Australia ABN Business Register Scraper

Search the Australian Business Register (ABN Lookup, abr.business.gov.au) — Australia's official government registry of businesses. Look up any Australian business by name, ABN, or ACN and get its entity name, ABN status, entity type, GST registration status, state, postcode, trading names, and business names. No login, no API key, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Search by business/entity name — free-text search across entity names, business names, and trading names, with optional state and postcode filters
• Lookup by ABN — get the full current-details record for a specific Australian Business Number
• Lookup by ACN — get the full current-details record for a specific Australian Company Number (automatically resolved to its owning ABN)
• Entity category filter — restrict a name search to Deductible Gift Recipients (DGR) or organisations holding charity tax concessions, the same options as the register's own "Advanced search"
• GST filter — optionally restrict ABN/ACN lookups to GST-registered businesses only
• Full pagination — name searches walk every available results page (the register serves up to 200 matches per search), not just the first page
• Empty fields are omitted — every record only contains fields the register actually has data for

Output per business

Name search (mode = searchByName)

• entityName — the matched name (entity, business, or trading name)
• abn — formatted ABN (53 228 428 578), abnDigits — unformatted 11 digits
• abnStatus — Active (name search only ever returns currently active ABNs)
• nameType — Entity Name, Business Name, or Trading Name
• state, postcode — registered location
• abnUrl — link to the full ABN Lookup detail page

ABN / ACN lookup (mode = searchByAbn / searchByAcn)

All of the above, plus:

• abnStatusFromDate — date the current ABN status took effect
• entityType, entityTypeId — e.g. Australian Private Company, Individual/Sole Trader
• gstStatus — Registered or Not registered, gstFromDate if registered
• mainBusinessLocation — raw location string when state/postcode can't be split out
• tradingNames[] — {name, from} — historical trading names (ABR stopped tracking these in 2012)
• businessNames[] — {name, from, asicUrl} — current ASIC-registered business names
• dgrStatus — deductible-gift-recipient status text
• abnLastUpdated, recordExtracted — register housekeeping dates

Every record also includes recordType: "business" and scrapedAt.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	searchByName	searchByName / searchByAbn / searchByAcn
searchText	string	Telstra	Name to search (mode=searchByName)
nameSearchScope	string	all	all / entityName / businessName / tradingName
abn	string	–	ABN, 11 digits (mode=searchByAbn)
acn	string	–	ACN, 9 digits (mode=searchByAcn)
states	array	[]	Filter to these states/territories (mode=searchByName)
postcode	string	–	Filter to this 4-digit postcode (mode=searchByName)
entityCategory	string	all	all / dgr (Deductible Gift Recipients) / charity (charity tax concession holders) — mode=searchByName
gstRegisteredOnly	boolean	false	Only emit GST-registered businesses (mode=searchByAbn/searchByAcn)
maxItems	integer	50	Hard cap on emitted records (1–200); searchByName pages through the register's full result set (up to 200) to reach it

Example: search by name, restricted to Victoria

{
  "mode": "searchByName",
  "searchText": "Telstra",
  "states": ["VIC"],
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: lookup by ABN

{
  "mode": "searchByAbn",
  "abn": "88 000 014 675"
}

Example: lookup by ACN

{
  "mode": "searchByAcn",
  "acn": "000 014 675"
}

Example: search for charities/DGRs by name

{
  "mode": "searchByName",
  "searchText": "Red Cross",
  "entityCategory": "charity",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Use cases

• KYB / vendor verification — confirm an Australian counterparty's ABN is active and check its registered entity type before onboarding
• Sales-lead enrichment — attach ABN, entity type, GST status, and location to a list of Australian company names
• Compliance checks — verify GST registration status for invoicing/tax purposes
• Company research — pull trading names and registered business names for a target entity
• Due diligence — cross-check ABN status (active/cancelled) before signing a contract

FAQ

What's the ABN Lookup / Australian Business Register? The free, public government registry run by the Australian Taxation Office where every Australian business with an ABN is listed. See abr.business.gov.au.

What's the difference between an ABN and an ACN? An ABN (Australian Business Number, 11 digits) identifies any entity dealing with the Australian tax system — companies, sole traders, trusts, partnerships. An ACN (Australian Company Number, 9 digits) is issued only to registered companies by ASIC; a company's ABN is derived from its ACN plus a 2-digit checksum prefix. Looking up an ACN in this actor automatically resolves it to the matching ABN record.

Why does searchByName only return Active statuses? The register's name-search index only covers currently active ABNs; it's the same behaviour as the public ABN Lookup website's default search.

Why are entityType values so specific (e.g. "Commonwealth Government Discretionary Trading Trust")? These are the ATO's own ~140 official entity-type classifications, passed through verbatim from the register.

Why is tradingNames sometimes empty for company ABNs? The ABR stopped collecting trading names in May 2012; only trading names registered before then are still shown. Businesses now use ASIC's national Business Names Register instead — that data appears in businessNames[].

How fresh is the data? The register is updated by the ATO continuously; the actor scrapes the live page on every run.

What does entityCategory actually filter? It matches the ABN Lookup's own "Advanced search" radio options: dgr restricts to entities endorsed as Deductible Gift Recipients, charity restricts to entities with an active charity tax concession endorsement (income tax exemption and/or FBT/GST charity concessions). Both are official ATO endorsement categories, not derived data.

Why can searchByName return more than one page's worth of results? The register shows 40 rows per page and caps a single search at 200 total matches; the actor walks every available page (up to maxItems) instead of stopping after the first page, so a broad query like a common brand name returns its full available result set.