UK Company Data — Companies House Officers, PSC & Filings 🇬🇧

🎉 Turn the Companies House register into clean, structured UK company records — look companies up by company number or name, or discover them by SIC industry section, and get status, SIC codes, registered office, accounts and confirmation-statement dates, current and resigned officers, persons with significant control and the latest filings, one row per company. Built for KYB / KYC, due diligence, compliance and B2B research on UK companies.

🔍 What is UK Company Data — and when should you use it?

Give this Actor company numbers in any Companies House format (00445790, SC117119, NI032978, …), company names or a SIC 2007 section, and it returns one record per company from the official Companies House Public Data API (api.company-information.service.gov.uk). A Companies House API key is built in, so you need no account or key of your own. Every run reads the register live.

Use it when you need: a register check for KYB or onboarding (status, type, incorporation date, registered office, SIC codes, overdue accounts or confirmation statements); the current board and its history; persons with significant control and their nature of control; the charges registered against the company; a list of UK companies in one SIC section, optionally only those with a given status.

Use something else when: you need accounts figures (turnover, profit, balance sheet) — this Actor returns accounts types and dates, not the numbers.

🤖 Use with AI agents

Already on the Apify MCP server? Ask for this Actor by name: foxlabs/uk-company-data.

Your agent can pay for its own runs. This Actor is pay-per-event with agentic payments, so an agent can discover it, run it and settle the bill over x402 (USDC on Base) or Skyfire — no Apify account or API token of its own. Billing is the same either way: per delivered company record — rows that only report a failed lookup are free from 25 September 2026.

Otherwise paste this into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP-enabled assistant:

I want UK company records from the Apify Actor `foxlabs/uk-company-data`.
Input: `companyNumbers` is a list of Companies House numbers in any format, e.g. `00445790` or `SC117119` (exact match); `companyNames` is a list of names (matched against Companies House's top 5 search results; a name without a real match returns an error row); or set `sicCode` to a SIC 2007 section letter (e.g. `JC` for IT services) to discover companies, optionally with `statusFilter` (e.g. `active`). `maxResults` caps the rows.
Start with: {"companyNumbers":["00445790"]}
Ask me what to look up, run the Actor, then summarise the rows as a table.

The machine-readable API, MCP config and OpenAPI definition live at apify.com/foxlabs/uk-company-data.md.

📋 Overview

Everything you need to turn the Companies House register into structured data — in one Actor, with no login, cookies or API key of your own.

Why teams pick this Actor:

• ✅ Official register — the Companies House Public Data API, with a key built in.
• 🧑‍💼 Officers — current appointments (name, role, appointment date, nationality, country of residence, occupation, address), resigned ones in their own list.
• 🏛️ Persons with significant control — name, kind, nature of control in plain words, notified and ceased dates, identification of corporate PSCs.
• 🏦 Charges — the charges on the register (up to 50 listed per company) with status, dates, classification, persons entitled and secured details, plus total and outstanding counts that cover all of them.
• 📅 Filing deadlines — last and next accounts, confirmation statements, overdue flags, insolvency-history flag.
• 🧭 SIC discovery — the 21 SIC sections plus manufacturing and information-and-communication subsections, optionally filtered by status.
• 💰 Pay per record — $0.004 per delivered company record, no subscription.
• 🤖 Agent-ready — MCP + x402 agentic payments.

✨ Features

• 🔍 Three ways in — companyNumbers (exact, any Companies House format), companyNames (matched against the top 5 Companies House search results), sicCode (Companies House advanced search).
• 🧹 Status filter — statusFilter keeps one status (active, dissolved, liquidation, …): sent to Companies House in SIC discovery, applied after the lookup for numbers and names.
• 🗂️ Filing history — the 10 most recent filings with category, type, date, description, page count and a document link, plus the total number of filings.
• 📜 Previous names — former company names with the dates they were used.
• 🔑 Your own key (optional) — api_key if you want your own Companies House rate limit.

🎬 Quick Start

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/foxlabs~uk-company-data/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"companyNumbers":["00445790"]}'

🚀 Getting Started (3 steps)

1. Choose your targets — company numbers for exact matches, names for convenience, or a SIC section to discover companies.
2. Filter if you need to — statusFilter (e.g. active) and maxResults (default 100).
3. Run and export — download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML.

