US Economic Calendar: BLS Release Dates (CPI, Jobs, PPI)

The official release schedule of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as flat rows: which news release is coming, for which reference period, on which date and at exactly which moment in UTC. CPI, the Employment Situation (jobs report), PPI, JOLTS, the Employment Cost Index and about forty more, each with the BLS short code, the Eastern wall-clock time, the converted UTC timestamp (daylight saving included), the schedule page and — for dates that have already passed — a link that opens the published release. No API key, no proxy, no browser.

This is a calendar of when, not a feed of how much: the schedule carries no actual, forecast or previous values.

Use cases

• Trading and model automation: ask mode: "nextRelease" for cpi and empsit every morning and schedule the rerun of a model, or a trading pause, on the exact UTC minute the number lands.
• Macro dashboards and news desks: a rolling 30-day event feed with reference periods, weekdays and hours remaining, so the calendar widget fills itself.
• Risk controls: block the half hour around the jobs report and CPI — both come at 08:30 Eastern, which is 12:30Z in summer and 13:30Z in winter, a difference that breaks hard-coded offsets twice a year.
• Event studies and backtests: pull past releases with dateFrom/dateTo and get the publication moment plus the archived release page, so a study lines up to the minute data hit the wire.
• Indicator tables for apps and agents: mode: "releaseList" returns the dictionary — code, printed name, cadence, how many dates are scheduled, the next moment — ready to store as a lookup table.
• Calendar-change monitoring: onlyNew keys on the release plus its scheduled moment, so a scheduled task emits a row exactly when BLS moves a date, and nothing on the days it does not.

Input

Nothing is required. With the defaults (and the prefilled releases) a run returns the CPI, jobs report and PPI dates of the next 90 days.

Field	Type	Default	Allowed values / notes
mode	string	calendar	calendar, nextRelease, releaseList — see Modes
releases	string[]	all	BLS short codes, e.g. ["cpi","empsit"] (prefill: cpi, empsit, ppi). Empty = every release on the schedule — see Release codes
releaseNameContains	string	—	Keep rows whose printed name contains this text, case-insensitive, e.g. price, productivity. ANDed with releases
dateFrom	string	—	Earliest release date, YYYY-MM-DD, inclusive. Eastern calendar dates, the ones BLS prints
dateTo	string	—	Latest release date, YYYY-MM-DD, inclusive
withinDays	integer	90	1–1095. Used only when both dates are empty: today up to N days ahead
onlyUpcoming	boolean	false	Drop releases whose moment has passed. nextRelease always does this
onlyNew	boolean	false	Emit only entries this input has not delivered before — see Monitoring with onlyNew
sortOrder	string	soonest	soonest or latest, by the scheduled moment
maxItems	integer	50	1–2000. A full published year is roughly 165 rows
fields	string[]	all	Keep only these output fields, in this order (releaseName is always kept)

Date rules: dateFrom/dateTo beat withinDays; giving only dateFrom reads one year from it. releases is a choice field: an unknown code is rejected by the input validation with the list of valid codes, before the run starts (so a typo like cpii never reaches the actor). To match by wording instead of codes, use the free-text releaseNameContains.

Reference

Modes

Mode	One row is	Date filters	Typical use
calendar	one scheduled release	dateFrom/dateTo, else withinDays	the event feed, past or future
nextRelease	the next date of one release	ignored — always from today	"when is the next CPI"
releaseList	one release of the dictionary	ignored — last 12 months plus everything published ahead	code → name → cadence lookup

Release codes

The codes are the ones BLS uses in its own URLs. Schedule page marks the releases that have their own schedule page (scheduleUrl); every code below links its latest edition (latestReleaseUrl) in releaseList.

