California Business & UCC Lien Search - bizfileOnline

What does this California business search scraper do?

This Actor searches the official California Secretary of State registers at bizfileOnline and returns structured JSON. It covers both registers at once: business entities (status, standing, entity type, formation date and the registered agent for service of process) and UCC liens (financing statements, judgment liens, state and federal tax liens and attachments, each with debtor, secured party, file date and lapse date).

So one search for a company tells you both what it is and who has a claim on it.

No login, no California state API key, nothing to configure. A one-company lookup costs about $0.05, and a search that returns nothing is not charged for.

Most business-registry tools only let you look up a company you already know. This one also lets you discover, because it exposes the registry's own advanced filters:

• Every LLC formed in California last month → entity type + formation-date range
• Every federal tax lien filed in a date range → lien type + date range
• Every suspended entity whose name contains a keyword → status filter

The business side has a second mode of its own, exactly as the registry's own Business tab does: publicly traded disclosure filings, searchable by director or officer, board composition, compensation range and auditor.

What data can you extract from bizfileOnline?

Business entity name, entity number, status, standing, entity type, jurisdiction of formation, initial filing date and registered agent. With Full profile, each record also carries its principal and mailing address, the agent's own address, all four standings and the Statement of Information due date. For UCC filings you get every debtor and secured party with full street addresses — which frequently names the individual behind a trading name. Filing history adds every filing plus the registry's field-level change history, and Download documents saves each filing as a PDF.

Running it on Apify

Because it runs on the Apify platform, you also get scheduling (run a watchlist every morning), API access to pull results straight into your own system, integrations with Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, Slack and webhooks, and automatic proxy rotation — the registry refuses datacenter addresses, so runs go out through a US residential proxy by default.

How to scrape California business records

1. Click Try for free to open the Actor, or add it to your Apify account.
2. Under Which registers to search, keep both registers selected, or pick just one.
3. Type one or more Search terms — a company name, a California entity number such as 3814816, or a debtor name. Terms are limited to 49 characters, the registry's own limit.
4. (Optional) Open Business entity filters or UCC lien filters to narrow by entity type, status, lien type or a date range.
5. (Optional) Under Limits & connection, raise Detail level from Search results only to Full profile, Filing history or Download documents, and set Maximum results per search.
6. Click Save & start. Records stream into the dataset as they are extracted, so a large search starts filling in immediately.
7. Export from the Output tab as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or fetch it from the API.

How much does it cost to scrape California business data?

You pay only for what a run actually does. Searching costs the same whether a term returns one record or five hundred, so the search is priced once and the records are priced per record.

Event	What triggers it	Price
Actor start	Once per run, per GB of memory	$0.005
Search performed	One search term against one register that returned results	$0.025
Record	One business entity or one UCC lien filing	$0.003
Full profile or filing history	A record opened for addresses, agent, standings and history	$0.004
Filing document	One filing PDF saved to the key-value store	$0.006

Volume discounts apply automatically on paid Apify plans.

What a typical run costs

Run	Price
50 business records for one search term	$0.185
One company across both registers, 50 records	~$0.21
25 full profiles with addresses and agent	~$0.21
Two companies with all their filing PDFs	~$0.13

The $0.185 figure is a real run: 50 records in 15 seconds, shown in the output screenshot below.

A search that returns nothing is not charged for. Set Maximum cost per run in Run options to cap your spend — the Actor sizes the job to your budget before it starts, and stops rather than exceed it.

Input and output examples

Input

Pick your registers, type a search term, and run. Everything else is optional.

The simplest possible input searches both registers:

{ "searchQueries": ["DEL TACO"] }

Every LLC formed in January 2024 — a new-business lead list:

{
  "searchQueries": ["California"],
  "entityType": "3",
  "filedFrom": "2024-01-01",
  "filedTo": "2024-01-31"
}

Full profiles with addresses, ready for outreach:

{ "searchQueries": ["DEL TACO"], "detailLevel": "full", "maxResultsPerQuery": 25 }

Output

Business entity record

{
  "register": "business",
  "name": "TESLA MOTORS CLUB LLC",
  "entityNumber": "201313510058",
  "status": "Terminated",
  "standing": "Good Standing",
  "entityType": "Limited Liability Company - CA",
  "formedIn": "CALIFORNIA",
  "initialFilingDate": "05/13/2013",
  "registeredAgent": "CALIFORNIA CORPORATE AGENTS, INC.",
  "jurisdiction": "California, USA",
  "searchQuery": "Tesla Motors"
}

UCC lien record

{
  "register": "ucc",
  "fileNumber": "187651573053",
  "uccType": "Notice of Federal Tax Lien",
  "status": "Active",
  "filingDate": "06/01/2018",
  "lapseDate": "07/01/2028",
  "debtorName": "TESLA ENERGY OPERATIONS INC A CORPORATION",
  "debtorLocation": "SAN MATEO, CA",
  "securedPartyName": "IRS/OHIO",
  "securedPartyLocation": "CINCINNATI, OH"
}

Full profile adds every address

{
  "principalAddress": "25 ISABELLA AVE, ATHERTON, CA 94027",
  "mailingAddress": "25 ISABELLA AVE, ATHERTON, CA 94027",
  "agentType": "Individual",
  "agentName": "Weina Yu",
  "agentAddress": "25 ISABELLA AVE, ATHERTON, CA 94027",
  "standingSos": "Good", "standingFtb": "Good",
  "standingAgent": "Good", "standingVcfcf": "Good",
  "statementOfInfoDueDate": "07/31/2028"
}

and every UCC party gets a street address — often naming an individual behind a trading name that the search rows never show:

