Government & Tenders

SAM.gov API

The SAM.gov API returns US federal contract opportunities as clean JSON, with no api_key and no registration.

3 actionsLive JSON1,000 free creditsMCP-ready

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The primary search endpoint returns opportunities with id, url, title, solicitation_number, the notice type (sources sought, solicitation, special notice, award), a description preview, published_at and modified_at, the response_deadline with its local time and timezone, the is_active and is_cancelled flags, the buying office as department, office, office_code, office_location and the full org chain, the awardee where one exists, and a relevance_score — plus total_matches and an offset for paging. opportunity expands one notice into the full solicitation body, set_aside, naics_codes, product_service_code, place_of_performance and the published contacts with name, email and phone. attachments lists the notice's documents with name, kind, mime type, size and URL. One ReefAPI key, one shared credit pool, the standard envelope.

Live example

Real request and response JSON

Captured from the indexed primary action, search, on Aug 22, 2026, 6:29 PM UTC.

Captured request

{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "https://api.reefapi.com/sam-gov/v1/search",
  "headers": {
    "x-api-key": "$REEF_KEY",
    "content-type": "application/json"
  },
  "body": {
    "q": "web scraping",
    "limit": 5
  }
}

Captured response

{
  "ok": true,
  "meta": {
    "api": "sam-gov",
    "endpoint": "search",
    "mode": "live",
    "latency_ms": 385.4,
    "record_count": 5,
    "bytes": 20874,
    "cache_hit": false,
    "stop_reason": "limit_reached",
    "method": "keyless_public_json_api_bare_dc_curl_cffi",
    "sort_applied": "newest",
    "upstream_sort": "-modifiedDate",
    "upstream_date_filter_supported": false,
    "active_only": false,
    "notice_types": null,
    "max_allowed_records": 10000
  },
  "data": {
    "opportunities": [
      {
        "id": "665b0e5ea7794aa78e2bc60b45d19d0b",
        "url": "https://sam.gov/opp/665b0e5ea7794aa78e2bc60b45d19d0b/view",
        "title": "Syndicated POINT OF SALE (POS) DATA PLATFORM (COS)",
        "solicitation_number": "W91Zlk-26-A-01234D",
        "notice_type": "Sources Sought",
        "notice_type_code": "r",
        "description_preview": "DECA‑26 – Syndicated Data Core Services\n\nProject Number:\n W91ZLK‑26‑R‑SDCS\n\nAOS Number:\n W9128Z‑25‑S‑A002\n\nPSC:\n B506 – Special Studies/Anal",
        "published_at": "[redacted-phone]T19:23:01Z",
        "modified_at": "[redacted-phone]T19:23:01Z",
        "response_deadline": "[redacted-phone]T15:00:00Z",
        "response_deadline_local": "[redacted-phone]T11:00:00-04:00",
        "response_timezone": "America/New_York",
        "is_active": true,
        "is_cancelled": false,
        "buyer_name": "W6QK ACC-APG DIR",
        "buyer": {
          "department": "DEPT OF DEFENSE",
          "office": "W6QK ACC-APG DIR",
          "office_code": "W91ZLK",
          "office_location": "ABER PROV GRD, MD, USA",
          "chain": [
            "[trimmed-depth]",
            "[trimmed-depth]",
            "[trimmed-depth]"
          ]
        },
        "awardee": null,
        "relevance_score": 52,
        "revisions": 0
      },
      {
        "id": "ffabe21b876649d2a1669edb4858cd48",
        "url": "https://sam.gov/opp/ffabe21b876649d2a1669edb4858cd48/view",
        "title": "Syndicated Point of Sale (POS) Data Platform (COS)",
        "solicitation_number": "W91ZLK-26-A-0123D",
        "notice_type": "Special Notice",
        "notice_type_code": "s",
        "description_preview": "DECA‑26 – Syndicated Data Core Services\n\nProject Number:\nW91ZLK‑26‑R‑SDCS\n\nAOS Number:\nW9128Z‑25‑S‑A002\n\nPSC:\nB506 – Special Studies/Analysis – Da",
        "published_at": "[redacted-phone]T15:58:14Z",
        "modified_at": "[redacted-phone]T05:07:15Z",
        "response_deadline": "[redacted-phone]T17:00:00Z",
        "response_deadline_local": "[redacted-phone]T13:00:00-04:00",
        "response_timezone": "America/New_York",
        "is_active": false,
        "is_cancelled": false,
        "buyer_name": "W6QK ACC-APG DIR",
        "buyer": {
          "department": "DEPT OF DEFENSE",
          "office": "W6QK ACC-APG DIR",
          "office_code": "W91ZLK",
          "office_location": "ABER PROV GRD, MD, USA",
          "chain": [
            "[trimmed-depth]",
            "[trimmed-depth]",
            "[trimmed-depth]"
          ]
        },
        "awardee": null,
        "relevance_score": 54,
        "revisions": 2
      },
      {
        "id": "1f316d9815db41ebb3f6451bfafc9cd8",
        "url": "https://sam.gov/opp/1f316d9815db41ebb3f6451bfafc9cd8/view",
        "title": "hCaptcha Enterprise and Premium Support",
        "solicitation_number": "SS-FIN-26-027",
        "notice_type": "Special Notice",
        "notice_type_code": "s",
        "description_preview": "The Treasury Common Services Center (TCSC) on behalf of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) intends to make an award on a sole source basis to Intuition Machines, Inc.; 1065 SW 8th Street #704; Miami, FL 33130 for the purchase of exi",
        "published_at": "[redacted-phone]T13:54:03Z",
        "modified_at": "[redacted-phone]T03:55:44Z",
        "response_deadline": "[redacted-phone]T17:00:00Z",
        "response_deadline_local": "[redacted-phone]T13:00:00-04:00",
        "response_timezone": "America/New_York",
        "is_active": false,
        "is_cancelled": false,
        "buyer_name": "TREASURY, DEPARTMENT OF THE",
        "buyer": {
          "department": "TREASURY, DEPARTMENT OF THE",
          "office": "TREASURY, DEPARTMENT OF THE",
          "office_code": "2000",
          "office_location": "US",
          "chain": [
            "[trimmed-depth]"
          ]
        },
        "awardee": null,
        "relevance_score": 58,
        "revisions": 0
      }
    ],
    "total_matches": 11,
    "returned": 5,
    "offset": 0,
    "query_sent": "\"web scraping\"",
    "phrase": true,
    "description_truncated": true,
    "description_preview_chars": 250,
    "source": "sam.gov"
  }
}