Code	Release	Schedule page
cpi	Consumer Price Index	yes
empsit	Employment Situation (the jobs report)	yes
ppi	Producer Price Index	yes
jolts	Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey	yes
eci	Employment Cost Index	yes
realer	Real Earnings	yes
ximpim	U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes	yes
metro	Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment	yes
laus	State Employment and Unemployment	yes
prod2	Productivity and Costs (preliminary and revised)	yes
cewbd	Business Employment Dynamics	yes
ecec	Employer Costs for Employee Compensation	yes
cew	County Employment and Wages	yes
wkyeng	Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers	yes
jltst	State Job Openings and Labor Turnover	no
cesan	Consumer Expenditures	no
osh	Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses	no
cfoi	Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries	no
ecopro	Employment Projections and Occupational Outlook Handbook	no
atus	American Time Use Survey	no
union2	Union Membership	no
ocwage	Occupational Employment and Wages	no
wkstp	Major Work Stoppages	no
famee	Employment Characteristics of Families	no
forbrn	Labor Force Characteristics of Foreign-born Workers	no
disabl	People with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics	no
vet	Employment Situation of Veterans	no
youth	Summer Youth Labor Force	no
disp	Worker Displacement	no
ors	Occupational Requirements in the United States	no
leave	Access to and Use of Leave	no
work	Work Experience of the Population	no
prod3	Total Factor Productivity	no
prin	Productivity and Costs by Industry: Manufacturing and Mining	no
tenure	Employee Tenure	no

The schedule also prints about a dozen smaller releases that have no code of their own (benchmark revisions, one-off studies). They are returned like everything else, with releaseCode: null; filter those with releaseNameContains. Federal holidays are printed on the same pages and are not returned — they carry no release time.

Reference periods

referencePeriod is the period the data describes, referencePeriodType groups it:

Type	Examples	Releases
monthly	September 2026, December 2025	CPI, PPI, jobs report, JOLTS, state and metro employment
quarterly	Third Quarter 2026	ECI, productivity, weekly earnings, business employment dynamics
annual	Annual 2025, 2025	injuries, fatalities, union membership, expenditures
other	Biennial 2026, 2024-2025	occasional studies with an unusual period

Monitoring with onlyNew

onlyNew remembers releaseCode@releaseTimeUtc in a named key-value store (bls-release-calendar-state), one record per filter set. The first run returns everything it finds; later runs return only entries that were not there before. Because the key contains the scheduled moment, a rescheduled release counts as new — which is the point: a daily task with onlyNew: true stays quiet until BLS actually moves or adds something.

Examples

When is the next CPI, jobs report, PPI and JOLTS?

{ "mode": "nextRelease", "releases": ["cpi", "empsit", "ppi", "jolts"], "sortOrder": "soonest", "maxItems": 10 }

The US inflation block of one quarter

{ "mode": "calendar", "releases": ["cpi", "ppi", "ximpim", "realer"], "dateFrom": "2026-10-01", "dateTo": "2026-12-31", "maxItems": 30 }

Every jobs report date of a year

{ "mode": "calendar", "releases": ["empsit"], "dateFrom": "2026-01-01", "dateTo": "2026-12-31", "maxItems": 20 }

Rolling feed of the next 30 days, all releases

{ "mode": "calendar", "withinDays": 30, "onlyUpcoming": true, "sortOrder": "soonest", "maxItems": 40 }

Past releases with a link to the published text (event studies)

{ "mode": "calendar", "releases": ["cpi", "empsit", "jolts"], "dateFrom": "2026-01-01", "dateTo": "2026-06-30", "sortOrder": "latest", "maxItems": 25 }

The dictionary: codes, cadence, schedule pages

{ "mode": "releaseList", "sortOrder": "soonest", "maxItems": 60 }

Only what changed since the last run (scheduled task)

{ "mode": "calendar", "withinDays": 120, "onlyNew": true, "maxItems": 100 }

Output

One row per scheduled release. A real row from a cloud run on 2026-09-19 (defaults plus the prefilled releases):

{
  "releaseCode": "cpi",
  "releaseName": "Consumer Price Index",
  "referencePeriod": "September 2026",
  "referencePeriodType": "monthly",
  "releaseDate": "2026-10-14",
  "releaseTimeEt": "08:30",
  "releaseTimeUtc": "2026-10-14T12:30:00.000Z",
  "dayOfWeek": "Wednesday",
  "isUpcoming": true,
  "hoursUntilRelease": 591.2,
  "scheduleUrl": "https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/cpi.htm",
  "releaseUrl": null,
  "agency": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics",
  "sourceFormat": "html",
  "url": "https://www.bls.gov/schedule/2026/home.htm",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-09-19T21:18:22.922Z"
}

