# UK Companies House Search: Official Company Register (`groundtruth/uk-companies-house-search`) Actor

Search the United Kingdom's official company register, Companies House, by name. Returns company number, status, legal form, incorporation date, address and industry code, each record linked to the official register entry. Open-licensed data, no personal data, $0.005 per company.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/groundtruth/uk-companies-house-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Ground Truth](https://apify.com/groundtruth) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, AI, MCP servers
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$5.00 / 1,000 company records

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## UK Companies House Search: Official Company Register

Search **Companies House**, the official company register of
the United Kingdom, by company name. Each record comes from the UK registrar of companies
and **links to the official register entry**, so any value can be checked at
the source in one click.

```
query: "tesco"   ->  every matching company, with its company number
```

### What you get

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `legal_name` | Registered legal name |
| `company_number` | The official company number |
| `status` | active, inactive, dissolved, or unknown |
| `legal_form` | Registered legal form |
| `incorporated_date`, `dissolved_date` | ISO dates |
| `address_city`, `address_postcode`, `address_country` | Registered address, at city level |
| `activity_code`, `activity_text` | Industry classification |
| `employees_band` | Employee count or band, where the register reports it |
| `previous_names` | Former registered names |
| `last_updated` | When the register last changed the record |
| `verify_url` | Link to the official register entry (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk) |

### Why this rather than a scraper

It reads Companies House's official API, published under an open licence
that permits commercial re-use. No login, no bot protection, nothing that can
break because a website changed its layout.

**No personal data.** Directors, officers and owners are never returned, and
registrations that describe a private individual rather than a company are
dropped. You get companies, not a contact list.

### Input

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `query` | Company name to search for. Required. |
| `limit` | Companies to return, 1 to 2000. You pay per company returned. |

#### Your own Companies House key (optional)

You don't need one: the UK register works out of the box. Companies House
allows 600 requests every 5 minutes per key, and the built-in key is shared by
everyone using this Actor. If you pull UK data heavily, get a free key from
[developer.company-information.service.gov.uk](https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk)
and put it in `companies_house_key`. It is stored encrypted by Apify and never
appears in run logs.

### Price

$0.005 per company returned, so 50 companies cost about 25 cents. A search
that matches nothing costs only the Actor start.

### Licensing and attribution

UK data contains public sector information from **Companies House**, licensed under the **Open Government Licence v3.0**. The attribution is written to every run log.

### More than one country?

This edition searches the United Kingdom only. To search the UK, Norway,
France, Finland, Czechia, Slovakia and the global LEI register in one query
with one schema, use
[Official Company Registry Search](https://apify.com/groundtruth/company-registry-search).

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

The company name to search for in Companies House. Defaults to 'tesco' so the Actor has a working example run.

## `limit` (type: `integer`):

Total companies to return. You are charged per company returned.

## `companies_house_key` (type: `string`):

Only needed if you want the UK register searched under your own allowance. Companies House permits 600 requests every 5 minutes per key, so a heavy user should bring their own rather than share. Free from developer.company-information.service.gov.uk. Leave empty to use the built-in key.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "Tesco",
  "limit": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `companies` (type: `string`):

No description

## `companiesCsv` (type: `string`):

No description

## `runDetails` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "tesco",
    "limit": 50
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("groundtruth/uk-companies-house-search").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "query": "tesco",
    "limit": 50,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("groundtruth/uk-companies-house-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "tesco",
  "limit": 50
}' |
apify call groundtruth/uk-companies-house-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,groundtruth/uk-companies-house-search"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/7TOJlgPv6aQqFIa2V/builds/CG4CyMtIVX8ZFIQ2G/openapi.json