# USAspending Federal Award Spending Search

> USAspending Federal Award Spending Search is a paid API for AI agents from contracts.memoryapi.org, paid per call via x402, $0.010000/call, status down (last checked 2026-09-15).

Search and retrieve federal award spending data from USAspending.gov by keyword, recipient company, or awarding agency

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://contracts.memoryapi.org/x402/spending
- Price: $0.010000/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: down
- Last checked: 2026-09-15
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/contracts-memoryapi-org-d5fac742
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_WxK8JBy77w1t-oEprEU8o

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability contracts-memoryapi-org-d5fac742
```

Example prompt: Search USAspending.gov for federal award spending data related to 'artificial intelligence' and show me the top recipients and awarding agencies.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to search historical federal award spending data (contracts and grants already awarded) from USAspending.gov. Prefer this over the SAM.gov endpoint (which covers active opportunities) or the Grants.gov endpoint (which covers open grant solicitations) when your goal is researching past spending, recipient history, or agency expenditure patterns.

## Known failure modes

- No results found for an obscure or misspelled keyword
- Rate limiting or payment failure for the $0.01 USDC x402 payment
- USAspending.gov upstream API downtime causing retrieval failure
- Invalid or overly broad query returning too many results
- Company name not matching exact recipient name in database

## How this service works

Search federal award spending data from USAspending.gov. Find awards by keyword, recipient company, or agency.

## Output

Returns a list of federal award records from USAspending.gov matching the search criteria, including award amounts, recipient company names, awarding agencies, award types, and relevant dates.

## Example request

```json
{
 "limit": 10,
 "keyword": "artificial intelligence"
}
```

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "limit": {
   "type": "integer",
   "default": 10,
   "maximum": 25
  },
  "naics": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "6-digit NAICS code"
  },
  "agency": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Filter by agency name"
  },
  "keyword": {
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Search keyword"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "required": [
  "type",
  "count",
  "awards",
  "period",
  "source",
  "success",
  "disclaimer"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "type": {
   "type": "string"
  },
  "count": {
   "type": "number"
  },
  "awards": {
   "type": "array",
   "items": {
    "type": "object",
    "required": [
     "id",
     "date",
     "state",
     "agency",
     "amount",
     "recipient",
     "description"
    ],
    "properties": {
     "id": {
      "type": "string"
     },
     "date": {
      "type": "null"
     },
     "state": {
      "type": "string"
     },
     "agency": {
      "type": "string"
     },
     "amount": {
      "type": "number"
     },
     "recipient": {
      "type": "string"
     },
     "description": {
      "type": "string"
     }
    }
   }
  },
  "period": {
   "type": "string"
  },
  "source": {
   "type": "string"
  },
  "success": {
   "type": "boolean"
  },
  "disclaimer": {
   "type": "string"
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/contracts-memoryapi-org-d5fac742/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from contracts.memoryapi.org](https://www.zero.xyz/host/contracts.memoryapi.org/llms.txt)