Merx APImerx.com ↗
Search open and closed Canadian government tenders, RFPs, and solicitation details from Merx. Filter by category, location, keywords, and date.
What is the Merx API?
The Merx API provides access to Canadian procurement data through 5 endpoints covering open solicitations, closed solicitations, and detailed tender records. The search_open_solicitations endpoint alone returns fields like title, issuing organization, reference number, closing date, and geographic location — giving developers a direct feed into Canada's largest public tender marketplace without manual site navigation.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/4ac01421-66eb-460e-af83-a8f895284f34/search_open_solicitations?page=1&category=10034&keywords=software&publish_date=HOURS_24' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Typed, relational, agent-ready
A generated client with real types, enums, and the links between objects — the structure a flat JSON response can't carry. Autocompletes in your editor and reads cleanly to coding agents.
- Fully typed · autocompletes
- Objects link to objects
- Typed errors & pagination
Typed Python client. Set up the SDK in your uv project, then pull this API’s typed client:
uv add parse-sdk uv run parse init uv run parse add --marketplace merx-com-api
uv run parse add --marketplace pulls a pinned snapshot of this canonical API — it won’t change underneath you. To customize it, subscribe and swap to your own copy.
"""Merx Procurement API — search tenders, get filter options, drill into details."""
from parse_apis.merx_procurement_api import Merx, PublishDate, SolicitationNotFound
client = Merx()
# Retrieve available filter options (categories, locations, publish dates)
options = client.filteroptionses.get()
print(options.categories[0].value, options.categories[0].label)
# Search open solicitations for software-related tenders
for summary in client.solicitations.search_open(keywords="software", limit=3):
print(summary.title, summary.organization, summary.closing_date)
# Drill into the first result's full detail
item = client.solicitations.search_open(keywords="construction", limit=1).first()
if item:
detail = item.details()
print(detail.title, detail.solicitation_type, detail.location)
# Walk categories assigned to that solicitation
for cat in detail.get_categories(limit=5):
print(cat.code, cat.name)
# Search closed solicitations with a publish date filter
for closed in client.solicitations.search_closed(keywords="consulting", limit=3):
print(closed.title, closed.published_date, closed.closing_date)
# Typed error handling — fetch by a known-bad ID
try:
sol = client.solicitations.get(internal_id="0000000000")
print(sol.title)
except SolicitationNotFound as exc:
print(f"Solicitation not found: {exc.internal_id}")
print("exercised: filteroptionses.get / search_open / search_closed / get / details / get_categories")
Search for open tender solicitations/RFPs on Merx with keyword, category, location, and publish-date filters. Returns paginated results sorted by relevance. Each result carries an internal_id usable with get_solicitation_detail and get_solicitation_categories.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Page number for pagination. |
| category | string | Category code from get_filter_options (e.g., 10034 for EDP Hardware and Software). |
| keywords | string | Search keywords to filter solicitations by title or content. |
| location | string | Location code from get_filter_options (e.g., 355 for Ontario, 38000 for All of Canada). |
| publish_date | string | Filter by publish date. Accepted values: HOURS_24, WEEK_1. |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"page": "integer current page number",
"results": "array of solicitation summaries with title, organization, location, reference_number, internal_id, url, published_date, closing_date",
"total_count": "integer total number of matching solicitations"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"page": 1,
"results": [
{
"url": "https://www.merx.com/solicitations/open-bids/Software-Provider-PQR/0000301466?origin=0",
"title": "Software Provider PQR",
"location": "Calgary, AB, CAN",
"internal_id": "3577773664",
"closing_date": "2030/08/25",
"organization": "Alberta Securities Commission",
"published_date": "2025/08/26",
"reference_number": "0000301466"
}
],
"total_count": 331
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the Merx API
What the API Covers
The Merx API surfaces tender solicitations and RFPs published on merx.com — Canada's primary federal and provincial procurement listing platform. Two search endpoints handle distinct tender states: search_open_solicitations returns active opportunities still accepting bids, while search_closed_solicitations covers past tenders. Both return paginated arrays of solicitation summaries including title, organization, location, reference_number, internal_id, url, published_date, and closing_date, along with a total_count for building pagination UIs.
Filtering and Discovery
All search endpoints accept keywords, category, location, and page parameters. search_open_solicitations also accepts a publish_date filter with values HOURS_24 or WEEK_1 for recency-focused monitoring. Category and location codes are not arbitrary strings — use get_filter_options to retrieve the full list of valid value/label pairs for provinces and territories (e.g., 355 for Ontario, 38000 for All of Canada) and procurement categories (e.g., 10034 for EDP Hardware and Software).
Solicitation Detail
Passing an internal_id from any search result to get_solicitation_detail returns the full record: description, solicitation_type, solicitation_number, issuing_organization, closing_date, categories, and reference_number. The get_solicitation_categories endpoint provides just the category array for a given internal_id when you need category data without pulling the complete detail object.
Pagination and Data Shape
Both search endpoints return the current page integer alongside results and total_count, making it straightforward to walk through large result sets. All internal_id values are numeric strings (e.g., "1234567890") and serve as the primary key for detail lookups across the API.
The Merx API is a managed, monitored endpoint for merx.com — not a raw scraper you maintain. Every endpoint is automatically health-checked on a schedule, and when merx.com changes and a check fails, the API is automatically queued for repair and re-verified. It is built to keep working as the site underneath it changes.
This isn't an official merx.com API — it's an independent, maintained REST wrapper over public data. Where the source has no official API (or only a limited one), Parse gives you a stable contract over a source that never promised one, and keeps it current. Need a new endpoint or field? You can revise it yourself in plain English and the agent rebuilds it against the live site in minutes — contributing the change back to the shared API is free.
Will this API break when the source site changes?+
Is this an official API from the source site?+
Can I fix or extend this API myself if I need a new endpoint or field?+
What happens if I call an endpoint that has an issue?+
- Monitor newly posted Canadian government RFPs daily using the
publish_date: HOURS_24filter onsearch_open_solicitations - Build a procurement alert system that tracks tenders by province using location codes from
get_filter_options - Aggregate closed solicitations by category to analyze historical government spending patterns in specific procurement verticals
- Enrich a CRM with issuing organization and reference number fields from
get_solicitation_detailwhen a client wins a bid - Index Canadian tender titles and descriptions for full-text search by streaming paginated results from both open and closed endpoints
- Filter IT-related solicitations using the EDP Hardware and Software category code to surface relevant contract opportunities for technology vendors
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 100 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does Merx have an official developer API?+
What does `get_solicitation_detail` return beyond what appears in search results?+
get_solicitation_detail adds description (full body text), solicitation_type, solicitation_number, and categories (an array of code/name objects) that are absent from the summary arrays returned by the search endpoints. The issuing_organization field is also more consistently populated in the detail response.Does the API expose attached documents or bid addenda from solicitation listings?+
get_solicitation_detail returns metadata and description text but does not return downloadable document URLs or addenda content. The url field in search results points to the Merx listing page where documents may be accessed directly. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint that retrieves document links from individual solicitation pages.How current is the solicitation data, and how far back does the closed tender history go?+
search_closed_solicitations endpoint returns historical records, but the API does not expose a specific date range for how far back closed tenders extend. The publish_date filter (HOURS_24, WEEK_1) is only available on the open solicitations endpoint and has no equivalent for closed records.