How to get OpenFEC Campaign Finance Filings in Excel

Pull recent FEC campaign-finance filings (committees, forms, PDFs) for midterms-season monitoring schedules. A run saves one row per result.

Set up the Apify actor

Apify is where this run is collected. An actor is the program that collects the rows. A task is that program saved with your settings, so the next section can ask for the latest rows. You need a free Apify account.

01
Open OpenFEC Campaign Finance Filings and click Try for free. Create an Apify account if you do not have one. The Free plan does not ask for a card.

You are on the input form. Keep the sample for this first run.

{
    "daysBack": 14,
    "maxItems": 5,
    "apiKey": "DEMO_KEY"
}

03
Leave the proxy setting as it is. Click Start and wait until the run says Succeeded.
04
Open Storage, then Dataset. You should see fecFileId, committeeName, formType, receiptDate.
05
When you want the real list, raise maxItems. The sample cap is only there so the first run stays small.
06
Go back to the input and choose Save as a new task. Name it after this list.
07
Open the task. Copy the task ID from the address bar. Excel, Sheets, Power BI, and the other guides ask for this ID.
08
On the task, open Schedules and add a weekly run if you want fresh rows. Each run pays the start charge and the charge for the rows. The amounts are in the price list on this page.
09
Open Settings, then API & Integrations, and copy an API token. Excel, Sheets, and the other guides put this token in a download link. Anyone with that link can download the rows, so treat it like a password.

How to set up in Excel

Use the task ID and the API token from Set up the Apify actor, above.

01
On a finished run, open the dataset, choose Export, then Excel.

To download the newest successful run later, open this address. Replace TASK_ID and YOUR_TOKEN.

https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-tasks/TASK_ID/runs/last/dataset/items?format=xlsx&clean=true&status=SUCCEEDED&token=YOUR_TOKEN

03
Excel opens that file as a table.

Schema

Examples come from the actor sample, not a live result.

Name	Description	Example
`fecFileId`	FEC file id	`FEC-2015652`
`committeeName`	Committee name	`RETIRED AMERICANS ACTION`
`formType`	Form type	`F24`
`receiptDate`	Receipt date	`2026-09-30T00:00:00`
`cycle`	Election cycle	`2026`
`pdfUrl`	PDF URL	`https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/337/202609309908493337/202609309908493337.pdf`
`sourceUrl`	Source URL	`https://www.fec.gov/`
`recordKey`	Record key	`fec:FEC-2015652`

fecFileIdFEC file idFEC-2015652
committeeNameCommittee nameRETIRED AMERICANS ACTION
formTypeForm typeF24
receiptDateReceipt date2026-09-30T00:00:00
cycleElection cycle2026
pdfUrlPDF URLhttps://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/337/202609309908493337/202609309908493337.pdf
sourceUrlSource URLhttps://www.fec.gov/
recordKeyRecord keyfec:FEC-2015652