{
  "debtorsDetailed": [
    { "name": "ARAUJO, FAUSTO",   "address": "625 S RIVERSIDE AVE STE P, RIALTO, CA 923767072" },
    { "name": "LA CASA DEL TACO", "address": "625 S RIVERSIDE AVE STE P, RIALTO, CA 923767072" }
  ],
  "securedPartiesDetailed": [
    { "name": "EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT", "address": "722 CAPITOL MALL, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814" }
  ]
}

Downloaded filing documents

{
  "documentCount": 3,
  "documents": [
    {
      "type": "Statement of Information",
      "number": "BA20261385813",
      "date": "7/4/2026",
      "key": "document-business-BA20261385813",
      "contentType": "application/pdf",
      "bytes": 129548
    }
  ]
}

Each key is a record in the run's key-value store, under the Filing documents collection.

Other Actors you might need

Actor	What it does
Delaware Business Search	The Delaware Division of Corporations registry — file number, formation date, entity type and the registered agent's name, address and phone, many entities at once
LinkedIn Company Scraper	Public company pages — size, industry, headquarters and specialties
LinkedIn Jobs Scraper	Public job listings by keyword, location and date
AI Scraper	Emails, phone numbers and social profiles from any list of websites
Facebook Posts Scraper	Posts from public pages, profiles and groups

Many California businesses are Delaware corporations registered here as out-of-state entities — when a record shows Formed in: DELAWARE, look it up in the Delaware registry for its home-state formation details and registered agent.

A typical pipeline: pull newly formed California LLCs here, enrich the company names with LinkedIn, then find contact details with the AI Scraper.

Frequently asked questions

Is it legal to scrape California business records?

California business-entity and UCC records are public records. This Actor reads the open public searches at bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov — it does not log in and does not pass any paywall. Use the data lawfully for KYB/AML, due-diligence and B2B purposes.

Do I need a California state API key?

No. The state's own bulk API is key-gated and capped. This Actor reads the open public search, so there is nothing to obtain or configure.

What can I use California registry data for?

• KYB / KYC onboarding — verify an entity exists, is active and is in good standing.
• Registered-agent intelligence — the agent for service of process, for legal or sales work.
• Lending and credit risk — check existing liens, and see who already has a claim on the collateral.
• Distress and collections — tax liens, judgment liens and attachments identify businesses in trouble, and full profiles name the individuals behind them.
• Competitive intelligence for lenders — a fresh financing statement shows a company just borrowed, and names its current lender.
• Lead generation — pull newly formed companies by type and formation month, with addresses.

What do the UCC lien types mean?

Lien type	What it tells you
Financing Statement	A lender claims a security interest in the business's assets. Normal borrowing — and it names the lender. Lapses 5 years after filing unless renewed.
Judgment Lien	Someone sued the business and won, then recorded the judgment against its property.
State Tax Lien	California claims unpaid state taxes.
Federal Tax Lien	The IRS claims unpaid federal taxes.
Attachment	A court froze assets while a lawsuit is still pending.

Only the first is routine. The other four are distress signals.

Why does this Actor need a residential proxy?

The registry refuses datacenter addresses — verified against both plain datacenter egress and Apify's datacenter proxy. So runs go out through a US residential proxy by default, and you should leave that setting alone.

Why did my business search return exactly 500 records?

That is the register's own hard per-term ceiling. The run warns you when a search hits it. Narrow the term, or add an entity type, status or formation-date filter.

Why did I get a message about more than 1,000 UCC filings?

The UCC register refuses to answer a term matching more than 1,000 filings rather than returning a partial list — common words like "Tesla" or "California" hit this easily. Your business-entity results are unaffected. Search a fuller name, or narrow the UCC side with a lien type, status or date range.

Why did the UCC side get skipped entirely?

Either you unticked it under Which registers to search, or the term is shorter than 3 characters — the UCC register's own minimum. Shorter terms search the business register only.

Why is my search term limited to 49 characters?

Because the registry's own search box truncates anything past 49 characters. Accepting a longer term would run a silently different search than the one you typed.

How do I search publicly traded disclosures?

Set Search type to Publicly traded disclosure search in the business filters. That switches the business side to the disclosure register and enables the director/officer, board-composition, compensation and auditor fields.

How do I get only active LLCs?

Set entityType to Limited Liability Company - CA and entityStatus to Active.

Where do downloaded documents go?

Into the run's key-value store, under the Filing documents collection. Each dataset record lists its documents with the key to look up.

What does each detail level cost me in time?

Level	What you get	Speed
Search results only	The registers' own columns	Fastest — one request per search
+ Full profile	Addresses, agent record, all four standings, SOI due date	One extra request per record
+ Filing history	Every filing, its document link, and field-level change history	Two extra requests per record
+ Download documents	Each filing fetched as a PDF into the key-value store	Slowest — a company can have ten or more filings

Keep Maximum results per search low when downloading documents. The cap applies per register, so 10 returns up to 10 business records and up to 10 UCC records per term.

Can I use this in Make, Zapier or my own code?

Yes. Every run is available through the Apify API, and the Actor works with Apify's Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, Slack and webhook integrations. You can also schedule it to re-run a watchlist of companies and only act on what changed.

Support

Found a bug, or need a field this Actor does not return yet? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab and it will be looked at.

Legal & compliance

This Actor collects publicly available business-registry information only. You are responsible for using the extracted data in compliance with applicable laws, including data-protection rules in your jurisdiction, and with the source's terms.

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