France Company Search: SIREN, SIRET and VAT (Sirene)

Look up French companies by name, SIREN or SIRET in the government's free Recherche d'entreprises API (INSEE Sirene data). Each result includes legal form, NAF code, status, head office and the computed French VAT number.

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "Danone",
    "552032534"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 3
}

How it works

• A SIREN or SIRET is looked up directly. A name is a normal search.
• Sole traders are excluded, and no names of managers are returned.

Output

One JSON record per result with: query, siren, siretHeadOffice, name, legalName, acronym, legalFormCode, nafCode, section, employeeBand, employeeBandYear, companyCategory, createdOn, closedOn, status, establishments, openEstablishments, headOffice, vatNumber, finances, flags, url, source.

Limitations

• Name search is fuzzy, so common words return other companies too. Check the SIREN.
• Up to 1,000 results per query (pages of 25). The log always says how many of the total matches were returned. It says TRUNCATED only when you ask for more than 1,000, or when there are more than 1,000 matches and the cap is reached.
• On Apify's free plan, start one run at a time. Several runs started at once can be refused with HTTP 402 (memory limit for concurrent runs).

Invalid input

Text fields or list items that contain only spaces stop the run with a clear error before any external API is called. Nothing is charged.

No results

A query with no hits gives one row: {"query": ..., "status": "NOT_FOUND", "message": "No results for ..."}. It is not charged.

When something goes wrong

If the upstream API is down, times out or rejects the request, the run fails with a status message that says which API failed and why. You won't get an empty "success" that looks like "no results".

Price

$0.003 per company. No start fee. Apify's free plan includes a small monthly credit, so testing costs next to nothing.

Using it from an MCP client

Apify's MCP server exposes it as a tool. You need an Apify account and API token (the free plan is enough to try it):

{ "mcpServers": { "apify": { "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=dataandbeyond/france-company-search", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" } } } }

Or call it over HTTP and get the rows back directly:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/dataandbeyond~france-company-search/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"queries": ["Danone", "552032534"], "maxResultsPerQuery": 3}'

Source and license

API Recherche d'entreprises (DINUM, INSEE Sirene), Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. Each record has a source field. Follow the source license if you redistribute the data.

Contact

Mark, Data and Beyond ApS (Denmark). Open an issue on the Actor page if something is wrong or missing.