Federal Awards & Spending Lookup (USAspending.gov)

Search the U.S. Treasury's official USAspending.gov database for federal contracts, grants, loans, direct payments, and IDVs awarded to any company or organization. No API key required — uses the public USAspending REST API.

Use case

B2G (business-to-government) sales intelligence and vendor due diligence: "Has this company received federal money, how much, from which agencies, and for what?"

Input

At least one search filter is required: recipientName, naicsCodes, awardingAgencies, or placeOfPerformanceStates. When more than one is given they are combined (AND).

Field	Type	Default	Description
recipientName	string	—	Company or org name to search (partial/fuzzy OK). Optional if another filter is given
naicsCodes	array	—	Filter by NAICS industry code(s), e.g. ["541511"]
awardingAgencies	array	—	Filter by top-level awarding agency name(s), e.g. ["Department of Defense"]
placeOfPerformanceStates	array	—	Filter by 2-letter place-of-performance state code(s), e.g. ["MS","TX"]
awardTypes	array	all	contracts, grants, loans, direct_payments, idvs, other_financial_assistance
includeSubawards	boolean	false	Also return prime → sub-award (subcontractor / subrecipient) records
includeRecipientHierarchy	boolean	false	Add each recipient's corporate parent (parent UEI + name)
sinceFiscalYear	integer	last 5 FYs	Earliest FY to include (FY starts Oct 1; min 2008)
maxResults	integer	50	Max prime-award records across all types (sub-awards get their own budget)

Input examples

Search by recipient name (default):

{
  "recipientName": "Lockheed Martin",
  "awardTypes": ["contracts", "idvs"],
  "sinceFiscalYear": 2022
}

Search by NAICS code, no company name, with sub-awards and parent hierarchy:

{
  "naicsCodes": ["541511"],
  "awardingAgencies": ["Department of Defense"],
  "includeSubawards": true,
  "includeRecipientHierarchy": true,
  "maxResults": 100
}

Output record shape

Field	Description
recipientName	Recipient name as reported by USAspending
awardId	Award ID (contract number, grant number, etc.)
awardType	Contract / Grant / Loan / Direct Payment / IDV / Other
awardingAgency	Top-level awarding agency
awardingSubAgency	Awarding sub-agency or office
amount	Obligated amount in USD
description	Award description (may be lengthy for contracts)
startDate	Award start date (YYYY-MM-DD)
endDate	Award end or expiry date
placeOfPerformanceState	2-letter state code for place of performance
recipientUei	Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) of the recipient
sourceUrl	Direct link to the award page on usaspending.gov
retrievedAt	ISO timestamp of data retrieval
recordType	prime or subaward
naicsCode / naicsDescription	NAICS industry code + label (contracts / IDVs)
pscCode / pscDescription	Product & Service Code + label (contracts / IDVs)
cfdaNumber	CFDA / Assistance Listing number (grants, loans, direct payments, other)
recipientId	USAspending recipient hash id (stable key for the recipient)
parentUei / parentName	Recipient's corporate parent (only when includeRecipientHierarchy is on)
primeAwardId / primeRecipientName	On sub-award records: the parent prime award and its recipient

Billing

Priced per returned award record (apify-default-dataset-item). A query that returns 0 results costs nothing beyond the minimal run overhead.

Caveats

• Award-type grouping: USAspending requires all codes in one request to be from the same award group (contracts, grants, loans, etc.). This actor queries each group separately and merges results.
• Recipient name fuzziness: USAspending's recipient_search_text matches broadly. This actor applies a word-overlap filter to reduce false positives but may include subsidiaries or name variants of the queried company.
• Amount = obligated: The amount field reflects the obligated amount, not the total contract ceiling or base-and-all-options value.
• NAICS/PSC vs CFDA: NAICS and PSC codes are populated for procurement awards (contracts, IDVs); CFDA / assistance-listing numbers are populated for financial-assistance awards (grants, loans, direct payments, other). The non-applicable code is null on each record.
• Sub-awards: When includeSubawards is on, sub-award records match your filter against the sub-recipient (e.g. where a company is a subcontractor). They carry recordType="subaward" and link back to the prime via primeAwardId / primeRecipientName.
• Recipient hierarchy: parentUei / parentName come from USAspending's recipient endpoint and are only populated when includeRecipientHierarchy is enabled.
• Coverage: Reliable data from FY 2008 onward (USAspending's stated earliest reliable coverage).

Data source

U.S. Department of the Treasury — USAspending.gov public API: https://api.usaspending.gov
Public domain data, no authentication required.

FAQ

How do I find out how much federal money a company has received? Run this actor with the company's recipientName. It searches the official USAspending.gov database and returns every federal contract, grant, loan, direct payment, and IDV awarded to that recipient, with the obligated amount, awarding agency, dates, and a direct link to each award.

Is there a free API to search federal contracts by company? This actor is pay-per-result (you only pay for award records returned; a zero-result query costs nothing beyond minimal overhead) and it runs on the U.S. Treasury's free, public USAspending REST API — no API key required.

What kinds of federal awards does it cover? Contracts, grants, loans, direct payments, IDVs, and other financial assistance, from fiscal year 2008 onward (USAspending's earliest reliable coverage).

Can I use this for B2G sales or vendor due diligence? Yes — that's the core use case: see whether a prospect or counterparty has won federal money, how much, from which agencies, and for what work.