Companies House UK Company Search

Search and profile UK companies from the official Companies House API, with filing history and charges, and no officer personal data.

Get structured UK company data as JSON, CSV or Excel, or call it as a tool from Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or any MCP client. Pay only for the results you receive.

What you get

Two modes in one Actor:

• Search: find UK companies by name or keyword, with company number, status, type, incorporation date, address and SIC codes.
• Profile: a full company profile by company number, optionally with the most recent filing history and registered charges (mortgages and liens).

Officer data is never collected: this Actor does not call the officers endpoint and never includes director or officer names in its output.

Every result is a flat record with stable field names, so it drops straight into a spreadsheet, a database or an AI agent's context.

Why use this instead of the website

• Search and full profile, with filing history and charges, in one Actor
• Filters and pagination handled for you, with automatic retries
• Results in JSON, CSV, Excel or via API, or piped into Zapier, Make, n8n and Google Sheets
• Works as an MCP tool, so AI agents can look up UK companies on demand
• No browser, no proxies, no officer personal data: fast runs and a tiny cost per result

Input

Field	Type	Default	Meaning
mode	string	search	search or profile
query	string		Company name or keyword (mode search)
companyNumbers	array		UK company numbers, e.g. 00445790 (mode profile)
includeFilingHistory	boolean	false	Add the 25 most recent filings (mode profile)
includeCharges	boolean	false	Add registered charges (mode profile)
apiKey	string		Optional: your own free Companies House REST API key
maxResults	integer	100	Cap on results saved. You are charged per result, so this caps your cost.

No API key required to get started: this Actor runs against the operator's own free Companies House key by default. If you plan to run high volumes, get your own free key at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk and pass it as apiKey so your usage draws on your own quota instead of the operator's. Either way it is used only for the run and is never stored or logged.

Example input:

{
  "mode": "profile",
  "companyNumbers": ["00445790"],
  "includeFilingHistory": true,
  "maxResults": 10
}

Output

Example result (profile mode, with filing history):

{
  "companyNumber": "00445790",
  "companyName": "EXAMPLE COMPANY LIMITED",
  "companyStatus": "active",
  "companyType": "ltd",
  "dateOfCreation": "1950-01-01",
  "dateOfCessation": null,
  "jurisdiction": "england-wales",
  "registeredOfficeAddress": "1 Example Street, London, EC1A 1AA",
  "sicCodes": ["62012"],
  "accountsNextDue": "2027-01-01",
  "confirmationStatementNextDue": "2026-12-01",
  "hasBeenLiquidated": false,
  "hasInsolvencyHistory": false,
  "recentFilings": [
    { "date": "2026-06-01", "category": "accounts", "description": "Accounts made up to 2026-03-31", "type": "AA" }
  ],
  "dataSource": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, from Companies House (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk)."
}

Field reference: companyNumber, companyName, companyStatus, companyType, dateOfCreation, dateOfCessation, jurisdiction, address (search mode) or registeredOfficeAddress (profile mode), sicCodes, accountsNextDue, confirmationStatementNextDue, hasBeenLiquidated, hasInsolvencyHistory, dataSource (the Open Government Licence attribution, required on every record, regardless of whose API key ran the request), and when requested recentFilings[] and charges[].

Pricing

Pay per event. You are charged $4.00 per 1,000 results saved to the dataset, plus a fraction of a cent per run start. Nothing is charged for results you do not receive. Set "Max total charge per run" in the run options to cap spending on any run. When a run reaches your cap it stops cleanly and keeps everything it already saved.

Rough guide: 1,000 results cost $4.00 and take about a minute.

Use it from an AI agent (MCP)

This Actor is available as an MCP tool through the Apify MCP server. Add it to your client, then ask the agent for the data in plain language.

Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor (mcp.json / claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=brightpath-data/companies-house-uk",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

ChatGPT and other clients that support remote MCP servers: add https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=brightpath-data/companies-house-uk as a connector with your Apify token.

Example prompt once connected: "Look up the Companies House profile and filing history for company number 00445790."

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/brightpath-data~companies-house-uk/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"search","query":"Apivoc","maxResults":10}'

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("brightpath-data/companies-house-uk").call(run_input={"mode": "search", "query": "Apivoc", "maxResults": 10})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Limits and fair use

• Up to 10,000 results per run.
• Companies House allows up to 600 requests per 5 minutes per key, and this Actor paces requests well under that. High-volume users should pass their own apiKey so their runs draw on their own quota rather than sharing the operator's.
• A company number with no matching company returns nothing for that entry rather than an error.
• Officer data is never fetched or included, by design.

Data source and legal

Data comes from the official UK government Companies House public API (api.company-information.service.gov.uk). This Actor collects public, non-personal company register data only (no officer names or personal contact details) and does not bypass logins, paywalls or access controls. Every record carries the Open Government Licence attribution in its dataSource field, as required for any reuse of Companies House data: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, from Companies House." You are responsible for how you use the data, and, if you supply your own apiKey, for complying with its terms.

Support

Found a problem or need a field added? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab. Fixes for broken runs are prioritized.