UK Late Payers & Payment Practices Scraper

Find out which large UK companies pay their suppliers late, which are getting worse, and which offer no e-invoicing or supply chain finance. Each company becomes one clean, cited row, built from the UK government's official payment practices reports and joined with Companies House data.

What is UK Late-Payer & AP-Prospect Signals?

Under UK law, large companies and LLPs must report how quickly they pay suppliers every six months. This Actor turns that statutory dataset, more than 115,000 reports from more than 10,000 companies, into ready-to-use, cited signals for prospecting, credit screening and research.

What data does it return?

• Average days to pay and the change since the company's previous report
• % of invoices paid late (not within agreed terms) and % paid after 60 days
• Trend: WORSENING, IMPROVING, STABLE, NO_PRIOR_REPORT or NO_PAYMENT_DATA
• Gaps you can sell into: no e-invoicing, no supply chain finance, payment terms over 60 days (the cap proposed in the Commercial Payments Bill)
• Companies House context: SIC codes (sector), status (e.g. Liquidation), accounts category (size), town and region
• A transparent late-payment score from 0 to 100
• Monitor mode returns only what changed since your last run, so you can schedule it and get alerts

Every row links to the official report on gov.uk, so you can show your source.

How much does it cost to get UK late-payer data?

• Company signal: $0.01 per company row (Bronze $0.009, Silver $0.008, Gold $0.007 per row on Apify's paid tiers) in snapshot mode (rows whose Companies House check could not be done, status not-checked-time-limit or unavailable, are free)
• Change alert: $0.05 per changed company in monitor mode
• Baseline monitor runs and runs with no changes cost nothing beyond the Actor start.

maxResults (default 100) and your run's maximum charge both cap spend. The Actor stops exactly at your limit. Monitor alerts over the cap are kept and delivered on your next run.

Typical costs at the $0.01 base price: a 20-row run is $0.20; 100 prospects $1.00; every reporting company (about 10,000) about $103. Platform compute is included; you pay only the events above.

How to use it

1. Open the Input tab, pick Snapshot (a list) or Monitor (alerts), and set filters such as sector (SIC prefix), region or minimum days to pay.
2. Set Max results to cap rows and cost, then click Start.
3. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or use the dataset views AP / SCF prospects, Late payers and Changes. To get alerts, schedule a monitor run weekly.

Who uses this

You are...	Use it to...
An AP automation / e-invoicing vendor	Build prospect lists of large UK firms that pay late and don't offer e-invoicing (onlyNoEInvoicing)
A supply chain finance / early-payment provider	Find buyers with long terms and no SCF programme (onlyNoSupplyChainFinance, minMaxContractualTermDays: 61)
An invoice finance lender or credit insurer	Screen debtors and get alerts when a debtor's payment performance worsens or it enters administration
An SME supplier or sales team	Check how a prospective customer really pays before you sign
A journalist or researcher	Track late payers and sector trends ahead of the Commercial Payments Bill

Quick start

Construction late payers in London and the North West without e-invoicing (large companies only):

{
  "mode": "snapshot",
  "sicPrefixes": ["41", "42", "43"],
  "regions": ["London", "North West"],
  "accountsCategories": ["FULL", "GROUP"],
  "minAvgDaysToPay": 45,
  "onlyNoEInvoicing": true,
  "activeOnly": true,
  "maxResults": 500
}

Weekly alerts on your debtor book:

{
  "mode": "monitor",
  "watchlistName": "my-debtors",
  "companyNumbers": ["00784278", "SC012921", "04472486"],
  "maxReportAgeMonths": 0
}

The first monitor run only saves a baseline (no charge). Each later run returns only companies with a new report, a flag added or removed, average days to pay moving by your threshold (default 5 days), a change in e-invoicing or SCF, or a change in register status. Use a different watchlistName for each set of filters.

Input

Every field is optional; the form groups them into Mode, Which companies, Payment thresholds, Output & signal settings and Data sources. Company numbers (watchlist) · name contains · latest report filed within N months (default 18) · SIC code prefixes · region (from registered-office postcode) · postcode areas · accounts category (size) · active only · minimum average days to pay · minimum % paid late · minimum % paid after 60 days · minimum maximum contractual term · minimum change in days to pay · minimum score · no e-invoicing · no SCF · trend · require any or all flags · sort · max results.