📥 Input

{"companyNumbers":["00445790"]}

Field	Type	Description
api_key	string	Optional Companies House API key. A key is built in; add your own if you want your own rate limit.
companyNumbers	array	Companies House numbers, e.g. 00445790, SC117119, NI032978 — exact match. Every format is read: 8 digits, or a letter prefix such as SC, NI, OC, SO, NC, LP, SL, NL, FC or R. Spaces and dashes are removed and missing leading zeros restored (445790 → 00445790); an entry that cannot be a company number gets its own error row.
companyNames	array	Names searched on Companies House; one of the top 5 results is used only if it really matches the name (see How names are matched). Name rows carry query and name_match_score.
sicCode	string	SIC 2007 section or subsection, e.g. JC (IT & software services) or F (construction). The Actor sends the section's 5-digit SIC codes to Companies House advanced search and pages through the results, 50 at a time, up to maxResults.
statusFilter	string	Keep one status: active, dissolved, liquidation, administration, receivership, voluntary-arrangement, converted-closed, insolvency-proceedings, registered, removed. In SIC discovery it is sent to Companies House; for numbers and names, companies with another status are skipped (no row), and a name prefers a matching search result with that status.
maxResults	integer	Cap on companies (default 100, max 1,000). 0 removes the cap for numbers and names, but SIC discovery then returns nothing.
maxConcurrency	integer	Companies fetched in parallel (default 3, max 10). The run-wide rate limit sets the speed, so a higher value does not make a run faster.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy settings (default: Apify Proxy on).

Speed and time limit. Every Companies House request of a run goes through one rate limit — at most 480 requests in any 5 minutes, 80% of the 600 Companies House allows per API key. With all sections a company takes 5 requests, so the Actor looks up about 90 companies per 5 minutes: a 1,000-company run by number or SIC discovery takes about 55 minutes, inside the default 60-minute timeout. A name adds one search request, so 1,000 companies by name take about 66 minutes — set the run timeout to 75 minutes for that, or the Actor stops 90 seconds before its limit and lists the companies it did not reach.

How names are matched. Each name goes to the Companies House company search, and the top 5 results are compared with it word by word after both are normalised: upper case, a possessive 's dropped, & read as and, punctuation removed, and a leading The and a trailing Ltd, Limited, PLC, LLP, LP or CIC ignored. The result that contains the largest share of your words wins (ties: the result with the fewest extra words, then an active company before one with any other status, then Companies House's order; with statusFilter set, the best acceptable result with that status is taken first), and it is used only if it contains every word of your name or its Dice score — 2 × shared words ÷ (your words + its words) — is at least 0.8. Otherwise the row is matched: false with an error that names the closest result and its score; it is a failed lookup, so it is not charged from 25 September 2026. Rows found by name carry query (your name) and name_match_score (the Dice score, 0–1); rows looked up by number do not.

More recipes

• Name look-up: {"companyNames":["Tesco","Zzqx Nonexistent Widgets Qwv"]} — in our test Tesco resolved to TESCO PLC (00445790) with name_match_score 1, and the made-up name returned a no-match row naming the closest result, AESTHETIC WIDGETS LTD (score 0.33), which was not charged.
• Scottish and Northern Irish numbers: {"companyNumbers":["SC117119","NI032978"]} — SSE PLC and SX3 LIMITED in our test.
• A company with many charges: {"companyNumbers":["01777777"]} — British Airways Plc: 898 charges, 730 outstanding, the newest 50 listed.
• Sector list: {"sicCode":"JC","statusFilter":"active","maxResults":2} — returned two companies with Companies House status active and SIC 62020. Without statusFilter, {"sicCode":"JC","maxResults":2} returned two dissolved Northern Ireland companies first.

