Federal Register API Scraper & Regulation Monitor

Federal Register API Scraper & Regulation Monitor returns US federal rules, proposed rules, notices and presidential documents from the public FederalRegister.gov API as clean JSON rows, with no API key needed. Two modes:

• Published documents: search everything published in the Federal Register by words, document type, agency, publication date, comment deadline, effective date, docket, RIN or CFR title and part.
• Public inspection: the documents agencies have filed for publication in the coming days, before they appear in the Federal Register.

Turn on monitor mode and schedule the Actor daily to get only the documents you haven't seen before.

Use it as a Federal Register API for regulatory monitoring: follow proposed rules, final rules and regulations, notices and presidential documents such as executive orders, with comment deadlines, by agency, docket, RIN or CFR title and part, and see public inspection documents before they are published. Export rows as CSV, JSON or Excel.

Not an official Federal Register product. This Actor is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Office of the Federal Register, the National Archives (NARA) or the Government Publishing Office. It uses the public FederalRegister.gov API. FederalRegister.gov is not the official legal edition of the Federal Register: the official edition is the PDF on govInfo, linked in every row as pdfUrl.

Why use this Federal Register API?

• Public-domain government data, no key. Rows come straight from the FederalRegister.gov API, which is open to everyone.
• Comment deadlines up front. Filter to documents still open for comment, or closing in the next N days, with the comment close date and the Regulations.gov comment link in each row.
• Agencies by name. Enter EPA, FDA, Environmental Protection Agency or the federalregister.gov slug; unknown names get a free status row that says so.
• Filters are applied before you're charged. You pay only for documents that match. Status rows (no matches, unknown agency, search limit and so on) are free.
• Dates roll forward. publishedWithinDays counts back from each run, so a saved, scheduled task always covers the latest days.
• Polite to the source. Requests are paced (one at a time, at least half a second apart) and retried after rate-limit or server errors.

How do I search the Federal Register? Quick start

Press Start with the prefilled input, or paste this into the JSON view of the Input tab. It returns up to 25 final and proposed rules published in the last 30 days that mention artificial intelligence.

{
  "mode": "documents",
  "searchTerm": "artificial intelligence",
  "documentTypes": ["RULE", "PRORULE"],
  "publishedWithinDays": 30,
  "maxResults": 25
}

In our test run on 30 October 2026 it returned 14 documents published from 30 September to 30 October. Put the phrase in double quotes ("\"artificial intelligence\"") to match the exact phrase only.

Proposed rules from the EPA still open for comment:

{
  "mode": "documents",
  "documentTypes": ["PRORULE"],
  "agencies": ["EPA"],
  "publishedWithinDays": 0,
  "commentsOpenOnly": true,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Documents the EPA has filed for publication in the coming days:

{
  "mode": "publicInspection",
  "agencies": ["environmental-protection-agency"],
  "maxResults": 25
}

Who it's for

• Compliance, legal and public-affairs teams tracking new rules and comment deadlines in their sector.
• Trade associations and consultancies sending clients regulatory updates.
• Researchers, journalists and data teams feeding regulatory data into spreadsheets, databases or AI agents.

What can I do with Federal Register data?

1. Comment-deadline tracker. Proposed rules from your agencies whose comment period closes in the next 14 days.
2. Daily regulatory alert. New rules matching your words or agencies, with monitorMode on and a daily schedule.
3. Docket or RIN history. Every document on one docket or regulation identifier number, oldest to newest.
4. Early warning. Public inspection documents from your agencies, a day or more before they are published.

What does the output look like?

Five of the 14 rows from the Quick start input (run on 30 October 2026):

Published	Type	Agency	Title (shortened)	Comments close
2026-10-30	Rule	Education Department	Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization: The Secretary's Recognition of Accrediting Agencies…	–
2026-10-28	Rule	Health and Human Services Department	Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: ONC Deregulatory Actions…	–
2026-10-20	Proposed Rule	Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Health and Human Services Department	Medicare Program; Implementation of Sections 6219, 6220, and 6224 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026	2026-12-15
2026-10-13	Rule	Forest Service, Agriculture Department	Project-Level Predecisional Administrative Review Process	–
2026-09-30	Rule	National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Transportation Department	The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule III for Model Years 2022 to 2031…	–

Input: how do I filter Federal Register documents?

Only mode is required. Fields marked Published documents only apply to the documents mode.

Mode (mode)

documents (default) or publicInspection.

Search term (searchTerm)

Words to search for. Put exact phrases in double quotes. In public inspection mode every word must appear in the title, agency names or docket numbers.

