Florida Sunbiz Business Scraper

An Apify Actor that scrapes business filings from Florida's Division of Corporations (Sunbiz.org) based on filing date ranges.

Features

• Date Range Filtering: Scrape businesses filed between specific dates
• Smart Year Filtering: Uses document number patterns (e.g., L25 = 2025) to efficiently skip irrelevant records
• Comprehensive Search: Starts from multiple search entry points (A-Z, common business terms) for broad coverage
• Comprehensive Data Extraction:
  • Business name and document number
  • Filing and effective dates
  • FEI/EIN number
  • Status (Active, Inactive, Dissolved, etc.)
  • Principal and mailing addresses
  • Registered agent information
  • Officers, directors, and managers

How It Works

1. Multiple Starting Points: The scraper initiates searches from:

   • The beginning of the alphabetical entity list
   • Common business terms (LLC, INC, CORP, HOLDINGS, etc.)
   • Each letter A-Z

2. Year-Based Filtering: For efficiency, the scraper checks document numbers (e.g., L25000123456 indicates 2025) and skips entities from other years without loading their detail pages.

3. Date Verification: For entities matching the target year, it visits detail pages to verify the exact filing date falls within your specified range.

Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
startDate	string	Yes	2025-12-01	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD)
endDate	string	Yes	2025-12-31	End date (YYYY-MM-DD)
entityTypes	array	No	["ALL"]	Entity types to scrape
maxResults	integer	No	1000	Maximum records to scrape
proxyConfiguration	object	No	Apify Proxy	Proxy settings

Example Input

{
    "startDate": "2025-12-01",
    "endDate": "2025-12-31",
    "entityTypes": ["ALL"],
    "maxResults": 500,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
}

Output Format

Each scraped business is saved with the following structure:

{
    "name": "ACME CORPORATION LLC",
    "documentNumber": "L25000123456",
    "feiEinNumber": "12-3456789",
    "status": "Active",
    "filingDate": "12/15/2025",
    "effectiveDate": "12/15/2025",
    "stateOfFormation": "FL",
    "entityType": "LLC",
    "principalAddress": "123 Main St, Miami, FL 33101",
    "mailingAddress": "123 Main St, Miami, FL 33101",
    "registeredAgent": {
        "name": "John Doe",
        "address": "456 Agent Ave, Miami, FL 33102"
    },
    "officers": [
        {
            "title": "MGR",
            "details": "Jane Smith, 789 Officer Rd, Miami, FL 33103"
        }
    ],
    "sourceUrl": "https://search.sunbiz.org/...",
    "scrapedAt": "2025-12-20T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Document Number Patterns

Florida document numbers encode the entity type and year:

• L25000XXXXXX - Domestic LLCs filed in 2025
• P25000XXXXXX - Domestic Corporations filed in 2025
• N25000XXXXXX - Nonprofits filed in 2025
• F25000XXXXXX - Foreign Corporations filed in 2025
• M25000XXXXXX - Foreign LLCs filed in 2025
• G25000XXXXXX - Limited Partnerships filed in 2025

Deployment to Apify

Option 1: Apify CLI

1. Install Apify CLI:

   $npm install -g apify-cli
   

2. Login to Apify:

   $apify login
   

3. Push the actor:

   cd sunbiz-scraper
   apify push
   

Option 2: Manual Upload

1. Zip the entire sunbiz-scraper folder
2. Go to https://console.apify.com/actors
3. Create a new Actor and upload the zip file

Performance Notes

• The scraper uses Cheerio (fast HTML parsing) instead of a browser, making it efficient
• Year-based filtering significantly reduces unnecessary page loads
• Rate limited to 60 requests/minute to be respectful to Sunbiz servers
• Using Apify Proxy is recommended to avoid IP blocks

Legal Notice

This scraper accesses publicly available data from Sunbiz.org. Users are responsible for:

• Complying with Florida's public records laws
• Respecting the website's terms of service
• Using data in accordance with applicable regulations

Troubleshooting

No results found:

• Verify the date range is correct (use YYYY-MM-DD format)
• Check that there were actually filings during your date range
• Try a broader date range or a recent time period

Timeout errors:

• Reduce maxConcurrency in main.js
• Use residential proxies if available

Missing fields:

• Some records may have incomplete data
• Older records may have less detailed information