📤 Output

One row per company. Rows with matched: true are delivered company records. A lookup that fails still writes a row with matched: false and an error — Not a Companies House company number … for an entry that cannot be one, Company not found in Companies House. when a number's profile could not be read, No company name matching … (your name in query, the closest result's score in name_match_score) when no search result really matches a name, Companies House did not answer the name search … when the search got no answer — so a failed lookup never disappears silently. From 25 September 2026 these rows are not charged. Companies skipped by statusFilter produce no row. If Companies House does not answer one of the section requests — officers, PSC, filing history or charges — even after its retries, the row is still a company record: that section is null (unknown, not empty) and unavailable_sections / unavailable_note name it. A 404 from Companies House is a real empty list. If a run nears its time limit, the Actor stops starting companies 90 seconds early, keeps every row it has and adds one summary row — record_type: "summary", a message, companies_left and left_to_look_up (the numbers or names it did not reach). The summary row is not a company record.

Field	Description
company_number / company_name	Company number and registered name
company_status / company_status_detail	Status (active, dissolved, …) and Companies House's status detail
company_type / subtype	Company type (ltd, plc, …) and subtype
incorporation_date / dissolution_date	Incorporation date and Companies House's date of cessation (ISO). Two companies with status active also carried a cessation date in our test, so read it together with company_status
sic_codes	SIC 2007 codes
registered_address / registered_in	Registered office address and jurisdiction
previous_company_names[] / previous_names_count	Former names with the dates they were used
foreign_company_details / branch_company_details	Details for overseas companies and UK branches; null for the others
accounts_type / accounts_period_start / accounts_period_end / accounting_reference_date / last_accounts_date / next_accounts_due / next_accounts_due_on / next_accounts_overdue	Accounts: type and period of the last accounts, accounting reference date (day/month), next due date, overdue flag
last_confirmation_statement / next_confirmation_statement / next_confirmation_due / confirmation_overdue / annual_return / last_members_list_date	Confirmation statements, and the annual returns that preceded them
has_insolvency_history / can_file / undeliverable_registered_office / registered_office_in_dispute	Register flags
officers[] / officers_count / officers_truncated / officers_text	Current officers — name, role, appointed_on, resigned_on, nationality, country_of_residence, occupation, address; the number of distinct people; officers_truncated is true when Companies House holds more current officers than the Actor read (it reads up to 100 appointments)
resigned_officers[] / resigned_officers_count	Past appointments, with resigned_on
persons_with_significant_control[] / psc_count / psc_text	PSCs (up to 100) — name, kind, natures_of_control, notified_on, ceased_on, nationality, country_of_residence, address, identification
has_charges / charges[] / charges_count / charges_outstanding / charges_text / charges_note	Charges from the Companies House charges register, read for every company — charge_number, status, created_on, satisfied_on, classification, persons_entitled, amount_secured and the fixed / floating-charge flags, newest first (up to 50 listed); charges_count counts every charge, charges_outstanding those neither satisfied nor part-satisfied; has_charges is true when at least one charge is registered. charges_note appears when the list is cut at 50 (the counts still cover every charge) or when the charges request failed — the other charge fields are then null, not 0
registered_email / website	Empty for all 8 companies in our test runs
recent_filings[] / filing_categories / total_filings	The 10 most recent filings — category, type, date, description, pages, document_url — their categories, and the total number of filings
unavailable_sections / unavailable_note	Only when Companies House did not answer a section request after its retries: which sections (officers, psc, filing_history, charges) are null — unknown, not empty — and why
record_type / message / companies_left / left_to_look_up	Only on the summary row written when a run stopped 90 seconds before its time limit
matched / error	true for a company record; false plus error for a failed lookup
query / name_match_score	Name look-ups only: the name you searched, and the Dice score (0–1) of the company it matched — or, on a no-match row, of the closest result. Rows looked up by number do not have these fields
source / source_url / scraped_at	UK Companies House, the company's page on find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk, timestamp

Sample — Tesco PLC, captured 2026-09-10 (lists trimmed to one entry):