Document types (documentTypes)

Any of RULE, PRORULE, NOTICE, PRESDOCU. Empty means all types.

Agencies (agencies)

Agency slugs (environmental-protection-agency), names or short names (EPA).

Published within the last N days (publishedWithinDays)

Published documents only. Date window counted back from today. Default 7; 0 means no date limit.

Published since (publishedSince)

Published documents only. Fixed start date (YYYY-MM-DD). Overrides publishedWithinDays.

Published until (publishedUntil)

Published documents only. Fixed end date (YYYY-MM-DD).

Only documents open for public comment (commentsOpenOnly)

Published documents only. Only documents whose comment period closes today or later.

Comment period closes within N days (commentsClosingWithinDays)

Published documents only. Only documents whose comment period closes in the next N days.

Only significant documents (EO 12866) (significantOnly)

Published documents only. Only documents deemed significant under Executive Order 12866.

Docket ID (docketId)

Published documents only. Only documents on one docket, e.g. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0317.

Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) (regulationIdNumber)

Published documents only. Only documents with one RIN, e.g. 2060-AV16.

CFR title (cfrTitle)

Published documents only. Documents affecting a Code of Federal Regulations title, e.g. 21.

CFR part (cfrPart)

Published documents only. With cfrTitle: documents affecting one part of it, e.g. 101.

Effective from (effectiveFrom)

Published documents only. Start of an effective-date range.

Effective to (effectiveTo)

Published documents only. End of an effective-date range.

Max documents (maxResults)

Most documents per run, newest first. Default 25; 0 means no limit.

Monitor mode (monitorMode)

Return only documents not returned before. See How do I monitor new federal rules and proposed rules? below.

Return documents on the first monitor run (emitBaselineOnFirstRun)

Default on. See How do I monitor new federal rules and proposed rules? below.

Monitor state store name (stateStoreName)

Named key-value store that holds what was already returned. Use a different name for each saved search you monitor. See How do I monitor new federal rules and proposed rules? below.

Output: what fields does each document have?

Every row has rowType. A document row (document, values shortened):

{
  "rowType": "document",
  "documentNumber": "2026-22174",
  "documentType": "Rule",
  "title": "Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization: ...",
  "action": "Final rule.",
  "abstract": "The Department revises the existing accrediting agency recognition regulations ...",
  "agencies": ["Education Department"],
  "agencySlugs": ["education-department"],
  "publicationDate": "2026-10-30",
  "effectiveOn": "2027-07-01",
  "commentsCloseOn": null,
  "commentUrl": null,
  "docketIds": ["Docket ID ED-2026-OPE-1042"],
  "regulationIdNumbers": ["1840-AD82"],
  "cfrReferences": ["34 CFR 600", "34 CFR 602", "34 CFR 668"],
  "topics": ["Colleges and universities", "Student aid"],
  "significant": false,
  "citation": "91 FR 68626",
  "pageLength": 109,
  "htmlUrl": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/30/2026-22174/...",
  "pdfUrl": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-10-30/pdf/2026-22174.pdf",
  "dataSource": "FederalRegister.gov API",
  "licence": "Public domain (US government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105). No restrictions on republication of Federal Register material.",
  "attribution": "Source: Federal Register (FederalRegister.gov API), Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. Not endorsed by the Office of the Federal Register or NARA."
}

Presidential documents also have presidentialDocumentType, executiveOrderNumber and signingDate.

A public inspection row (public_inspection) has the document number, title, agencies, filing type (regular or special), the time it was filed, the scheduled publication date, page count, any editorial note and the PDF link.

Status rows (status, free): unknown_agency, no_matches, no_data, scan_limit, source_error or budget_reached, each with a plain-English message.

The SUMMARY record in the default key-value store lists the filters used, how many documents matched and were returned, request counts and the run time. The dataset has views for Overview, Comment deadlines, Public inspection and Status rows.

How do I monitor new federal rules and proposed rules?

Set monitorMode to true and schedule a saved task (daily suits the Federal Register, which publishes on business days). The Actor remembers the document numbers it has returned (for 400 days) in the named key-value store stateStoreName, and returns only documents it hasn't returned before, marked changeType: "new".

• emitBaselineOnFirstRun (default true) returns current matches on the first run. Set it to false to remember them silently, without charge, and get only later documents.
• Use a different stateStoreName for each separate monitor.

Data source, licence and attribution

Every row carries licence, licenceUrl and attribution. Rows are normalised by this Actor (field names, dates, contact details removed), so they are modified from the original documents.

