UK Companies House Company Data

Get official UK company data straight from the Companies House public register — no scraping, no blocked requests, no terms-of-service risk. Search 5 million+ UK companies by name, industry (SIC code), location, status or incorporation date, or look up company numbers in bulk, and export clean rows to JSON, CSV or Excel.

What does UK Companies House Company Data do?

This Actor queries the official Companies House Public Data API and returns a flat, analysis-ready record for every company it finds: company number, registered name, status, type, incorporation date, full registered office address, SIC codes, accounts and confirmation-statement due dates, insolvency and charges flags, and previous names.

Because it reads a government API rather than parsing web pages, it never gets rate-limited by anti-bot systems, never breaks when a site is redesigned, and needs no proxies. Run it on demand, schedule it, or call it from the Apify API and pipe results into Make, Zapier, Google Sheets or your own database.

Why use UK Companies House Company Data?

• Sales prospecting. Build B2B lead lists filtered by industry and location — every electrical contractor in Manchester, every software company incorporated in the last 90 days.
• Lead enrichment. Turn a list of company numbers or names into verified, current company records.
• Credit and supplier risk. Surface dissolved, liquidated or insolvent companies, and spot overdue accounts before you sign a contract.
• Compliance and KYB. Verify that a counterparty exists, is active, and is registered where it claims to be.
• Market research. Measure company formations by sector and region over time.

Unlike scrapers pointed at social networks or map listings, this Actor's source is a public register that is meant to be queried. Your runs cannot be blocked, and the data is as current as the register itself.

How to use UK Companies House Company Data

1. Get a free Companies House API key. Register at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk, create an application, and copy its REST API key. It takes about two minutes and costs nothing.
2. Paste the key into the Companies House API key field.
3. Either enter company numbers for a direct bulk lookup, or set search filters — name, SIC code, location, status, incorporation date range.
4. Set Maximum results.
5. Click Start and download the dataset when the run finishes.

You supply your own key so you get your own full rate limit, rather than queueing behind every other user of a shared one.

Input

Configure everything on the Input tab. All fields except the API key are optional, though you must give either company numbers or at least one search criterion.

Field	Type	Description
apiKey	string	Required. Your free Companies House REST API key.
companyNumbers	array	Bulk lookup, e.g. ["00000006", "01471587"]. Keep leading zeros. Overrides search filters.
searchQuery	string	Registered name contains this text.
companyStatus	array	active, dissolved, liquidation, and others. Defaults to active.
companyType	array	ltd, plc, llp, and others.
sicCodes	array	Industry codes, e.g. ["62012"] for business software development.
location	string	Town, city or region in the registered office address.
incorporatedFrom / incorporatedTo	string	YYYY-MM-DD range.
maxResults	integer	Default 100.
fetchFullProfile	boolean	Default true. Off is ~2× faster but omits compliance dates and flags.

{
    "apiKey": "your-companies-house-key",
    "searchQuery": "solar",
    "companyStatus": ["active"],
    "sicCodes": ["43210"],
    "location": "Manchester",
    "incorporatedFrom": "2024-01-01",
    "maxResults": 500
}

Output

Each company becomes one dataset item. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

{
    "companyNumber": "00000006",
    "companyName": "EXAMPLE TRADING LIMITED",
    "companyStatus": "active",
    "companyType": "ltd",
    "jurisdiction": "england-wales",
    "incorporationDate": "1862-10-25",
    "registeredOfficeAddress": "1 Example Street, Manchester, M1 1AA, England",
    "addressLocality": "Manchester",
    "addressPostalCode": "M1 1AA",
    "sicCodes": ["43210"],
    "accountsNextDue": "2026-12-31",
    "accountsLastMadeUpTo": "2025-03-31",
    "confirmationStatementNextDue": "2026-07-14",
    "hasInsolvencyHistory": false,
    "hasCharges": true,
    "previousNames": ["EXAMPLE HOLDINGS LIMITED"],
    "companyUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00000006"
}

Data fields

Field	Description
companyNumber	Official registration number
companyName	Current registered name
companyStatus / companyStatusDetail	Active, dissolved, in liquidation, etc.
companyType	Ltd, PLC, LLP, CIC, etc.
jurisdiction	England/Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland
incorporationDate / dissolutionDate	YYYY-MM-DD
registeredOfficeAddress	Full address, plus split addressLine1, addressLocality, addressRegion, addressPostalCode, addressCountry
sicCodes	Standard Industrial Classification codes
accountsNextDue, accountsLastMadeUpTo, accountsCategory	Filing position for accounts
confirmationStatementNextDue, confirmationStatementLastMadeUpTo	Confirmation statement position
hasInsolvencyHistory, hasCharges, hasBeenLiquidated, canFile	Risk flags
previousNames	Former registered names
companyUrl	Link to the public register entry

Before you start: you need a free Companies House API key

This Actor runs on your own Companies House API key, not a shared one. Getting it takes about two minutes and costs nothing:

1. Register at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk
2. Create an application, choosing the live environment
3. Copy its REST API key (not the streaming key)
4. Paste it into the Companies House API key field on the Input tab

Your key means your rate limit is yours alone — 600 requests per five minutes, not shared with every other user of this Actor.

How much does it cost to get UK company data?

$1.00 per 1,000 company records. You are charged only for records actually delivered to your dataset. Failed lookups, companies not found on the register, and runs that return nothing cost you nothing.

Company records	Cost
100	$0.10
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00

Platform compute is included in that price — there is no separate usage charge to calculate, and no proxy costs, because this Actor calls an official API rather than scraping. The Companies House API itself is free.

Request budget is easy to predict: one request per company with fetchFullProfile off, two with it on, plus one request per 100 search results.

Tips and advanced options

• Turn off fetchFullProfile when you only need name, number, status, address and SIC codes. It halves the request count.
• Filter hard rather than paging deep. The search index only returns the first 10,000 matches for any query. To sweep a large sector, split the work by incorporation date range or by narrower SIC code.
• requestIntervalMs defaults to 550ms, which keeps you inside the API's 600-requests-per-five-minutes limit. Only lower it if Companies House has raised your key's allowance.
• Search matches registered names only, not trading names. A company trading as "Bob's Solar" may be registered as something entirely different.
• Schedule a daily run with incorporatedFrom set to yesterday to get a feed of newly formed companies in your sector.

FAQ and support

Is this legal? Yes. Companies House data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which expressly permits commercial reuse. This Actor accesses an official API with your own registered key — it does not scrape, and it breaches nobody's terms of service. Attribution: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Does it return director or shareholder details? No, deliberately. OGL v3.0 excludes personal data from its grant, so returning officers' names and correspondence addresses would move you from a permissive licence into UK GDPR obligations. This Actor returns company-level data only.

Why do I need my own API key? So your rate limit is yours alone. A shared key would mean every user throttling every other user.

Why did my search return nothing? Most often an over-narrow SIC code or date range, or a trading name rather than the registered name. Try widening one filter at a time.

Does it cover Scotland and Northern Ireland? Yes — the register covers the whole UK, and the jurisdiction field tells you which.

Found a bug or need a field that isn't here? Open an issue on the Issues tab and it will be looked at.