mcpbeat

FRED Economic Data MCP Server

com.olyport/fred
answering

FRED Economic Data is answering right now. Last checked 11 min ago. It exposes 5 tools.

GDP, unemployment, CPI, interest rates, and 800K+ economic time series from the Federal Reserve

Uptime history 42 hours of history
42 hours agonow
100.0%
Uptime 24h
91 of 91 checks
5
Tools
read from the server
530 ms
Response time
average over 24h
open, no key
Access
streamable-http

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 11 min ago.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add fred --transport http https://mcp.olyport.com/fred/mcp
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred": {
      "url": "https://mcp.olyport.com/fred/mcp"
    }
  }
}
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.fred]
url = "https://mcp.olyport.com/fred/mcp"
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred": {
      "url": "https://mcp.olyport.com/fred/mcp"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred": {
      "url": "https://mcp.olyport.com/fred/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 5

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

series
get_series_info
Get metadata and details for a specific FRED series. Returns comprehensive information about a series including its title, frequency, units, seasonal adjustment, source, and date range. Use this to understand what a series measures before pulling observations. Args: series_id: FRED series identifier (e.g. 'UNRATE', 'GDP', 'CPIAUCSL').
get_series_observations
Get time series observations (data points) for a FRED series. Returns the actual data values for an economic indicator over time. Use search_series first to find the series_id, or use well-known IDs like UNRATE, GDP, CPIAUCSL, FEDFUNDS, MORTGAGE30US. For state unemployment, use state abbreviation + 'UR' (e.g. WAUR for Washington, CAUR for California). Results are sorted most-recent-first. For long series (e.g. daily data since 1954), use start_date/end_date to narrow the window or increase the limit up to 10000. Args: series_id: FRED series identifier (e.g. 'UNRATE', 'GDP', 'CPIAUCSL'). start_date: Optional start date in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. '2020-01-01'). end_date: Optional end date in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. '2024-12-31'). limit: Maximum observations to return (default 1000, max 10000).
search_series
Search for FRED economic data series by keyword. Use this to find series IDs for economic indicators. For example, search 'unemployment rate' to find UNRATE, or 'gross domestic product' to find GDP. Returns series metadata including ID, title, frequency, units, and date range. Common series: UNRATE (unemployment), GDP (gross domestic product), CPIAUCSL (consumer price index), FEDFUNDS (federal funds rate), MORTGAGE30US (30-year mortgage rate), MEHOINUSA672N (median household income). Args: search_text: Keywords to search for (e.g. 'unemployment rate', 'GDP', 'inflation'). limit: Maximum number of results to return (default 10, max 1000).
category
get_category_series
Get all FRED series within a specific category. FRED organizes data into a hierarchy of categories. Use this to browse available series within a topic area. Common category IDs: - 32991: Money, Banking, & Finance - 10: Population, Employment, & Labor Markets - 32992: National Accounts (GDP) - 1: Production & Business Activity - 32455: Prices (CPI, PPI) - 97: Housing Args: category_id: FRED category identifier (integer).
release
get_release_dates
Get release dates for a specific FRED data release. Returns the dates when a particular data release was published. Useful for tracking when economic indicators are updated. Common release IDs: - 10: Consumer Price Index - 46: Producer Price Index - 50: Employment Situation (jobs report) - 53: Gross Domestic Product - 17: Federal Reserve H.15 (interest rates) - 21: Federal Reserve H.6 (money stock) Args: release_id: FRED release identifier (integer).

Endpoints

URLTransportStateLatencyChecked
https://mcp.olyport.com/fred/mcp streamable-http answering 515 ms 11 min ago

FRED Economic Data — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can FRED Economic Data do?
It exposes 5 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: get_category_series, get_release_dates, get_series_info, get_series_observations, search_series. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →
Is FRED Economic Data working right now?
We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 91 of 91 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 530 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.
How do I connect FRED Economic Data?
Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.
Does FRED Economic Data need an API key?
No. FRED Economic Data completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 5 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.
How fast is FRED Economic Data?
It answers our handshake in 530 ms on average, which is faster than 21% of all working MCP servers we measure. That is on the slow side — worth knowing if the tool sits inside an interactive loop. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.