How to pull in data from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) to Excel
United States Federal Reserve collects massive quantities of economic data. The organization distributes some of its data for free online. This post shows how to import FRED’s data into Excel.
Step 1: Install FREDs Add-In.
Go to https://fred.stlouisfed.org/fred-addin/. Click on the checkbox next to I agree to terms of use and the click on DOWNLOAD NOW button.
This should download a file by the name of fred.zip. Unzip this file and copy the file fred.xlam to Local Disk (C:) > Users > current-user >AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > AddIns.
Click on File > Options:
Click on Add-ins:
Toward the bottom of the window, for Manage:, choose Excel Add-ins and click on Go… button.
You should see the following window. Click on Browse… button.
Select fred.xlam and click on OK button.
You should see FRED Excel Add-in for Microsoft office in the Add-ins window. Make sure it is checked and Click on OK button.
Fred in now installed and you should see FRED in the menu as show below.