{
  "company_number": "00445790",
  "company_name": "TESCO PLC",
  "company_status": "active",
  "company_status_detail": null,
  "company_type": "plc",
  "subtype": null,
  "incorporation_date": "1947-11-27",
  "dissolution_date": null,
  "sic_codes": [
    "47110"
  ],
  "registered_address": "Tesco House, Shire Park, Kestrel Way, Welwyn Garden City, AL7 1GA, United Kingdom",
  "registered_in": "england-wales",
  "previous_company_names": [
    {
      "name": "TESCO STORES (HOLDINGS) PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY",
      "ceased_on": "1983-08-25",
      "effective_from": "1981-12-14"
    }
  ],
  "previous_names_count": 2,
  "foreign_company_details": null,
  "branch_company_details": null,
  "accounts_type": "group",
  "accounts_period_start": "2025-02-27",
  "accounts_period_end": "2026-02-28",
  "accounting_reference_date": "26/02",
  "last_accounts_date": "2026-02-28",
  "next_accounts_due": "2027-08-26",
  "next_accounts_due_on": "2027-08-26",
  "next_accounts_overdue": false,
  "last_confirmation_statement": "2026-06-18",
  "next_confirmation_statement": "2027-06-18",
  "next_confirmation_due": "2027-07-02",
  "confirmation_overdue": false,
  "annual_return": null,
  "last_members_list_date": "2013-06-07",
  "has_charges": true,
  "has_insolvency_history": false,
  "can_file": true,
  "undeliverable_registered_office": false,
  "registered_office_in_dispute": false,
  "registered_email": null,
  "website": null,
  "officers": [
    {
      "name": "TAYLOR, Christopher Jon",
      "role": "secretary",
      "appointed_on": "2025-04-14",
      "resigned_on": null,
      "nationality": null,
      "country_of_residence": null,
      "occupation": null,
      "address": "Tesco House, Shire Park, Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom"
    }
  ],
  "officers_count": 11,
  "officers_truncated": false,
  "officers_text": "TAYLOR, Christopher Jon (secretary); BETHELL, Melissa (director); BODSON, Bertrand Jean Francois (director); FAIRBAIRN, Carolyn Julie (director); GILLILAND, Stewart Charles (director); KENNEDY, Christopher John (director); MURPHY, Gerard Martin (director); MURPHY, Ken (director)",
  "resigned_officers": [
    {
      "name": "AGER, Rowley Stuart",
      "role": "secretary",
      "appointed_on": null,
      "resigned_on": "2004-03-15",
      "nationality": "British",
      "country_of_residence": null,
      "occupation": null,
      "address": "Tesco House, Cheshunt"
    }
  ],
  "resigned_officers_count": 63,
  "persons_with_significant_control": [],
  "psc_count": 0,
  "psc_text": null,
  "charges": [
    {
      "charge_number": 9,
      "status": "outstanding",
      "created_on": "2009-11-04",
      "satisfied_on": null,
      "classification": "Account security agreement",
      "persons_entitled": "Tesco Trustee Company of Ireland Limited as Trustee of the Tesco Ireland Limited Senior Executive Pension Scheme",
      "amount_secured": "All sums due or to become due under the terms of the aforementioned instrument creating or evidencing the charge",
      "contains_fixed_charge": null,
      "contains_floating_charge": null,
      "floating_charge_covers_all": null
    }
  ],
  "charges_count": 9,
  "charges_outstanding": 2,
  "charges_text": "outstanding: All sums due or to become due under the terms of the aforementioned instrument creating or evidencing the charge — Tesco Trustee Company of Ireland Limited as Trustee of the Tesco Ireland Limited Senior Executive Pension Scheme | outstanding: All sums due or to become due under the terms of the aforementioned instrument creating or evidencing the charge — Tesco Ireland Pension Trustees Limited as Trustee of the Tesco Ireland Limited Pension Plan | fully-satisfied: All monies due or to become due from the company to the chargee under the terms of the aforementioned instrument creating or evidencing the charge — Tesco Ireland Pension Trustees Limited as Trustee of the Tesco Ireland Limited Executive Scheme | fully-satisfied: All monies due or to become due from the company to the chargee under the terms of the aforementioned instrument creating or evidencing the charge — Tesco Trustee Company of Ireland Limited as Trustee of the Tesco Ireland Limited Staff Scheme (The \"Trustee\") | fully-satisfied: All monies due or to become due from the company to the chargee on any account whatsoever under the terms of the aforementioned instrument creating or evidencing the charge — Rbs Aerospace Limited | fully-satisfied: All monies due or to become due from the company to the chargee under the deed and the payments and discharge of the guaranteed amounts (as defined) — Deutsche International Finance (Ireland) Limited | fully-satisfied: All monies due from the company to the chargee under the loan agreement — Deutsche Bank Ag | fully-satisfied: All monies due or to become due from the company to the chargee under or in connection with the bond the instrument and the subscription agreement (all as defined) — Cobroad Investments | fully-satisfied: All monies due or to become due from the company to cobroad investments under or in connection with a 0.125 per cent £428,909,319 deep discount bond 2012 of the company,the instrument dated 17/12/91 and the suscription agreement dated 17/12/91 — Cobroad Investments",
  "recent_filings": [
    {
      "category": "capital",
      "type": "SH06",
      "date": "2026-08-26",
      "description": "capital-cancellation-shares",
      "pages": 4,
      "document_url": "https://document-api.company-information.service.gov.uk/document/hSRySSiDDwOxswzyFngzgNfv1XcOZl3J25cacnI0UtY"
    }
  ],
  "filing_categories": [
    "capital"
  ],
  "total_filings": 8371,
  "matched": true,
  "source": "UK Companies House",
  "source_url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790",
  "scraped_at": "2026-09-10T15:41:12.379Z"
}

