organisation
recipient_id	USAspending's internal recipient id
awarding_agency	Top-tier awarding agency
awarding_sub_agency	Sub-agency
award_amount	Dollar amount, as a number
award_type	Contract award type, or assistance award type
award_category	The category you requested
naics	NAICS industry code, contracts and IDVs only
naics_description	Plain-English NAICS description
psc	Product or service code, contracts and IDVs only
psc_description	Plain-English PSC description
start_date	Period of performance start
end_date	Period of performance end
place_of_performance_state	State code where the work happens
description	Award description text
award_url	Direct link to the award page on usaspending.gov
scraped_at	ISO timestamp of capture

Records also carry internal_id and agency_slug where USAspending returns them. A final _type: "summary" reports the category, the award count, the date window used and the charged count.

How it works

The actor posts to api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/, translating your awardType into the matching USAspending type-code array and requesting only the fields valid for that group. Contracts and IDVs get NAICS and PSC; assistance types get the award type instead.

Results page 100 at a time, sorted by award amount descending, and stop when your maxResults is met or USAspending reports no next page.

If you do not set dateFrom, the window defaults to the last 365 days. Dates before 2007-10-01 are clamped, since that is where USAspending's coverage begins.

NAICS and PSC arrive from the API as objects rather than strings; the code and description are split into separate fields so the values stay usable.

Who uses federal awards data

GovCon business development. Find who is winning work in your NAICS, at what size, for which agency, and how their period of performance is running out.

Competitor analysis. recipientSearch on a competitor returns their federal revenue by agency and by industry code.

Grant research. Filter grants by agency, state and minimum amount to find funders active in a programme area.

Economic and policy research. Aggregate spend by state, agency or industry code over a date window.

What it costs

One pay-per-event charge, award-scraped, billed per award that actually lands in your dataset. Your rate depends on your own Apify discount tier:

Your Apify tier	Per award	Per 1,000
FREE	$0.0035	$3.50
BRONZE	$0.00315	$3.15
SILVER	$0.0028	$2.80
GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND	$0.0025	$2.50

Nothing else is billed. Failed requests, blocked pages, empty searches and error records are never charged, so a run that returns no awards costs nothing. There is no subscription and no monthly minimum.

Run it on a schedule

Scheduled runs are the pattern most people end up on: smaller, more frequent runs finish faster, keep the data fresh, and cost exactly the same per record as one big run.

1. On this actor's page, click ... -> Schedule Actor (or Console -> Schedules -> Create new).
2. Pick a frequency. @daily suits most standing queries.
3. Your saved input is reused on every run and each run appends to the dataset.
4. Wire the dataset to Google Sheets, Slack, or a webhook from the Integrations tab so new rows reach you without you looking.

FAQ

Do I need a USAspending API key? No. The API is fully open.

Can I mix award types in one run? No. awardType takes one category per run because USAspending's field list differs by category. Run once per category and combine downstream.

Why is naics empty on my results? NAICS and PSC only exist for contracts and IDVs. Grants, loans, direct payments and other assistance do not carry them.

How far back does the data go? USAspending's coverage starts 2007-10-01, and dates earlier than that are clamped to it.

How do I write agency names? Exactly as USAspending lists them, for example Department of Defense or Department of Health and Human Services. They match top-tier awarding agencies.

Are results sorted? Yes, by award amount descending. So even a small maxResults returns the largest matching awards.

What if nothing matches? The run logs it, writes a summary and charges nothing.

Use it from Claude, ChatGPT and any MCP agent

Hosted MCP endpoint, no install, OAuth on first connect:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/usaspending-federal-awards

Claude Desktop / Cursor config with token auth:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "usaspending": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/usaspending-federal-awards",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Or call it from code with the Apify client:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('themineworks/usaspending-federal-awards').call({
  "keywords": [
    "cybersecurity"
  ],
  "awardType": "contracts",
  "maxResults": 100
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Related actors

• SAM.gov Contracts Scraper: the opportunities side, before the award is made.
• SEC EDGAR Filings Scraper: what the public recipients tell their investors.
• Federal Register Scraper: the rules and notices behind the programmes.
• FEC Campaign Finance: political contribution data on the same organisations.

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Disclaimer: This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury or USAspending.gov. It uses the public USAspending API. Award data is published by the US federal government.

Found a bug or want a field added? Open an issue from the actor's Apify Console page or reach out through the The Mine Works profile.

Related guides

• Federal Contract Intelligence: Track Government Awards with the USAspending API
• USASpending.gov API: How to Pull Federal Contracts, Grants, and Awards Programmatically

Last verified: 2026-08