Structured, machine-readable procurement and legislative data collected from Massachusetts government systems. Free to download, no account required.
Structured procurement data collected daily from COMMBUYS, free to use with no account required.
One row per bid. 25+ fields covering bid metadata, dates, contacts, and procurement details. Updated each morning.
One row per vendor quote submitted. Linked to bids via
bid_id foreign key. Captures vendor identity and submission details.
Statewide Contracts are pre-negotiated agreements managed by the Operational Services Division (OSD) that any eligible Massachusetts public entity can use. We track all 1,944 active Master Blanket Purchase Orders (MBPOs) across 94 contract categories — including vendor details, begin/end dates, spending data, and UNSPSC codes. Browse the SWC Explorer →
One row per vendor per statewide contract. 35+ fields covering contract metadata, vendor details, financial terms, and UNSPSC commodity codes.
One row per vendor-distributor entry on each contract. Links vendors and authorized distributors back to the MBPO they serve.
All tables in one file: bids, quotes, MBPOs, vendors, and CTHRU spending. Use with DB Browser for SQLite or any SQLite client.
CTHRU is the Massachusetts financial transparency portal maintained by the Comptroller of the Commonwealth. It records every payment made by state agencies — over 47 million transaction lines dating back to FY2016. We link this spending data back to the statewide contracts they were charged against by matching the encumbrance ID on each payment to the corresponding COMMBUYS contract number.
Spending data is aggregated by (fiscal year, contract, vendor, department). Downloadable CSV coming once the public data pipeline is finalized.
All 8,364 bills introduced in the 194th Massachusetts General Court — every House and Senate bill from H1 through H5335 and S1 through S3044. Each record includes sponsor, committee referral, current status, and the full action history. Updated weekly from malegislature.gov.
One row per bill. 15+ fields covering bill identity, sponsor, status, and history metadata.
Updated weekly; history changes logged separately in maleg_changes.csv.
Normalized SQLite database with bill history unpacked into its own table — better for querying across actions, filtering by date, or joining with other datasets.
bills — 8,364 rows, one per billbill_history — 40,574 rows, one per legislative actionv_bills_with_recent_activity — view of recently-active billsAdditional datasets in development:
All fields captured per bid record in commbuys_results.csv.
| Field | Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
bid_id | string | Primary key — full COMMBUYS bid identifier | BD-26-1076-OCDDE-PH005-126796 |
description | string | Bid title / procurement description | Housing Production Trust Fund |
bid_opening_date | datetime | Date and time bids are opened | 05/30/2026 14:00:00 |
available_date | date | Date bid was posted / made available | 03/01/2026 |
required_date | date | Required delivery or completion date | 06/30/2026 |
purchaser | string | Purchasing office within the organization | OCDDE |
organization | string | Top-level government organization | Executive Office of Housing & Livable Communities |
department | string | Department or division within the org | DHCD - Dept of Housing Community Dev |
location | string | Physical location / delivery address context | Boston, MA |
fiscal_year | string | Fiscal year of the procurement | 2026 |
type_code | string | Bid type code (PH005, HD006, etc.) | PH005 |
bid_type | string | Human-readable bid type label | Request for Proposals |
allow_electronic_quote | boolean | Whether electronic quote submission is allowed | Yes |
informal_bid_flag | boolean | Whether this is an informal (small) bid | No |
purchase_method | string | Procurement method (competitive bid, etc.) | Competitive Sealed Bid |
sbpp_eligible | boolean | Small Business Purchasing Program eligible | No |
contact_email | string | Procurement contact email address | procure@eohlc.state.ma.us |
alternate_id | string | Agency's internal reference number | EOHLC2026-64 |
item_number | string | Line item number within the bid | 0001 |
item_description | string | Description of goods/services being procured | Technical assistance services |
unspsc_code | string | UN Standard Products & Services Code | 80101500 |
qty | number | Quantity requested | 1 |
unit_cost | currency | Estimated unit cost (may be blank) | |
uom | string | Unit of measure | Each |
file_attachments | string | Semicolon-separated list of attached filenames | RFP_EOHLC2026-64.pdf; Exhibit_A.docx |
has_quotes_tab | boolean | Whether a quotes tab exists on this bid | True |
quote_count | integer | Number of vendor quotes submitted | 3 |
downloaded_files | string | Semicolon-separated local paths of downloaded attachments | downloads/BD-26-.../RFP.pdf |
bid_status | string | Current bid status from COMMBUYS statewide export (refreshed daily) | Sent, Opened, Approved, Bid to PO, Closed |
awarded_vendors | string | Winning vendor name when awarded; "Award in Process" if pending | Acme Construction LLC |
awards_updated_at | datetime | ISO-8601 UTC timestamp of the last award status refresh | 2026-04-01T07:12:44Z |
All fields captured per vendor quote in commbuys_quotes.csv.
