alterlab-fred

FRED Economic Data Access

Overview

Access comprehensive economic data through FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), a database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis containing over 800,000 economic time series from over 100 sources.

Key capabilities:

• Query economic time series data (GDP, unemployment, inflation, interest rates)
• Search and discover series by keywords, tags, and categories
• Access historical data and vintage (revision) data via ALFRED
• Retrieve release schedules and data publication dates
• Map regional economic data with GeoFRED
• Apply data transformations (percent change, log, etc.)
• Bulk-download every series in a release (API v2)

When to Use This Skill

• Fetching U.S. or international macro/financial series by FRED series ID (GDPC1, UNRATE, CPIAUCSL, DGS10, ...)
• Server-side transformations (pc1, pch, log) or frequency aggregation before analysis
• Real-time (vintage) data from ALFRED to avoid look-ahead bias in forecasting studies
• Release calendars, series discovery by keyword/tag/category, and state/county data for maps

Does NOT Trigger

Scenario	Use Instead
Stock/ETF prices, OHLCV bars, or technical indicators (RSI, MACD)	alterlab-alpha-vantage
Debt to the Penny, Daily/Monthly Treasury Statements, or auction results from the Treasury	alterlab-usfiscaldata
Company-level financial statements from SEC filings	alterlab-edgartools
Place-resolved public statistics (demographics, health, non-FRED global indicators)	alterlab-datacommons
Econometric modelling (ARIMA, VAR, regressions) of series you already downloaded	alterlab-statsmodels

API Key Setup

Required: All FRED API requests require an API key.

1. Create an account at https://fredaccount.stlouisfed.org
2. Log in and request an API key through the account portal
3. Set as environment variable:

export FRED_API_KEY="your_32_character_key_here"

Or in Python:

import os
os.environ["FRED_API_KEY"] = "your_key_here"

Quick Start

Using the FREDQuery Class

from scripts.fred_query import FREDQuery

# Initialize with API key
fred = FREDQuery(api_key="YOUR_KEY")  # or uses FRED_API_KEY env var

# get_series returns METADATA (title, units, frequency) under "seriess".
# For the actual data values, use get_observations (returns "observations").
meta = fred.get_series("GDP")
print(meta["seriess"][0]["title"])  # "Gross Domestic Product"

# Get the latest GDP value
gdp = fred.get_observations("GDP", limit=1, sort_order="desc")
print(f"Latest GDP: {gdp['observations'][0]}")

# Get unemployment rate observations
unemployment = fred.get_observations("UNRATE", limit=12)
for obs in unemployment["observations"]:
    print(f"{obs['date']}: {obs['value']}%")

# Search for inflation series
inflation_series = fred.search_series("consumer price index")
for s in inflation_series["seriess"][:5]:
    print(f"{s['id']}: {s['title']}")

Direct API Calls

import requests
import os

API_KEY = os.environ.get("FRED_API_KEY")
BASE_URL = "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred"

# Get series observations
response = requests.get(
    f"{BASE_URL}/series/observations",
    params={
        "api_key": API_KEY,
        "series_id": "GDP",
        "file_type": "json"
    }
)
data = response.json()

Popular Economic Series

Series ID	Description	Frequency
GDP	Gross Domestic Product	Quarterly
GDPC1	Real Gross Domestic Product	Quarterly
UNRATE	Unemployment Rate	Monthly
CPIAUCSL	Consumer Price Index (All Urban)	Monthly
FEDFUNDS	Federal Funds Effective Rate	Monthly
DGS10	10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity	Daily
HOUST	Housing Starts	Monthly
PAYEMS	Total Nonfarm Payrolls	Monthly
INDPRO	Industrial Production Index	Monthly
M2SL	M2 Money Stock	Monthly
UMCSENT	Consumer Sentiment	Monthly
SP500	S&P 500	Daily

API Endpoint Categories

Series Endpoints

Get economic data series metadata and observations.

