USAspending Contracts Scraper

USAspending Contracts Scraper

Scrape federal contract awards from USAspending.gov by recipient, fiscal year, or award type, up to a million per run. Each award comes with its agency, amount, recipient, and award ID. No API key or login. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

USAspending.gov is the official open data source for U.S. federal awards, but its website is built for browsing, not bulk analysis. This Actor reads the public award feeds directly, filtered by recipient name, fiscal year, or award type group, and returns each contract in one fixed schema. No API key, no registration, no rate limits.

Who uses it	What they scrape USAspending for
Government contractors	Which agencies are awarding contracts in their industry
Market researchers	How federal spending shifts across fiscal years
Sales teams	Which companies are winning federal contracts
Journalists	Which vendors receive the largest awards
Nonprofits	Which grants and loans are available in their sector

What it does

This Actor collects federal contract awards from USAspending.gov by recipient keyword, fiscal year, or award type group, and returns each award as a flat row.

• 🎯 Recipient filter: search by company name, DUNS, or UEI to see all awards to a specific vendor.
• 📅 Fiscal year filter: pull awards from any fiscal year since 2008, or leave empty for the current year.
• 🏷️ Award type group: choose contracts, grants, loans, direct payments, other financial assistance, or IDVs.
• 🔢 Max items control: set a hard cap from 1 to 1,000,000 awards per run to stay within your storage budget.

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

What you can do with USAspending data

📈 Track federal spending trends.

A market researcher pulls all contracts for a fiscal year and groups by agency to see which departments are increasing their procurement budgets.

🎯 Find competitor wins.

A government contractor searches by a rival's name to see every award they have won, including amounts and agencies, to adjust their bid strategy.

📊 Build a lead list.

A sales team filters by award type group 'contracts' and fiscal year to get a list of recent award recipients, then cross-references with their CRM.

🔍 Investigate specific vendors.

A journalist searches by a company name to uncover all federal awards to that vendor, including grants and loans, for a story on government spending.

💼 Monitor grant opportunities.

A nonprofit sets the award type group to 'grants' and fiscal year to the current year to see which organizations are receiving federal grants in their field.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Reads the public USAspending award feeds directly, no registration or OAuth.
Fixed schema	Every award returns the same flat fields, ready for CSV or database import.
Bulk export	Collect up to a million awards per run and export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Flexible filters	Combine recipient, fiscal year, and award type to narrow down to exactly the awards you need.

How it compares

This Actor focuses on raw USAspending award data with simple filters, while competitors add AI analysis or combine SAM.gov opportunities.

Feature	ParseForge	USAspending Contracts Intelligence - Federal Data	SAM.gov + USAspending Scraper - Federal Contract Leads	SAM.gov Scraper - Federal Contracts & RFP Monitor (No API Key)
Filter by recipient name	Yes	Not listed	Yes	Not listed
Filter by fiscal year	Yes	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed
Filter by award type group	Yes	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed
No API key required	Yes	Not listed	Not listed	Yes
AI opportunity analysis	Not listed	Yes	Not listed	Yes
SAM.gov active opportunities	Not listed	Not listed	Yes	Yes

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from recipient name, fiscal year, and award type group, alone or together, and filters run as each award 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: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.10
1,000 results	$21.00
10,000 results	$210.00

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 USAspending Contracts 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 USAspending 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/usaspending-contracts-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 recipientSearch keyword, make sure it matches a real recipient name. Also verify the fiscalYear is within 2008-2030 and the awardTypeGroup is spelled correctly.

The run is taking too long.

Lower the maxItems value to reduce the number of awards collected. You can also narrow your filters to a specific fiscal year or recipient.

I got an error about invalid input.

Ensure fiscalYear is an integer between 2008 and 2030, and awardTypeGroup is one of the allowed values: contracts, grants, loans, direct_payments, other_financial_assistance, idvs.

The output is missing some fields.

USAspending may not provide every field for every award. The Actor returns all fields that are present in the source data; missing fields will be null or absent.

Can I get more than 1,000,000 awards?

The maximum is 1,000,000 per run. If you need more, split your query by fiscal year or award type and run multiple times.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need an API key for USAspending?	No. This Actor reads the public USAspending.gov award feeds directly, so no API key, registration, or authentication is required.
What is the maximum number of awards I can scrape?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 awards per run. The default is 10 for quick testing.
Can I filter by recipient name?	Yes, use the recipientSearch field to enter a keyword like a company name, DUNS, or UEI. The Actor will return only awards where the recipient matches that keyword.
What fiscal years are supported?	You can set fiscalYear from 2008 to 2030. Leave it empty to use the current fiscal year.
What award type groups can I choose?	The awardTypeGroup field accepts contracts, grants, loans, direct_payments, other_financial_assistance, or idvs. The default is contracts.
What format is the output?	The Actor returns each award as a flat JSON object. You can export the dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
Is this legal?	Yes. USAspending.gov is a public government website, and this Actor only reads publicly available data without bypassing any access controls.
Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically?	Yes, you can set up a schedule in Apify to run the Actor daily, weekly, or monthly to keep your dataset up to date.
Does this Actor include grants and loans?	Yes, you can select awardTypeGroup as grants, loans, direct_payments, or other_financial_assistance to get those award types instead of contracts.
What is an IDV?	IDV stands for Indefinite Delivery Vehicle, which is a type of contract that allows for multiple orders over a period of time. You can select idvs in the awardTypeGroup field.

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🆘 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 USAspending.gov. 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.