# Fred MCP Server (MCP server)

> Fred MCP Server is an MCP server that adds finance tools to AI assistants such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor. Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) MCP Server - Access all 800,000+ economic time series. It has 124 GitHub stars, is released under the AGPL-3.0 license and runs locally with npx -y fred-mcp-server.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server providing universal access to all 800,000+ Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED®) time series through three powerful tools.

## Key facts

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | https://github.com/stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server |
| GitHub stars | 124 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript |
| Transport | stdio |
| Packages | npm: fred-mcp-server |
| Remote URL | none |
| Needs API key | yes |
| Official | no |
| Works with | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code |
| Category | Finance |
| Latest release | v1.2.0 (Aug 20, 2026) |
| Last commit | Aug 22, 2026 |
| MCP registry name | io.github.stefanoamorelli/fred-mcp-server |

## Install

### Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "fred-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Settings > Developer > Edit Config. macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\. Restart Claude Desktop afterwards.

### Claude Code

```sh
claude mcp add --env FRED_API_KEY=your-value --transport stdio fred-mcp-server -- npx -y fred-mcp-server
```

### Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fred-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "fred-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Project file; use ~/.cursor/mcp.json to enable it in every project.

### VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "fred_api_key",
      "description": "FRED_API_KEY",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "fred-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "fred-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "${input:fred_api_key}"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Config formats checked against the official docs on 2026-10-07.

## Environment variables

- `FRED_API_KEY` (secret) (required): Your FRED API key to access the API

## Tools

- `fred_browse`
- `browse_type`: Type of browsing - "categories", "releases", "sources", "categoryseries", "releaseseries"
- `category_id`: Category ID for browsing subcategories or series within a category
- `release_id`: Release ID for browsing series within a release
- `limit`: Maximum number of results (default: 50)
- `offset`: Number of results to skip for pagination
- `order_by`: Field to order results by
- `sort_order`: "asc" or "desc"
- `fred_search`
- `search_text`: Text to search for in series titles and descriptions
- `search_type`: "fulltext" or "seriesid"
- `tag_names`: Comma-separated list of tag names to filter by
- `exclude_tag_names`: Comma-separated list of tag names to exclude
- `filter_variable`: Filter by "frequency", "units", or "seasonal_adjustment"
- `filter_value`: Value to filter the variable by
- `fred_get_series`
- `series_id`: The FRED series ID (e.g., "GDP", "UNRATE", "CPIAUCSL")
- `observation_start`: Start date in YYYY-MM-DD format
- `observation_end`: End date in YYYY-MM-DD format
- `units`: Data transformation:
- `frequency`: Frequency aggregation ("d", "w", "m", "q", "a")
- `aggregation_method`: "avg" (average), "sum", or "eop" (end of period)

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