Actions

What the SAM.gov API does

Action	Description	Concrete use case	Key params
search	Search every US federal contract opportunity by phrase — the demand side of a $700bn/year buyer. Each hit carries the response deadline, the buying department and office, the notice type (is this a heads-up, a live RFP, or an award?) and a 250-character preview of the solicitation text. Pair with `active_only=true` for things you can still bid on, or with notice type 'a' to see who won what.	Ops teams call search to search every US federal contract opportunity by phrase.	q, phrase, active_only, notice_types, published_within_days, ...
opportunity	One notice in full: the COMPLETE solicitation text (search only ever returns the first 250 characters), the response deadline with its timezone, the set-aside type, NAICS and PSC classification, place of performance, and the contracting officer's name, e-mail and phone as published on the notice.	Developer tools call opportunity to get one notice in full.	id
attachments	The documents attached to a notice — the statement of work, the pricing sheet, the Q&A, the amendment. Returns each file's name, MIME type, size, posting date and a direct public download URL. The real requirement usually lives in these PDFs, not in the notice body.	Validation workflows call attachments to get the documents attached to a notice.	id

Code samples

Call search from your stack

curl -X POST https://api.reefapi.com/sam-gov/v1/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $REEF_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q":"web scraping","limit":5}'

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.reefapi.com/sam-gov/v1/search",
    headers={"x-api-key": REEF_KEY},
    json={
  "q": "web scraping",
  "limit": 5
},
)
print(r.json()["data"])

const res = await fetch("https://api.reefapi.com/sam-gov/v1/search", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "x-api-key": process.env.REEF_KEY,
    "content-type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
  "q": "web scraping",
  "limit": 5
}),
});
const { ok, data, meta, error } = await res.json();

MCP one-liner

Ask your MCP-connected assistant: call reefapi.sam-gov.search with {"q":"web scraping","limit":5}.

Use cases

Who uses this API and why

GovCon business-development teams call search to catch new sources-sought notices and solicitations in their space as they publish.
Bid/no-bid workflows use opportunity to read the full solicitation body, the set-aside type and the response deadline before committing.
Capture teams use the contacts published on an opportunity to reach the contracting office directly.
Competitive analysts follow awardee across award notices to see who is winning work under a given product-service code.

FAQ

Questions developers ask before integrating

What is the SAM.gov API?

SAM.gov API is a ReefAPI endpoint group for us federal contract opportunities, response deadlines and award notices. It returns live JSON through POST requests under /sam-gov/v1.

Is the SAM.gov API free to try?

Yes. ReefAPI starts with 1,000 free credits, no card required. SAM.gov calls use the same shared credit balance as every other ReefAPI engine.

Do I need a SAM.gov login or account?

No login to SAM.gov is needed for the API response. You call ReefAPI with your x-api-key header, and the playground can run live examples before you create a production key.

How fresh is the SAM.gov data?

The page example is captured from a live search call, and production requests fetch live data through ReefAPI rather than a static sample.

How many credits does the SAM.gov API use?

SAM.gov actions currently cost 1 credit per successful call. Failed or blocked calls are free, and all APIs draw from one credit pool.