Source	Feed	Licence or terms	Attribution (in every row's attribution)
Federal Register	FederalRegister.gov API v1 (documents search and public inspection list)	US federal government work, public domain in the US (17 U.S.C. § 105). The Federal Register's Reader Aids say: "There are no restrictions on the republication of material appearing in the Federal Register."	Source: Federal Register (FederalRegister.gov API), Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. Not endorsed by the Office of the Federal Register or NARA.

Government documents only, no personal contacts

Rows hold government document data: titles, agencies, dates, dockets, CFR references and links. Agency contact names and phone numbers in the document body are not copied (the body is linked, not returned), and emails and phone numbers are removed from the free-text fields this Actor does return (title, action, abstract, dates and editorial note). Names of officials or companies can appear in a title or abstract when the document is about them, as published.

What are the limits?

• Source: the FederalRegister.gov API only. It is not the official legal edition; use the govInfo PDF in pdfUrl for legal work.
• Results per search: FederalRegister.gov pages through at most 10,000 results of one search. When a search hits that cap, the run adds a free scan_limit row; narrow the dates, types or agencies, or split the date range.
• Date range: documents from 1994 onwards. publishedWithinDays goes up to 36,500 days; 0 means no date limit.
• Public inspection: only the current public inspection list (documents filed for the next publication days). Filters are applied by this Actor, by type, agency and words in the title, agency names and docket numbers.
• Monitor memory: document numbers are remembered for 400 days per stateStoreName.
• Pacing: one request at a time, at least half a second apart, with retries after rate-limit or server errors.

How much does it cost to get Federal Register documents?

Pay per event:

Event	Price
Document returned	$0.002
Alert run with new matches (monitor mode only, once per run that returns at least one new document)	$0.01
Actor start	$0.00005

Higher Apify plans get lower prices (shown on the Pricing tab). Status rows, the SUMMARY record and monitor runs with nothing new are free of document and alert charges. Set Maximum cost per run in the run options: the Actor stops before going over it and adds a free budget_reached row.

Use the Federal Register API from code, spreadsheets or an AI agent

Run it with the Apify API or client libraries, schedule it, or connect it to Make, Zapier, Google Sheets or webhooks through Apify integrations. AI agents can call it through Apify's MCP server.

The examples below return at most 10 documents (plus any free status rows) and set a maximum cost of $0.05 for the run, so trying them costs a few cents at most. Read your API token from an environment variable (APIFY_TOKEN) rather than pasting it into code.

JavaScript (Node.js)

// npm install apify-client
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('yourevenings/federal-register-api').call(
  {
    "mode": "documents",
    "searchTerm": "artificial intelligence",
    "documentTypes": [
      "RULE",
      "PRORULE"
    ],
    "publishedWithinDays": 30,
    "maxResults": 10
  },
  { maxTotalChargeUsd: 0.05 },
);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

# pip install "apify-client>=3"
import os
from decimal import Decimal
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("yourevenings/federal-register-api").call(
    run_input={
        "mode": "documents",
        "searchTerm": "artificial intelligence",
        "documentTypes": [
            "RULE",
            "PRORULE"
        ],
        "publishedWithinDays": 30,
        "maxResults": 10
    },
    max_total_charge_usd=Decimal("0.05"),
)
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

HTTP API (cURL)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/yourevenings~federal-register-api/run-sync-get-dataset-items?maxTotalChargeUsd=0.05" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "documents", "searchTerm": "artificial intelligence", "documentTypes": ["RULE", "PRORULE"], "publishedWithinDays": 30, "maxResults": 10}'

AI agents (MCP)

Add Apify's MCP server with just this Actor as a tool. On first connection your browser opens so you can sign in to Apify and approve access.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=yourevenings/federal-register-api"
    }
  }
}

FAQ

Is this the official Federal Register? No. It reads the public FederalRegister.gov API, which is not the official legal edition. Each row links the official PDF on govInfo.

How far back does it go? FederalRegister.gov has documents from 1994 onwards. Set publishedSince (or publishedWithinDays to 0) and narrow the search so it stays under 10,000 results per run.

How do I track comment deadlines? Set commentsClosingWithinDays (for example 14) or commentsOpenOnly, usually with documentTypes: ["PRORULE"] and your agencies. Each row has the comment close date (commentsCloseOn) and the Regulations.gov comment link (commentUrl).

Why is a document in public inspection but not in Published documents? Public inspection documents are filed before publication. They appear in Published documents on their scheduled publication date.

Feedback

Found a problem or need a field? Open an issue on the Issues tab.