💼 Use cases

1. KYB and onboarding — check a UK company before you sign. Input: its company number. Output: status, type, incorporation date, registered office, SIC codes, overdue flags. Use: confirm it is live and up to date with its filings.

2. Ownership and control checks — who controls the company. Input: company numbers. Output: persons with significant control and their nature of control. Use: ownership checks for KYB.

3. Board history — who joined and who left. Input: company numbers. Output: current and resigned officers with dates — Tesco: 11 current and 63 resigned appointments in our test. Use: spot recent board changes.

4. Sector lists — companies by SIC section. Input: sicCode with statusFilter. Output: full profiles of the companies found. Use: build a prospect or market list.

5. Secured-lending checks — who holds security over the company. Input: company numbers. Output: the registered charges (up to 50 listed) with status, persons entitled and secured details, and the total and outstanding counts — ASDA Stores: 32 charges, 26 outstanding, in our test. Use: see outstanding secured debt before you lend, sell or sign.

🔗 Integration

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('foxlabs/uk-company-data').call({"companyNumbers":["00445790"]});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items[0]);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('foxlabs/uk-company-data').call(run_input={"companyNumbers": ["00445790"]})
for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Automation (n8n / Zapier / Make): schedule or webhook → HTTP request to the Actor API with your companyNumbers → handle the JSON dataset → push to a sheet, CRM or dashboard.

📊 Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.004 per delivered company record (≈ $4 per 1,000 companies), plus Apify's run-start event of $0.00005 per GB of memory. From 25 September 2026, rows that only report a failed lookup (error) are free. Until then Apify still counts them as dataset items. The summary row a run writes when it stops before its time limit is treated the same way. Companies skipped by statusFilter produce no row and are not charged. A record whose officers, PSC, filing-history or charges request failed is still charged; unavailable_note says which part is missing. Current pricing.

❓ FAQ

Where does the data come from? From the Companies House Public Data API: the company profile, officers, persons with significant control, charges and filing history of each company, advanced search for SIC discovery and the company search for names. A Companies House key is built in.

Company number or name? A number is exact. A name is matched as described under How names are matched: in our test Tesco resolved to TESCO PLC (00445790) with name_match_score 1, Tesco Stores to TESCO STORES LIMITED, and Zzqx Nonexistent Widgets Qwv returned a no-match row naming AESTHETIC WIDGETS LTD (score 0.33). Some names are registered more than once, and an active registration wins the tie: British Airways resolves to BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC 01777777 rather than the closed NF002699 that Companies House lists first, and Marks and Spencer to MARKS AND SPENCER P.L.C. 00214436 rather than the closed NF001553. Sainsbury's resolved to SAINSBURY'S LIMITED (SC171417), because J SAINSBURY PLC is not among Companies House's top 5 results for that spelling. Pass the company number when the exact entity matters.