Can I call SAM.gov from an AI assistant or MCP client?

Yes. Connect ReefAPI once through MCP and your assistant can call sam-gov actions with the same key, credit pool and JSON envelope used by normal REST requests.

Is the SAM.gov API a SAM.gov scraper?

It is the managed alternative to a DIY SAM.gov scraper. Instead of building and maintaining your own scraper — proxies, headless browsers, captcha and constant breakage — you call one ReefAPI endpoint and get the same us federal contract opportunities, response deadlines and award notices back as clean JSON.

Why does my SAM.gov scraper keep getting blocked?

Most SAM.gov scrapers break on anti-bot defenses, rate limits and IP bans that need rotating residential proxies and browser fingerprinting to clear. ReefAPI handles all of that for you — no proxies, no captchas, no maintenance — and returns live JSON. Blocked or failed calls are free.

docs / sam-gov

SAM.gov

US federal contract opportunities, response deadlines and award notices.

base /sam-gov/v13 endpoints

post/sam-gov/v1/search1 credit

Search every US federal contract opportunity by phrase — the demand side of a $700bn/year buyer. Each hit carries the response deadline, the buying department and office, the notice type (is this a heads-up, a live RFP, or an award?) and a 250-character preview of the solicitation text. Pair with `active_only=true` for things you can still bid on, or with notice type 'a' to see who won what.

Parameter		Allowed / range	Description
q	required	—	What to search for across the whole notice text (title, description and the indexed attachment text). By default this is treated as an EXACT PHRASE — the engine quotes it for you, because the raw upstream index otherwise matches single words anywhere and returns thousands of irrelevant notices (measured: 'web scraping' unquoted = 241,508 hits, quoted = 11). Set `phrase=false` for the loose all-words behaviour.
phrase = true	optional	—	true (default): match `q` as an exact phrase. false: match notices containing EVERY word of `q` anywhere, in any order — far broader, and the right choice when you are casting a wide net rather than hunting one term. Whatever is actually sent upstream is echoed back as `query_sent`.
active_only = false	optional	—	Only notices that are still OPEN (response deadline not passed, not archived). This filter runs upstream and bites hard — measured 485 → 2 on the same query — so use it when you want something you can still bid on, and leave it off when you are researching who bought what (award notices are inactive by definition).
notice_types	optional	p · k · r · o · g · s · i · a · u	Restrict to these notice-type codes (comma-separated string or list). Leave empty for all types. 'r' (Sources Sought) and 'p' (Presolicitation) are where a buyer is still shopping; 'a' (Award Notice) tells you who the incumbent is and when the contract runs out.
published_within_days	optional	1–3650	Only keep notices published within the last N days. ⚠️ SAM.gov has NO working server-side date filter (every documented date parameter is silently ignored — measured), so this is applied here, after fetching. That means it narrows what you receive but does NOT reduce upstream cost, and `total_matches` still reports the unfiltered upstream count. `filtered_out` says how many rows it removed.
sort = newest	optional	newest · modified · relevance	Row order. 'newest' sorts by publish date (applied locally — upstream's '-publishDate' is broken and returns 2007 notices first). 'modified' is the raw upstream order.
limit = 25	optional	1–500	How many notices to return (1–500, default 25). The engine pages upstream 100 at a time to fill this.
offset = 0	optional	0–9999	Skip this many matches before returning rows. offset + limit may not exceed 10000 — the index's own hard ceiling, which it publishes as `maxAllowedRecords`.

Try in playground →

post/sam-gov/v1/opportunity1 credit

One notice in full: the COMPLETE solicitation text (search only ever returns the first 250 characters), the response deadline with its timezone, the set-aside type, NAICS and PSC classification, place of performance, and the contracting officer's name, e-mail and phone as published on the notice.

Parameter		Allowed / range	Description
id	required	—	The 32-character SAM.gov notice id, as returned by `search` in `id`. A full https://sam.gov/opp/<id>/view URL also works — the id is read out of it.

Try in playground →

post/sam-gov/v1/attachments1 credit

The documents attached to a notice — the statement of work, the pricing sheet, the Q&A, the amendment. Returns each file's name, MIME type, size, posting date and a direct public download URL. The real requirement usually lives in these PDFs, not in the notice body.

Parameter		Allowed / range	Description
id	required	—	The 32-character SAM.gov notice id, as returned by `search` in `id`. A full https://sam.gov/opp/<id>/view URL also works — the id is read out of it.

Try in playground →

Example request · search

curl -X POST https://api.reefapi.com/sam-gov/v1/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $REEF_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q":"web scraping","limit":5}'

Response shape

{
  "ok": true,
  "data": { /* the result */ },
  "meta": {
    "latency_ms": 240,
    "record_count": 12,
    "completeness_pct": 100
  },
  "error": null
}