Federal Register Scraper

Federal Register Scraper

Scrape Federal Register documents by keyword, agency, date, or type, up to a million per run. Each document comes with its full text, metadata, and significance flag. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The Federal Register is the daily journal of the United States government, publishing proposed rules, final rules, notices, and presidential documents. This scraper pulls those documents directly from the public API, filtered by keyword, agency, date range, document type, or significance, and returns each one as a flat row.

Who uses it	What they scrape Federal Register for
Compliance officers	Monitor new regulations that affect their industry
Policy analysts	Track proposed rules and public comment periods
Journalists	Find newsworthy government actions and presidential documents
Legal researchers	Build a corpus of regulatory history for analysis

What it does

This Actor collects Federal Register documents by keyword, agency, date range, document type, or significance, and returns each one as a flat row with full text and metadata.

• 🔍 Keyword search: find documents containing a specific term in title or body.
• 🏛️ Agency filter: narrow results to one or more agencies using their IDs.
• 📅 Date range: restrict to documents published between two dates.
• 📄 Document type: choose Notices, Rules, Proposed Rules, or Presidential Documents.
• ⭐ Significance flag: return only documents marked as significant.
• 📊 Sort options: order by newest, oldest, or relevance.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Federal Register data

📈 Track regulatory changes.

A compliance officer runs the scraper daily with a keyword for their industry and a date range of the last 24 hours to catch new rules and notices.

📝 Monitor proposed rules.

A policy analyst filters by document type 'Proposed Rule' and agency ID to collect all open comment periods for a specific department.

🗞️ Find presidential documents.

A journalist sets document type to 'Presidential Document' and sorts by newest to get the latest executive orders and proclamations.

📚 Build a research dataset.

A legal researcher collects all rules from a date range and exports to JSON for text analysis of regulatory language.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Full text	Every document includes its complete body text, not a summary.
Metadata	Get agency, dates, document type, and significance flag for each record.
No API key	Uses the public Federal Register API without authentication.
Scalable	Collect up to a million documents per run.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Federal Register the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Federal Register Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Federal Register changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a keyword, agency IDs, a date range, document type, and a significance flag. Filters run as each document is read, so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.0055 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.55
1,000 results	$5.50
10,000 results	$55.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Federal Register Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Federal Register through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/federal-register-regulatory-notices-rules-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your filters. If you set a keyword, agency ID, date range, or document type, make sure they are correct. Try clearing all filters and running with a keyword or leaving everything empty to see all recent documents.

Why are my results not sorted as expected?

The 'Sort By' field defaults to 'Newest First'. If you want a different order, change it to 'Oldest First' or 'Relevance'. Note that relevance sorting works best with a keyword search.

How do I find an agency ID?

Visit federalregister.gov/api/v1/agencies in your browser. You will see a JSON list of agencies with their IDs. Copy the numeric ID for the agency you want and paste it into the 'Agency IDs' field, separated by commas if multiple.

Why did the run stop before reaching my maximum documents?

The scraper stops when it has collected the number of documents you set in 'Maximum documents' or when there are no more documents matching your filters. If you need more, broaden your filters or increase the maximum.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need an API key to use this scraper?	No. The scraper uses the public Federal Register API, which does not require authentication.
Can I filter by a specific agency?	Yes. Provide a comma-separated list of agency IDs in the 'Agency IDs' field. You can find agency IDs at federalregister.gov/api/v1/agencies.
What document types can I scrape?	You can filter by Notice, Rule, Proposed Rule, or Presidential Document. Leave the field empty to get all types.
How do I search for a keyword?	Enter a term in the 'Search term for documents' field. The scraper searches the title and body of each document.
Can I limit the number of results?	Yes. Set the 'Maximum documents' field to any number between 1 and 1,000,000.
What does the 'Significant Documents Only' option do?	When enabled, the scraper returns only documents that the Federal Register has flagged as significant, such as major regulations or executive actions.
Can I sort the results?	Yes. Choose 'Newest First', 'Oldest First', or 'Relevance' in the 'Sort By' field.
What format is the data exported in?	You can export the results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify dataset.
Is the full text of each document included?	Yes. Each record includes the complete body text of the document, along with metadata like agency, dates, and type.
Can I run this scraper on a schedule?	Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to run the actor daily, weekly, or at any custom interval.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Federal Register. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.