Output (one row per company)

{
  "companyNumber": "00784278",
  "companyName": "AMPHENOL LIMITED",
  "latePaymentScore": 46,
  "trend": "IMPROVING",
  "flags": ["MAX_TERM_OVER_THRESHOLD", "HIGH_SHARE_PAID_LATE", "NO_SUPPLY_CHAIN_FINANCE"],
  "avgDaysToPay": 59,
  "avgDaysToPayChange": -8,
  "pctInvoicesPaidOver60Days": 45,
  "pctNotPaidWithinAgreedTerms": 57,
  "maxContractualTermDays": 120,
  "eInvoicingOffered": true,
  "supplyChainFinanceOffered": false,
  "reportingPeriodEnd": "2026-06-30",
  "reportUrl": "https://check-payment-practices.service.gov.uk/report/113144",
  "priorReportUrl": "https://check-payment-practices.service.gov.uk/report/98888",
  "companyStatus": "Active",
  "accountsCategory": "FULL",
  "sicCodes": [{"code": "26110", "description": "Manufacture of electronic components"}],
  "region": "South East",
  "companiesHouseUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00784278"
}

(Illustrative excerpt. Rows have around 50 fields, including value paid late in GBP, payment-code membership, standard terms text, data-quality warnings and attribution.)

Monitor-mode rows add changeType (NEW_COMPANY, NEW_REPORT, SIGNAL_CHANGED or REGISTER_STATUS_CHANGED), a readable changes list such as "avgDaysToPay: 37 -> 51", and the previous values.

The dataset has three views: AP / SCF prospects, Late payers and Changes.

Flags

AVG_DAYS_OVER_THRESHOLD, MAX_TERM_OVER_THRESHOLD, STANDARD_TERM_OVER_THRESHOLD (threshold default 60 days, configurable) · HIGH_SHARE_PAID_LATE (≥30% not paid within terms by default) · NO_E_INVOICING · NO_SUPPLY_CHAIN_FINANCE · WORSENING · CHARGED_SUPPLIERS_TO_STAY_ON_LIST · REGISTER_STATUS_NOT_ACTIVE · NO_PAYMENT_DATA · SUSPECT_DATA (e.g. a reported average of 4,323,394 days)

Late-payment score (heuristic)

0.4 × min(avgDaysToPay, 120)/120 × 100 + 0.3 × %notPaidWithinTerms + 0.2 × %paidOver60Days + 10 if WORSENING, capped at 100. The score is not calculated when the reported average is implausible (over 365 days). It is a ranking aid, not a credit rating.

Trend

The latest report is compared with the company's previous report that contains payment data. WORSENING means at least +5 days or +10 percentage points paid late (both configurable). Where a company filed several reports for the same period, the most recently filed one is used.

Data sources, licences and attribution

• Payment practices reports: Department for Business and Trade, Payment Practices Reporting service, downloaded fresh from the official export (https://check-payment-practices.service.gov.uk/export/csv/) and cached for 12 hours by default. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures are as reported by each business, in its own words. The government does not verify them.
• Company register data: Companies House, free Basic Company Data monthly snapshot (https://download.companieshouse.gov.uk/en_output.html), cached per snapshot; for small runs, the public company overview page on https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/ (low concurrency, with backoff). Optionally, the Companies House Public Data API is used with your own free API key for companies missing from the live-company snapshot (e.g. dissolved). Companies House "impose[s] no rules or requirements on how the information on the public register is used" and asks to be credited as the source (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/companies-house-data-products). This data is not under the OGL.
• This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department for Business and Trade or Companies House.

No personal data

The output is company-level only. The Actor does not collect officers, directors, PSCs, the named person who approved a report, or street addresses. It keeps only the post town, postcode area and derived region. Narrative free-text answers are dropped, except the short "standard payment terms" statement, capped at 300 characters.

Limitations

• Only companies and LLPs that meet the statutory "large" thresholds report: at least two of £54m turnover, £27m balance sheet and 250 employees. Small companies are not covered.

• The figures are self-reported and published with a delay. Reports cover six-month periods and are filed within 30 days of each period end, so filings peak in January and July.

• Regions are derived from postcode areas, which are approximate where areas cross region borders (e.g. SY, CH, DA, KT, TD).

