UK Companies House Scraper — Official API

Used by KYC analysts, M&A associates, and B2B sales teams who need live UK company status, directors, and SIC codes without managing a Companies House integration.

Search and extract UK company data from the official Companies House API. Returns company number, name, status, type, incorporation date, registered address, SIC codes, and optionally officers (directors). Pay per result.

$5.00/1K records (Pay Per Event). Officers add-on +$2.00/1K. First 10 results free. No proxy needed. No scraping ban risk. Government data source — authoritative, directly from the Companies House API.

Getting your free API key

1. Go to https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk/get-started
2. Sign in or create a free account
3. Create an application — choose "Live" environment
4. Copy the API key (also called "key")
5. Paste it into the apiKey input field

The key is free and gives you 600 requests per 5 minutes (enough for thousands of companies per run).

What you get

Field	Description
company_number	Companies House company number (e.g. 00445790)
name	Full company name
status	active, dissolved, liquidation, etc.
company_type	ltd, plc, llp, unregistered-company, etc.
incorporation_date	Date of formation (YYYY-MM-DD)
cessation_date	Dissolution date if applicable
address_line_1	Registered office address
address_line_2	Second address line
locality	City / town
region	County / region
postal_code	Postal code
country	Country (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland)
address_snippet	Formatted address fallback
sic_codes	List of SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) codes
jurisdiction	england-wales, scotland, northern-ireland, etc.
officers	List of directors/secretaries (when fetchOfficers=true)
officers_count	Total officer count
profile_url	Direct link to company on Companies House website
query	Which search query or company number produced this record
parse_confidence	Data quality score 0–1
warnings	Machine-readable quality flags

Modes

Search by name — provide searchQueries (e.g. ["Rolls Royce", "BP plc"]). Paginates automatically up to maxResultsPerQuery.

Direct lookup by number — provide companyNumbers (e.g. ["00445790", "00102498"]). Fetches the full company profile for each number. More precise — returns one record per number.

Both modes — combine searchQueries and companyNumbers in the same run. Results are deduplicated by company number.

Officers

Set fetchOfficers: true to include the list of current and past directors and secretaries. This makes one additional API call per company — will use more of your rate limit quota on large runs.

Use cases

• KYC / due diligence — verify UK counterparty legal status, registration, and directors
• B2B lead generation — find companies by SIC code or name
• Compliance screening — identify dissolved or liquidated entities
• Beneficial ownership — extract officer lists for corporate structure mapping
• Market research — map UK company types, sectors, incorporation trends

Data source

Companies House — official UK government company registry, maintained by the Department for Business and Trade. Data is authoritative and updated in near-real-time from company filings.

Pricing

Pay-per-result (PPE):

Event	Rate	Trigger
company-record (base)	$5.00/1K	Every company record returned
officers-fetch (add-on)	$2.00/1K	Records with officers when fetchOfficers: true

Officers premium fires only when officer data is actually returned. No monthly subscription.

Worked examples:

Run	Records	Officers?	Cost
100 company search results	100	No	$0.50
1,000 company search results	1,000	No	$5.00
500 companies with officers	500	Yes	$3.50 ($2.50 base + $1.00 officers)

FAQ

Do I need a proxy or API key? You need a free Companies House API key (5 minutes to get at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk). No proxy needed — the official API works from any IP.

What output formats are available? JSON, CSV, and Excel — all via the Apify dataset. Download directly or pipe into n8n / Make / Zapier.

Can I schedule this to run daily? Yes. Set up a scheduled run in the Apify console to monitor new incorporations, officer changes, or status updates for a watched list of companies.

What if a search returns empty results? Empty queries return zero records and are not charged. Check that your search term matches a known UK company name or use a direct companyNumbers lookup for precision.

Notes

• A free Companies House API key is required — get one at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk (5 minutes)
• Rate limit: 600 requests / 5 minutes per key (generous for typical use cases)
• Officers (fetchOfficers=true) doubles API calls — budget accordingly
• parse_confidence is always 1.0 for records with a valid company number and name; it deducts for truly malformed responses
• Live validation requires a CH API key — set COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY in the environment and run scripts/probe.py to verify

vs. Competitors

Feature	This Actor	opencorporates-scraper (Store)	SerpApi / web scrapers
Data source	Official CH REST API	HTML scraping CH	HTML / SERP
Proxy needed	No	Yes ($$$)	Yes ($$$)
Officer list	Yes (fetchOfficers toggle)	Partial	No
parse_confidence	Yes (1.0 for valid number)	No	No
Real-time data	Near-real-time (gov filings)	Stale / cached	Stale
Cost	$5/1K	~$3-5/1K + proxy	$3-8/1K + proxy COGS

Use with AI agents (MCP)

An agent calls this tool to look up UK company registration status, address, SIC codes, and officers mid-conversation — e.g. "is Barclays PLC still active?", "who are the directors of company 00445790?", or "find all active FinTech companies named 'Monzo'".

Point your MCP client at this tool:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=bovi/companies-house-uk",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Minimal agent input (name search):

{
  "apiKey": "<YOUR_COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY>",
  "searchQueries": ["Barclays"],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 5,
  "activeOnly": true
}

Direct lookup by company number (most precise):

{
  "apiKey": "<YOUR_COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY>",
  "companyNumbers": ["00445790", "00102498"]
}

Example output row an agent can reason over directly:

{
  "company_number": "01026167",
  "name": "BARCLAYS BANK PLC",
  "status": "active",
  "company_type": "plc",
  "incorporation_date": "1971-10-13",
  "locality": "London",
  "postal_code": "E14 5HP",
  "country": "England",
  "sic_codes": ["64190"],
  "officers_count": null,
  "profile_url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01026167",
  "parse_confidence": 1.0,
  "warnings": []
}

Reliability for agents: data comes from the official UK government Companies House API (not HTML scraping), so results don't break on website redesigns. Every record includes a stable company_number for de-duplication and joining across runs. Data quality is tracked via parse_confidence (1.0 = fully clean record; deducts for missing critical fields) and machine-readable warnings. A free Companies House API key is required — obtain one in ~5 minutes at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk.

Integrations

Built for KYC analysts, M&A associates, and B2B sales teams enriching UK company status, directors, and SIC codes — the JSON/dataset output drops into the tools you already run, no glue code:

• n8n / Make / Zapier — trigger a run or pipe every new dataset item into 500+ apps (Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, HubSpot, your database) with no code: n8n, Make, Zapier.
• Webhooks — fire your own endpoint the moment a run finishes, to push results straight into your pipeline (docs).
• MCP server — expose this actor as a tool to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client so an AI agent can pull this data mid-conversation (guide).
• API & SDKs — fetch the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel through the Apify REST API or the Python / JS SDKs.

See all Apify integrations.