Congress trade data API

If you want STOCK Act trade data in your own code, here is where it comes from, what each source gives you, and the rules that come with it.

Capitol Tape does not sell an API. The extension uses the free Bargo API below. If you need a hosted data service for a team, join the Desk waitlist.

1. Bargo Congress Trades API (free)

The source Capitol Tape uses. One request returns recent disclosures for one ticker.

curl "https://www.bargo.ai/free-apis/congress/v1/trades/NVDA?limit=5"

Coverage: about the last 3 months.
Limits: without a key, about 30 requests a day per network. A free key (opens in a new tab) raises it.
Fields: member, ticker, buy or sell, amount range, trade and filing dates. No party field and no filing id.
Terms: read Bargo's terms before using it in anything you charge for.

2. The official sources

House Clerk (opens in a new tab): a search page, plus yearly downloads with an index of filings. Many reports are PDFs, some scanned.
Senate eFD (opens in a new tab): a search page with an agreement you must accept. There is no official API.

Building on the official sources means parsing PDFs and handling scanned forms, which is why most people start with a compiled API.

3. Party and seat data

Trade feeds often lack party, chamber and district. The public-domain congress-legislators dataset (opens in a new tab) fills that gap; match on name and check by hand after elections.

The legal rules come with the data

Federal law (5 U.S.C. § 13107(c)) makes it unlawful to use these financial disclosure reports for any unlawful purpose, for any commercial purpose other than by news and communications media for dissemination to the general public, to determine anyone's credit rating, or to solicit money. If you are building a product, talk to a lawyer before you charge for anything built on this data.

Things every app should show

The trade date and the filing date (filings can be 45 days late).
Amounts as ranges, not single numbers.
A link to the official filing.
"Not financial advice."