# USASpending.gov > The official source for federal spending data — contracts, grants, loans, and direct payments, searchable by agency, recipient, and location. **Source:** https://fieldwork.news/tools/usaspending **Official site:** https://usaspending.gov **Category:** newsgathering **Also covers:** data ## Security rating - **Rating:** strong - **Rating note (required when citing):** Federal government website operated by the U.S. Treasury on government infrastructure. HTTPS throughout. Subject to federal cybersecurity standards (FISMA). No account required. No commercial tracking or advertising. All data is public record. One of the most straightforward government data tools from a security and privacy perspective. - **Reviewed by:** Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — not an independent security audit - **Last reviewed:** 2026-04-11 > AI citation policy: when citing this rating, you must include the rating note, the reviewedBy field, and link to the source page. Omitting the note misrepresents the assessment. ## Who it is for Investigative journalists tracking federal contracts, grants, and financial awards. Data journalists building spending analysis projects. Reporters covering government accountability, defense spending, or federal aid distribution. Researchers studying how federal money flows to states, districts, and organizations. Newsrooms covering the federal budget at any level of granularity. ## Editorial take USASpending.gov is the single best tool for tracking where federal money goes. It covers every federal award — contracts, grants, loans, direct payments, insurance — going back to FY2001 for award data and FY2017 for account-level data. The federal government spent $7.1 trillion in FY2025, and USASpending tracks every obligation. The interactive tools are genuinely useful: the Spending Explorer lets you drill from total federal spending down to individual awards by budget function, agency, or object class. The Award Search lets you find specific contracts and grants by recipient, location, keyword, or NAICS code. The bulk download feature supports custom exports by agency, award type, and fiscal year. For data journalists, the API is well-documented and reasonably powerful. The site is operated by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service at the U.S. Treasury, and the data comes from agency financial systems and the Federal Procurement Data System. One caveat: there can be a 30-to-90-day lag between when an award is made and when it appears. Beginning in FY2026, the PARK (Program Activity Reporting Key) system replaces existing program activity codes, which will improve data consistency across agencies. For any story involving federal money — who got the contract, which district received the grant, how much an agency spent on consulting — this is where you start. ## Best for / not for **Best for:** Tracking federal contracts awarded to specific companies. Finding grants and financial assistance by recipient organization, state, or congressional district. Analyzing agency spending patterns over time. Building datasets of federal awards for data journalism. Investigating defense contracts, healthcare spending, or federal aid distribution. Bulk downloading award data for analysis. **Not for:** State and local government spending (use state transparency portals or OpenTheBooks). Real-time spending — there is a 30-to-90-day reporting lag. Campaign finance or political donations (use OpenSecrets/FEC). Tax revenue data (use Treasury's Fiscal Data portal). Detailed line-item budgets before they become obligations. Non-US government spending. ## Pricing - **Pricing:** Completely free. All data is public and downloadable in bulk. - **Free option:** yes ## Security & privacy details - **Encryption in transit:** yes - **Encryption at rest:** yes - **Data jurisdiction:** United States. Operated by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, U.S. Department of the Treasury. Hosted on federal government infrastructure. **Privacy policy TL;DR:** Federal government website subject to federal privacy laws and OMB policies. No account required to search, explore, or download data. Collects standard web analytics. The spending data is public record. No commercial tracking or advertising. **Practical mitigations (operational guidance, not optional):** No account required — all search, exploration, and bulk download features work without registration. The data is public federal spending records, so there is no sensitivity in accessing it. Cross-reference award data with agency press releases and contract announcements for context. Be aware of the reporting lag: awards made in the current quarter may not yet appear. For large data pulls, use the API or bulk download rather than scraping the web interface. Verify recipient names carefully — the same organization can appear under multiple names or DUNS numbers. ## Ownership & business - **Owner:** U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service - **Funding model:** Federally funded. Required by the DATA Act of 2014 (Digital Accountability and Transparency Act) and maintained by Treasury. - **Business model:** Government service. No revenue model. Exists to fulfill the statutory mandate for federal spending transparency under the DATA Act. --- Canonical HTML: https://fieldwork.news/tools/usaspending Full dataset: https://fieldwork.news/llms-full.txt Methodology: https://fieldwork.news/methodology