| Field | Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
bid_id | string | Foreign key — links to commbuys_results.bid_id | BD-26-1076-OCDDE-PH005-126796 |
quote_id | string | COMMBUYS internal quote identifier | QT-26-88421 |
vendor_name | string | Name of the submitting vendor | Acme Housing Solutions LLC |
vendor_address | string | Vendor mailing address | 123 Main St, Boston, MA 02108 |
submission_date | datetime | When the quote was submitted | 05/15/2026 09:34:00 |
quote_status | string | Current status of the quote | Submitted |
alternate_id | string | Vendor's own reference number (if provided) | |
quote_total | currency | Total quote value (when disclosed) | $285,000.00 |
file_attachments | string | Semicolon-separated list of quote attachment filenames | Proposal_AcmeHousing.pdf |
downloaded_files | string | Local paths of downloaded quote attachments | downloads/BD-26-.../quotes/... |
All fields captured per bill record in maleg_bills.csv and the bills table in maleg.db.
| Field | Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
bill_id | string | Primary key — chamber letter + bill number | H5335 |
chamber | string | House or Senate | House |
session | integer | General Court session number | 194 |
title | string | Full bill title; blank for committee resolves and orders | An Act establishing the official crustacean of the Commonwealth |
sponsor | string | Primary sponsor(s); newer bills use "Presenters" label — both map here | Joan Meschino, Patrick M. O'Connor |
status | string | Current disposition as shown on the bill page | Referred to Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight |
bill_url | url | Canonical URL on malegislature.gov | https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H5335 |
pdf_url | url | Direct link to the bill PDF | https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H5335.pdf |
text_url | url | Link to the bill text page | https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H5335/House/Bill/Text |
has_emergency_preamble | boolean | Whether the bill carries an emergency preamble (takes effect immediately upon signing) | no |
emergency_preamble_text | string | Text of the emergency preamble, if present | |
similar_bills | string | Comma-separated bill IDs of similar bills identified by the Legislature | S742, H1201 |
history_count | integer | Number of recorded legislative actions | 3 |
history_json | JSON | Full action history as a JSON array — each entry has date, branch, and action text. Normalized into the bill_history table in maleg.db. | [{"date":"2/19/2026","branch":"House","action":"Referred to..."}] |
scraped_at | datetime | ISO-8601 UTC timestamp of the last successful scrape | 2026-04-04T21:21:09 |
All data is scraped from public-facing government pages that require no authentication. We use polite scrapers with rate limiting and exponential backoff to avoid overloading government servers.
COMMBUYS: The discovery script runs daily, querying COMMBUYS for newly-posted open bids. New bids are scraped in full; known bids are skipped. Open bids are polled multiple times per week to capture addenda, deadline changes, or new vendor submissions. Bid attachments (PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets) are downloaded and stored locally.
MA Legislature: Bill pages are scraped weekly from malegislature.gov. Each bill's metadata and full action history are captured in a single HTTP request — the site renders everything server-side with no JavaScript required. The scraper appends new bills and logs any history changes detected on re-scrape to a separate change log.
Bid records are updated each morning. Quote data is refreshed when the polling script detects a change in quote count. The last-updated timestamp on each download reflects when the data was last scraped, not when it changed on COMMBUYS.
Data is sourced from public government records. COMMBUYS
robots.txt permits crawling of all
/bso/ paths. We are not affiliated with the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts or Periscope Holdings.
Understanding where this data comes from helps you interpret it correctly.
COMMBUYS is the Massachusetts statewide eProcurement system operated by the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (ANF). It handles bid solicitations, vendor registration, quote submission, and contract management for state agencies, municipalities, and quasi-public bodies.
Any of 1,200+ registered Massachusetts government organizations — from large state agencies to small water districts. State agencies are generally required to use COMMBUYS for procurements above certain dollar thresholds; municipalities participate voluntarily.
COMMBUYS hosts Invitations for Bids (IFB), Requests for Proposals (RFP), Requests for Responses (RFR), Requests for Qualifications (RFQ), and informal bids. Each type has different evaluation criteria and legal requirements under Massachusetts procurement law.
Understanding where this data comes from helps you interpret it correctly.
The Massachusetts General Court is the state legislature, consisting of the House of Representatives (160 members) and the Senate (40 members). Each two-year term is called a "General Court." The 194th runs from January 2025 through January 2027. Bills must pass both chambers and be signed by the Governor to become law.
House bills are numbered H1–H5335; Senate bills S1–S3044. Numbers are assigned when a bill is filed, not in order of introduction. Gaps exist — some numbers were never assigned or belong to bills that were withdrawn. Committee resolves and orders may have no title; this is expected behavior, not missing data.
One bill (S4) returns HTTP 500 directly from the MA Legislature server — this is a server-side issue on their end and is recorded as a known gap. History data reflects actions captured at scrape time; the Legislature does not expose a change feed, so changes between weekly scrapes may be missed.