Field	Type	Meaning
releaseCode	string | null	BLS short code; null for the smaller releases that have none
releaseName	string	Name as the schedule prints it
referencePeriod	string | null	Period the data describes, e.g. September 2026
referencePeriodType	string	monthly, quarterly, annual, other
releaseDate	string	Release date YYYY-MM-DD, Eastern calendar day
releaseTimeEt	string	Release time HH:MM Eastern, as printed (08:30 or 10:00 for almost everything)
releaseTimeUtc	string	The same moment in UTC, ISO 8601, daylight saving applied
dayOfWeek	string	Weekday of the release
isUpcoming	boolean	Whether the moment is still ahead of fetchedAt
hoursUntilRelease	number | null	Hours left; null once the release is out
scheduleUrl	string | null	The release's own BLS schedule page, where it has one
releaseUrl	string | null	Archived release page; filled for past dates of releases that have an archive
agency	string	Always U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
sourceFormat	string	html from the schedule page, ics from the calendar feed fallback
url	string	The schedule page the row was read from
fetchedAt	string	Fetch time, ISO 8601 UTC

mode: "releaseList" writes a different row: releaseCode, releaseName, frequency (monthly, quarterly, semiannual, annual, multiple per month, irregular), scheduledCount, nextReleaseUtc, referencePeriodType, agency, scheduleUrl, latestReleaseUrl (the newest edition of that release), url, fetchedAt.

Every run also writes a SUMMARY record to the key-value store: the window actually read, the pages fetched, how many entries were parsed, how many rows were dropped by filters, whether the window had to be trimmed, and the covered years.

Dataset views: Release calendar (everything), Upcoming releases (what is still ahead, with hours remaining), Releases on the schedule (the releaseList dictionary).

Use it from code / agents

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/yadroo~bls-release-calendar/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"nextRelease","releases":["cpi","empsit"],"fields":["releaseName","referencePeriod","releaseTimeUtc"],"maxItems":5}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("yadroo/bls-release-calendar").call(run_input={
    "mode": "calendar",
    "releases": ["cpi", "empsit"],
    "withinDays": 45,
    "maxItems": 20,
})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["releaseTimeUtc"], row["releaseName"], row["referencePeriod"])

For an agent, mode: "nextRelease" with fields is the cheapest call there is: one row per indicator, three fields, a couple of seconds. The run finishes in about five seconds because it reads one or two static pages.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.001 to start a run plus $0.002 per row written. Typical runs:

Run	Rows	Cost
Next date of four indicators (nextRelease)	4	$0.009
Default run: CPI, jobs report, PPI for 90 days	9	$0.019
Rolling 30-day feed, all releases	~10	$0.021
The full dictionary (releaseList)	~47	$0.095

Compute is included in those numbers in practice: the actor runs at 256 MB without a browser and finishes in seconds.

Limits & FAQ

• No values, ever. The schedule says when a release comes out, not what the number is. Actual, forecast and previous values are not in this source and are not returned. BLS publishes the numbers themselves elsewhere.
• US and BLS only. Releases from other US statistical agencies (Commerce, the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve) and from other countries are not on this schedule, so they are not in the output.
• How far the calendar reaches. BLS publishes one year at a time; the next year appears only when BLS sets it. Earlier years stay readable in the archive, so past windows work. A window that only reaches into an unpublished year is trimmed to the last scheduled date and the run says so (trimmed: true in SUMMARY, and in the status message); a window entirely outside the published range ends with a message naming the range instead of returning an empty success.
• Times are Eastern, converted. BLS schedules in Eastern wall-clock time. releaseTimeUtc applies the real daylight-saving rules, so the same 08:30 release is 12:30Z in October and 13:30Z in November. Both are in the row — never rebuild the UTC time with a fixed offset.
• Dates move. BLS reschedules releases, and during a lapse in funding it can stop publishing altogether. Run with onlyNew: true on a schedule to be told when something changed.
• releaseUrl only exists after publication. It is left null for future dates and for the few releases whose archive uses a different naming pattern; scheduleUrl is filled only for the releases that have their own schedule page (14 of the 35 codes).
• If the schedule page changes shape, the actor falls back to the calendar feed BLS publishes for subscribing, and marks those rows sourceFormat: "ics". That feed has no reference periods, so referencePeriod is null there — a missing period is better than an invented one.
• Rate and politeness. A run makes one to three requests to www.bls.gov (one page per covered year) and reads nothing else. There is no login, no captcha and no anti-bot wall to work around.
• Licence and credit. BLS material is in the public domain and free to use; BLS asks to be cited as the source. Every row carries agency and the source url for that reason.

---

Made by Yadroo. Sibling actors: us-treasury-yields, world-bank-indicators, sec-edgar-filings, fx-rates, public-holidays.