Frequently Asked Questions
Quickly get the answers to your questions answered here.
- Contracts 101
- Download Question: What is the format for the Unique Transaction Keys?
- API Question: What does this tool do? And why should I use it?
- General Question: When is the data on USAspending.gov reported and how soon after is it displayed?
- Advanced Search Question: What is the source for the Primary Place of Performance County?
- Data Download Question: What does IGF stand for?
- Data Download Question: Did the Recipient Type codes change on the new USAspending.gov? How do I crosswalk the legacy codes to the new site?
- Data Download Question: Why is the Davis Bacon Legislative Mandate data no longer available in the download?
- Advanced Search Question: I understand that the Department of Defense reports their financial data on a different schedule than other major agencies. Do they also report award data on a different schedule?
- General Question: Where can I find information on the State Department’s Cultural Exchange Program?
- General Question: I understand the government makes purchases using credit cards. Where can I find that data?
- General Question: Is there data or information I won’t find on the site?
- General Question: What does the new USAspending.gov offer that the old site didn’t?
- General Question: I notice that the new site has a lot of unfamiliar terms — Budget Function, Federal Account, Object Class, and so on. Where can I get basic information about all the new terminology?
- General Question: I see that many of the award data fields have changed. How do the new fields map back to the fields on the legacy site?
- General Question: When is new data uploaded to the site?
- General Question: Who owns the data that powers the site, and who can change the data?
- General Question: Who developed USAspending.gov?
- General Question: When I’m in the process of downloading data, why are some of the data fields blank?
- Spending Explorer Question: What does this tool do? Why should I use it?
- Spending Explorer Question: I’d like to see data from before 2017 — is this available in the Spending Explorer?
- Spending Explorer Question: I’m not able to read the text on the smallest boxes in the treemap visualization — where can I get the information represented by those boxes?
- Spending Explorer Question: Is there any way to search within the Spending Explorer? I have to do a lot of scrolling in the table to find the data I’m looking for.
- Spending Explorer Question: I notice that the “total amount spent” listed on the homepage is different from what’s listed on the Spending Explorer. Why is that?
- Spending Explorer Question: I’m looking for data from the Department of Defense (DoD)
- Spending Explorer Question: Can I download data directly from the Spending Explorer?
- Spending Explorer Question: What data do you use to populate the Spending Explorer?
- Advanced Search Question: What does this tool do and why should I use it?
- Advanced Search Question: In the Map view, when I select County or Congressional District, the map remains zoomed in — why can’t I adjust the view?
- Advanced Search Question: Why doesn’t the Map view feature countries other than the United States?