fred_series: Fetch observations for one or more FRED series

In fred: Access 'Federal Reserve Economic Data'

Fetch observations for one or more FRED series

Description

The main function in the package. Downloads time series observations from FRED and returns a tidy data frame. Multiple series can be fetched in a single call.

Usage

fred_series(
  series_id,
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  units = "lin",
  frequency = NULL,
  aggregation = "avg",
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

series_id	Character. One or more FRED series IDs (e.g. "GDP", c("GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL")).
from	Optional start date. Character ("YYYY-MM-DD") or Date.
to	Optional end date. Character ("YYYY-MM-DD") or Date.
units	Character. Unit transformation to apply. Default "lin" (levels). See Details.
frequency	Character. Frequency aggregation. One of "d" (daily), "w" (weekly), "bw" (biweekly), "m" (monthly), "q" (quarterly), "sa" (semiannual), "a" (annual), or NULL (native frequency, the default).
aggregation	Character. Aggregation method when frequency is specified. One of "avg" (default), "sum", or "eop" (end of period).
cache	Logical. If TRUE (the default), results are cached locally and returned from the cache on subsequent calls. Set to FALSE to force a fresh download from the API.

Details

FRED supports server-side unit transformations via the units argument. This avoids the need to compute growth rates or log transforms locally. Supported values:

• "lin" -levels (no transformation, the default)

• "chg" -change from previous period

• "ch1" -change from one year ago

• "pch" -percent change from previous period

• "pc1" -percent change from one year ago

• "pca" -compounded annual rate of change

• "cch" -continuously compounded rate of change

• "cca" -continuously compounded annual rate of change

• "log" -natural log

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. The observation date.

series_id

Character. The FRED series identifier.

value

Numeric. The observation value.

See Also

Other series: fred_info(), fred_search(), fred_updates(), fred_vintages()

Examples

op <- options(fred.cache_dir = tempdir())
# Single series
gdp <- fred_series("GDP")

# Multiple series
macro <- fred_series(c("GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL"))

# With transformation: year-on-year percent change
gdp_growth <- fred_series("GDP", units = "pc1")

# Aggregate daily to monthly
rates <- fred_series("DGS10", frequency = "m")
options(op)

fred documentation built on March 19, 2026, 5:09 p.m.