Key endpoints:

• fred/series - Get series metadata
• fred/series/observations - Get data values (most commonly used)
• fred/series/search - Search for series by keywords
• fred/series/updates - Get recently updated series

# Get observations with transformations
obs = fred.get_observations(
    series_id="GDP",
    units="pch",  # percent change
    frequency="q",  # quarterly
    observation_start="2020-01-01"
)

# Search with filters
results = fred.search_series(
    "unemployment",
    filter_variable="frequency",
    filter_value="Monthly"
)

Reference: See references/series.md for all 10 series endpoints

Categories Endpoints

Navigate the hierarchical organization of economic data.

Key endpoints:

• fred/category - Get a category
• fred/category/children - Get subcategories
• fred/category/series - Get series in a category

# Get root categories (category_id=0)
root = fred.get_category()

# Get Money Banking & Finance category and its series
category = fred.get_category(32991)
series = fred.get_category_series(32991)

Reference: See references/categories.md for all 6 category endpoints

Releases Endpoints

Access data release schedules and publication information.

Key endpoints:

• fred/releases - Get all releases
• fred/releases/dates - Get upcoming release dates
• fred/release/series - Get series in a release

# Get upcoming release dates
upcoming = fred.get_release_dates()

# Get GDP release info
gdp_release = fred.get_release(53)

Reference: See references/releases.md for all 9 release endpoints

Tags Endpoints

Discover and filter series using FRED tags.

# Find series with multiple tags
series = fred.get_series_by_tags(["gdp", "quarterly", "usa"])

# Get related tags
related = fred.get_related_tags("inflation")

Reference: See references/tags.md for all 3 tag endpoints

Sources Endpoints

Get information about data sources (BLS, BEA, Census, etc.).

# Get all sources
sources = fred.get_sources()

# Get Federal Reserve releases
fed_releases = fred.get_source_releases(source_id=1)

Reference: See references/sources.md for all 3 source endpoints

GeoFRED Endpoints

Access geographic/regional economic data for mapping.

# Get state unemployment data
regional = fred.get_regional_data(
    series_group="1220",  # Unemployment rate
    region_type="state",
    date="2023-01-01",
    units="Percent",
    season="NSA"
)

# Get GeoJSON shapes
shapes = fred.get_shapes("state")

Reference: See references/geofred.md for all 4 GeoFRED endpoints

Bulk Release Download (API v2)

FRED API v2 has one endpoint, fred/v2/release/observations, which returns every series in a release (all history) in one paginated call. Unlike v1 it takes the key in a header:

import os
import requests

url = "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/v2/release/observations"
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['FRED_API_KEY']}"}
params = {"release_id": 53, "limit": 500000}  # 53 = GDP release; limit max 500,000 observations
series = []
while True:
    page = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=params, timeout=120).json()
    series.extend(page["series"])  # each series carries its observations
    if not page.get("has_more"):
        break
    params["next_cursor"] = page["next_cursor"]  # omit on the first request

Data Transformations

Apply transformations when fetching observations:

Value	Description
lin	Levels (no transformation)
chg	Change from previous period
ch1	Change from year ago
pch	Percent change from previous period
pc1	Percent change from year ago
pca	Compounded annual rate of change
cch	Continuously compounded rate of change
cca	Continuously compounded annual rate of change
log	Natural log

# Get GDP percent change from year ago
gdp_growth = fred.get_observations("GDP", units="pc1")

Frequency Aggregation

Aggregate data to different frequencies:

Code	Frequency
d	Daily
w	Weekly
m	Monthly
q	Quarterly
a	Annual

Aggregation methods: avg (average), sum, eop (end of period)

# Convert daily to monthly average
monthly = fred.get_observations(
    "DGS10",
    frequency="m",
    aggregation_method="avg"
)

Real-Time (Vintage) Data

Access historical vintages of data via ALFRED:

# Get GDP as it was reported on a specific date
vintage_gdp = fred.get_observations(
    "GDP",
    realtime_start="2020-01-01",
    realtime_end="2020-01-01"
)

