FCC Filings & Proceedings Lookup (ECFS)

Clean, flat records of public FCC filings from the official ECFS API (Electronic Comment Filing System), the FCC's live, developer-facing JSON service. Search by docket/proceeding, filer, or full text, and run it on a schedule in changes-only mode to pull just the new filings since the last run.

Note on scope

The FCC's older ULS license-view JSON API has been retired, so this actor targets ECFS, the FCC's maintained public filings API. It covers proceedings, comments, and filings (the high-demand, queryable surface), not ULS license records.

Input

• Proceeding / docket (for example 17-59), Full-text search, Filer name, Received on/after, Sort, Mode (full / changes).
• FCC API key: optional free api.data.gov key; falls back to DEMO_KEY (rate-limited) or an FCC_API_KEY actor secret.
• Max delivered filings, API page size.

Output

One row per filing: submissionId, submissionType, proceedings, filers, authors, lawFirms, bureaus, dateReceived, dateDisseminated, documentCount, documentUrls, pageCount, viewingStatus, changeType, plus provenance (sourceUrl is the ECFS filing page, retrievedAt, confidence, dataSource).

How it works

Every value is copied from the ECFS record; nested fields (proceedings, filers, documents) are flattened and joined, and absent fields are null, never invented. A page that fails to fetch is logged to the free rejected dataset; a search that matches nothing bills nothing.

Billing

Pay per delivered filing. Empty result sets and fetch failures cost nothing.

Sample output

A real run of public FCC filings from the official ECFS API:

proceeding	type	filer	received
11-42	PUBLIC NOTICE	Wireline Competition Bure…	2026-06-05
11-42	REPLY TO COMMEN…	National Association of S…	2026-06-02
11-42	REPLY TO COMMEN…	National Lifeline Associa…	2026-06-02
11-42	REPLY	Summit Ridge Group, LLC	2026-06-02

Every row carries a sourceUrl to the filing, for example https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings/filing/1060556591362.

Use cases

• Track a proceeding you care about: pull every filing in a docket (for example 17-59), or just the new ones since your last run in changes mode.
• Monitor a filer or law firm: search by filer name to see what an organization is submitting across proceedings.
• Build a regulatory-watch dashboard: a scheduled changes-mode run delivers only the new filings, each with its documents and a link to the ECFS page.
• Feed an analyst or a model clean filing records instead of scraping the ECFS web search.

FAQ

• Is this the official source? Yes. It reads the FCC's maintained ECFS JSON API, not a scrape of the web search. The older ULS license-view API was retired, so this covers proceedings, comments, and filings.
• Does a docket search match exactly? Yes. A query for 11-42 returns filings in 11-42, not 11-420; the docket match is exact.
• Do I need an API key? No. It falls back to the public DEMO_KEY; a free api.data.gov key (or an actor secret) raises the rate limit.
• How am I billed? Per delivered filing. Empty result sets and fetch failures cost nothing.

See also

More clean, pay-only-for-results data tools from Pono Data:

• Regulatory Change Monitor - federal rulemaking from the Federal Register
• FARA Foreign Agent Feed - DOJ FARA registrant-to-principal records
• FDA Food Recall & Enforcement Alerts - US food recalls and enforcement reports

Full catalog: https://apify.com/thoob