Program Lookup API: Federal assistance-listing (CFDA) resolution: topic or name in, program — USAspending and NIH RePORTER
Federal assistance-listing (CFDA) resolution: topic or name in, program number + title + popular name out. The identifier for US federal grant analyses. Free.
Free — no key, no signup, rate-limited to 60 calls per minute per client.
How do you call it?
GET /v1/funding/programs — product id
funding_program_lookup. Over MCP, call answerpool_get with
product_id=funding_program_lookup.
curl "https://answerpool.io/v1/funding/programs?q=cancer+research"
Live call: https://answerpool.io/v1/funding/programs?q=cancer+research · JSON sample: /v1/samples/funding_program_lookup
What does the answer look like?
A representative response, the same static sample served at /v1/samples/funding_program_lookup.
as_of | 2026-09-03T02:00:00Z |
|---|---|
count | 1 |
disclaimer | Reference data from USAspending.gov (US federal public domain); not procurement advice. |
refresh_after | 2026-09-18T00:00:00.000Z |
programs
| program_number | title | popular_name |
|---|---|---|
| 93.398 | Cancer Research Manpower | Cancer Manpower Grants |
The same sample as raw JSON
{
"as_of": "2026-09-03T02:00:00Z",
"count": 1,
"programs": [
{
"program_number": "93.398",
"title": "Cancer Research Manpower",
"popular_name": "Cancer Manpower Grants"
}
],
"disclaimer": "Reference data from USAspending.gov (US federal public domain); not procurement advice.",
"refresh_after": "2026-09-18T00:00:00.000Z"
}How fresh is it, and where does the data come from?
The fastest source behind this answer can change daily, so every response carries a refresh_after timestamp — right now it would be 2026-09-18T00:00:00.000Z. Schedule the next call on that value rather than on a guess.
- USAspending (US federal public domain) — upstream:
https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2
Method version 0.1.0 ·
serving cache 7 days ·
every response carries a result_id you can resolve at
/v1/provenance.
When should you use it?
You need the assistance-listing number behind a federal grant program name or topic.
What you skip building
- sam.gov assistance-listing browsing
- CFDA number guessing
When should you not use it?
Contract (procurement) analysis — use NAICS/PSC lookups instead.
Where else can you find this?
- Catalog entry (JSON, free)
- OpenAPI schema — input and output types, prices, the 402 flow
- llms.txt — every product in one plain-text document