• Around 5% of reporting companies are not in the live-company snapshot (mostly dissolved). Their rows have companiesHouseSource: "not-found" unless you supply an API key.

• Run time. Snapshot runs with Max results up to 200 and no sector/region/size/status filter look up register data only for the companies returned (from the cache, your Companies House API key if given, or the public Companies House company page) and usually finish in about a minute, even on a first run. In that mode accountsCategory is empty unless the company is already cached or you give an API key; set Companies House lookup method to bulk if you need it.

• Runs with sector/region/size/status filters, larger runs and monitor mode read the free monthly Companies House snapshot (about 0.5 GB). On the first run after a new snapshot that can take a few minutes; later runs use the cache and take seconds. If a run is close to its timeout, the snapshot scan stops early, rows are still delivered with whatever register data was reached, and the summary says companiesHouseComplete: false. Monitor runs never compare against incomplete register data.

• Each row has companiesHouseStatus, and companiesHouseLookup for found rows:

  companiesHouseStatus	Meaning	Charged?
  found	Register data attached; companiesHouseLookup is cache, bulk, api or page	Yes
  not-on-register	Lookup completed: Companies House says the company does not exist. In monitor mode (no per-company re-check) it means absent from the live-company snapshot, e.g. dissolved	Yes
  not-checked-time-limit	Not looked up because the run was close to its timeout	No (free row)
  unavailable	Companies House error, rate limit retries used up, rejected API key or unreadable page	No (free row)
  not-requested	You turned Join Companies House data off	Yes

  companiesHouseSource is kept for compatibility (bulk-snapshot-YYYY-MM-DD, public-data-api, companies-house-website, otherwise the status value; it used to say not-found). The run summary (OUTPUT) reports chargedRows, uncharged.notCheckedTimeLimit, uncharged.unavailable and companiesHouseStatusCounts, and the status message repeats them. Free rows never count toward your max charge; delivery stops at the first row that would go over it.

FAQ

Is it legal to use this data commercially? Yes, with attribution. Both sources are official UK government publications:

• The payment practices reports are published by the Department for Business and Trade on GOV.UK, whose content is "available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated" (https://www.gov.uk/check-when-businesses-pay-invoices, footer). OGL v3 allows commercial reuse if you acknowledge the source (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/). Every row carries an attribution field you can keep.
• Companies House says: "We impose no rules or requirements on how the information on the public register is used" and that you are responsible for data protection, copyright and other law (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/companies-house-data-products).

The output is company-level only (no directors, officers or people), so it holds no personal data. This is not legal advice; check your own use case, in particular direct-marketing rules (PECR) if you contact companies.

Does the Actor respect the sources' access rules? Yes. It reads the two free bulk files the government publishes for download (the payment practices CSV export and the monthly Companies House snapshot) and caches them in your account, so repeat runs within the cache window do not download them again. For small runs it opens at most 200 public Companies House company pages, three at a time with a pause and backoff on errors. Companies House asks that its searchable services are not used "as a source for bulk downloads" and may block anyone "generating unusually high numbers of daily database accesses" (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/searching-the-companies-house-register, "Acceptable use"); large runs therefore always use the bulk snapshot instead. With your own free API key the Actor stays inside the Companies House API limit of 600 requests per 5 minutes (https://developer-specs.company-information.service.gov.uk/guides/rateLimiting) and backs off on HTTP 429.

How fresh is it? The payment practices export is re-downloaded whenever the cache is older than cacheHours (default 12). Companies House data comes from the latest monthly snapshot or the live company page.

How accurate is it? Each figure is copied from the company's own filing and every row links to it (reportUrl). Releases are spot-checked by comparing delivered rows with the live gov.uk report pages field by field. The figures themselves are self-reported and not audited by the government; rows with implausible values get the SUSPECT_DATA flag.

Can I get every company? Yes. Set maxReportAgeMonths: 0 and a high maxResults. There are about 10,000 companies.

What happens if a source is down? If the payment practices export cannot be downloaded, the Actor uses the last good cached copy and says so in the run summary; with no cache it ends with a free notice row and charges nothing. If Companies House cannot be reached, rows are still delivered but marked unavailable and are free.

Why did my monitor run return nothing? The first run on a watchlist only saves a baseline. Later runs return rows only when something changed.

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