Where do the charges come from? From the Companies House charges register, which the Actor reads for every company. It does not rely on the profile's has_charges flag, which read false for all 7 companies we tested, Tesco and ASDA Stores included. Checked on 2026-09-10 against the Companies House charges pages: Tesco 9 charges (2 outstanding, 7 satisfied), ASDA Stores 32 (26 outstanding, 6 satisfied) — the same numbers as in the rows. Up to 50 charges are listed per company, newest first, and the counts always cover all of them: British Airways Plc has 898 charges on the register, and its row lists 50 with charges_count: 898, charges_outstanding: 730 and a charges_note saying the list is cut. If Companies House does not answer the charges request, the row stays a company record but has_charges, charges, charges_count, charges_outstanding and charges_text are null — unknown, not zero — and charges_note says so.

What happens when Companies House does not answer? Every request is retried with a bounded back-off. Companies House allows 600 requests per 5 minutes per API key and the built-in key is shared by everyone using this Actor, so each run keeps to 480 requests per 5 minutes (see Speed and time limit). A rate-limited request (429) waits 20, 40, 80 and 160 seconds, at most 300 seconds in all; a 5xx or network error waits 0.6 to 4.8 seconds; other errors are not retried. If officers, PSC, filing history or charges still get no answer, that section is null and unavailable_sections / unavailable_note name it; the record is still charged. A 404 is Companies House saying there is nothing, so that section is an empty list.

Why is the PSC list empty for Tesco? The Actor returns what Companies House holds: Tesco and Marks and Spencer had no PSC on the register in our test, while SX3 LIMITED showed its corporate owner with 75–100% of shares and votes and the right to appoint directors.

How does SIC discovery work? The section letter is mapped to its 5-digit SIC 2007 codes (for JC: 62011, 62012, 62020, 62030, 62090, 63110, 63120, 63910, 63990), sent to Companies House advanced search and paged 50 at a time until maxResults. Results come in Companies House's order.

What if I start it with no input? The run stops with an error asking for companyNumbers, companyNames or sicCode.

Can I export to CSV / Excel / JSON? Yes — directly from the Apify dataset.

🐛 Troubleshooting

• Not a Companies House company number … — the entry is neither 8 digits nor a letter prefix followed by digits (e.g. SC117119); correct it and re-run.
• charges_count is null — Companies House did not answer the charges request during the run, and charges_note says so; re-run to fill the charge fields.
• unavailable_sections is set — Companies House did not answer that section request even after the retries; its fields are null and the rest of the record was read. Re-run to fill them.
• Company not found in Companies House. — the number is not on the register, or Companies House did not answer; check the number and re-run.
• No company name matching … — none of Companies House's top 5 results contains your words closely enough; the error names the closest one. Check the spelling, use the registered name, or pass the company number.
• A name returns another registration than you meant — some names are registered more than once (for example two BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC entries, one of them closed). The active one is preferred, but pass the company number when the exact entity matters.
• SIC discovery returns nothing — set maxResults to at least 1.
• Rate limits — the built-in key is shared by everyone using this Actor, and Companies House allows 600 requests per 5 minutes per key. Each run keeps to 480 per 5 minutes; if another run on the same key still causes a 429, the Actor waits 20, 40, 80 and 160 seconds before it gives up on that request. With your own api_key your runs do not share the limit with other users; the speed stays the same.
• The last row is a summary row — the run reached its time limit; left_to_look_up lists the companies it did not reach. Raise the run timeout, or run again with that list.

⚖️ Is it legal to scrape this data?

The Actor reads the public Companies House register through its official API. Officer and PSC names, nationalities, countries of residence, occupations and addresses are personal data under the UK GDPR — process them only for a lawful purpose such as KYC or due diligence. This Actor is not affiliated with Companies House.