# Get all vintage dates for a series
vintages = fred.get_vintage_dates("GDP")

Common Patterns

Pattern 1: Economic Dashboard

def get_economic_snapshot(fred):
    """Get current values of key indicators."""
    indicators = ["GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL", "FEDFUNDS", "DGS10"]
    snapshot = {}

    for series_id in indicators:
        obs = fred.get_observations(series_id, limit=1, sort_order="desc")
        if obs.get("observations"):
            latest = obs["observations"][0]
            snapshot[series_id] = {
                "value": latest["value"],
                "date": latest["date"]
            }

    return snapshot

Pattern 2: Time Series Comparison

def compare_series(fred, series_ids, start_date):
    """Compare multiple series over time."""
    import pandas as pd

    data = {}
    for sid in series_ids:
        obs = fred.get_observations(
            sid,
            observation_start=start_date,
            units="pc1"  # Normalize as percent change
        )
        data[sid] = {
            o["date"]: float(o["value"])
            for o in obs["observations"]
            if o["value"] != "."
        }

    return pd.DataFrame(data)

Pattern 3: Release Calendar

def get_upcoming_releases(fred, days=7):
    """Get data releases in next N days."""
    from datetime import datetime, timedelta

    end_date = datetime.now() + timedelta(days=days)

    releases = fred.get_release_dates(
        realtime_start=datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d"),
        realtime_end=end_date.strftime("%Y-%m-%d"),
        include_release_dates_with_no_data="true"
    )

    return releases

Pattern 4: Regional Analysis

def map_state_unemployment(fred, date):
    """Get unemployment by state for mapping."""
    data = fred.get_regional_data(
        series_group="1220",
        region_type="state",
        date=date,
        units="Percent",
        frequency="a",
        season="NSA"
    )

    # Get GeoJSON for mapping
    shapes = fred.get_shapes("state")

    return data, shapes

Error Handling

result = fred.get_observations("INVALID_SERIES")

if "error" in result:
    print(f"Error {result['error']['code']}: {result['error']['message']}")
elif not result.get("observations"):
    print("No data available")
else:
    # Process data
    for obs in result["observations"]:
        if obs["value"] != ".":  # Handle missing values
            print(f"{obs['date']}: {obs['value']}")

Rate Limits

• FRED allows up to 120 requests per minute per key; beyond that it returns HTTP 429, and ignoring the throttling can get the key temporarily blocked.
• Cache repeated queries (FREDQuery keeps an in-memory cache, default TTL 1 hour) and prefer one v2 release download over hundreds of per-series calls.
• FREDQuery retries 429/5xx responses with exponential backoff and returns other errors immediately as {"error": {"code": ..., "message": ...}} (FRED's own error_code/error_message).

Reference Documentation

For detailed endpoint documentation:

• Series endpoints - See references/series.md
• Categories endpoints - See references/categories.md
• Releases endpoints - See references/releases.md
• Tags endpoints - See references/tags.md
• Sources endpoints - See references/sources.md
• GeoFRED endpoints - See references/geofred.md
• API basics - See references/api_basics.md

Scripts

scripts/fred_query.py

Main query module with FREDQuery class providing:

• Unified interface to the v1 FRED and GeoFRED (Maps API) endpoints
• In-memory response caching
• Retry with backoff on 429/5xx; FRED error messages surfaced for other failures
• Type hints and documentation

The community fredapi package (uv pip install fredapi; Fred(api_key=...).get_series("GDP") returns a pandas Series) is a lighter alternative for plain series pulls; it has had no release since 0.5.2 (2024-05).

scripts/fred_examples.py

Comprehensive examples demonstrating:

• Economic indicator retrieval
• Time series analysis
• Release calendar monitoring
• Regional data mapping
• Data transformation and aggregation

Run examples:

uv run python scripts/fred_examples.py

Additional Resources

• FRED Homepage: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/
• API Documentation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/fred/
• GeoFRED Maps: https://geofred.stlouisfed.org/
• ALFRED (Vintage Data): https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/
• Terms of Use: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/legal/

Cite FRED (series ID, source agency, and retrieval date) for every series used in a paper.

Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.