Finance — entry 019 of 47
FRED
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, is a public database of hundreds of thousands of US and international economic time series drawn from national, international, public, and private sources. Access requires a free registered API key; responses default to XML but can be returned as JSON, CSV, or Excel via the file_type parameter. The API sends no CORS headers on either GET or preflight OPTIONS requests, so direct browser calls fail without a server-side proxy.
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) exposes hundreds of thousands of US and international economic time series, retrievable by series ID through the `series/observations` endpoint.
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<a href="https://greatapis.com/api/fred/"><img src="https://greatapis.com/badge/fred.svg" alt="Scored 84 on greatapis.com"></a>Auth quickstart
- Register for a free API key at fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html
- Pass it as the `api_key` query parameter on every request
- Add `file_type=json` since responses default to XML
Your key is stored only in this browser (localStorage) and sent directly to the API — never to greatapis.
Observations for the Real GNP series (GNPCA)
GEThttps://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations?series_id=GNPCA&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&file_type=json
{
"realtime_start": "2026-07-10",
"realtime_end": "2026-07-10",
"units": "lin",
"count": 96,
"observations": [
{ "date": "1929-01-01", "value": "1065.9" },
{ "date": "1930-01-01", "value": "975.5" }
]
}Developer reference
Gotchas & limits
- Responses default to XML — add `file_type=json` (or `xml`/`xlsx`) explicitly to get JSON back
- FRED sends no CORS headers on GET or preflight OPTIONS requests, so direct browser calls are blocked — proxy through your own server
- The API key parameter is `api_key` (with underscore), not `apikey` — using the wrong name returns a `bad_request` error