🤝 Support & contact

• 🌐 Website: data.foxlabs.com.tr
• 📧 Email: info@foxlabs.com.tr
• 🐛 Issues: open a ticket in the Actor’s Issues tab
• 🧰 More clean B2B data actors: Fox Labs on Apify

Changelog

0.1.2 — 2026-09-10 — name look-ups are matched, not taken blindly

• Fixed: a name could return an unrelated company. The first Companies House search result used to be taken whatever it was — a made-up name came back as AESTHETIC WIDGETS LTD and was charged. Each of the top 5 results is now scored against your name, and one is used only if it contains every word of the name or its Dice score is at least 0.8 (see How names are matched).
• Active registrations first. When the same name is registered more than once, the active company wins the tie: British Airways now resolves to BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC 01777777, not the closed NF002699 listed first, and Marks and Spencer to MARKS AND SPENCER P.L.C. 00214436. With statusFilter set, a matching result with that status is taken first.
• No match, no charge. A name without a real match returns a matched: false row whose error names the closest result and its score; it is not charged.
• New fields on name rows: query and name_match_score. Rows looked up by number do not have them; no field was renamed or removed.

0.1.1 — 2026-09-10 — failed lookups become free (per-record billing) + README corrected + charges and company-number formats fixed + no false empty sections + run-wide rate limit

• You will pay only for delivered company records. The Actor now charges a new company-record event for each delivered company (matched: true). Rows that only report a failed lookup — an entry that is not a company number, a number whose profile could not be read, a name without search results — are pushed without a charge, and so is the summary row of a run that stopped before its time limit.
• Timing: Apify applies pricing changes after a 14-day notice. From 25 September 2026 the pricing switches from the per-dataset-item event to company-record at the same price ($0.004). Until then billing is exactly as before; the code detects the switch by itself.
• Partial records are charged. A record whose officers, PSC, filing-history or charges request failed is still charged; unavailable_note says which part is missing.
• Run-wide rate limit. Every Companies House request of a run shares one limit of 480 requests per 5 minutes (80% of the 600 Companies House allows per key), so the shared built-in key is never pushed over its limit: about 90 companies per 5 minutes, about 55 minutes for 1,000 companies by number.
• Clean stop. 90 seconds before its time limit the run stops starting companies, keeps every row and writes one summary row with the companies it did not reach.
• Fixed: charges. The charges register is now read for every company. Before, it was read only when the profile's has_charges flag was true — and that flag was false even for Tesco (9 charges) and ASDA Stores (32), so every row showed no charges. has_charges now means at least one charge is registered, and charges_outstanding counts the charges that are neither satisfied nor part-satisfied (it held the part-satisfied count before). Checked against Companies House for Tesco and ASDA Stores.
• No false zero, no silent cut. If a section request (officers, PSC, filing history, charges) gets no answer, that section is null — unknown, not empty — and unavailable_sections / unavailable_note name it; a 404 is a real empty list. Up to 50 charges are listed, newest first; the counts always cover every charge, and charges_note says when the list is cut (British Airways Plc: 898 charges, 50 listed).
• Retries. A rate-limited request (429) is retried after 20, 40, 80 and 160 seconds (at most 300 seconds in all), a 5xx or network error after 0.6 to 4.8 seconds; other errors are not retried.
• Fixed: company numbers. Every Companies House format is read — SC…, NI…, OC…, R… and the rest — and missing leading zeros are restored. Before, only 8-digit numbers were read and every other entry was dropped without a row; an entry that cannot be a company number now gets an error row.
• Output fields: charges_note, unavailable_sections, unavailable_note and the summary row's record_type, message, companies_left, left_to_look_up are new and appear only when needed; no field was renamed or removed.
• README corrected. The previous README showed inputs this Actor does not read (queries, maxResultsPerQuery, includeRaw) with placeholder values, and claimed things it does not do: whole-registry calls, formation monitoring, relevance-ranked search, registry contact fields, camelCase rows with a query field, PSC and charges as counts only with the lists "planned", and free failed lookups before this billing change. This README is written from the code and from test runs on 2026-09-10.

0.1 — 2026-09-07

• README rebuilt and AI-agent payments (x402) enabled. That README described inputs this Actor does not have and said twelve columns had been removed; they had not — the Actor still returns them (see 0.1.1).

0.0

• Initial release: data from the UK Companies House register (official open API) by name or registry ID.