US Secretary of State Business Search (NY, CO, OR, CT)

Search official US state business registers for KYB (know your business) checks and new LLC lists, in one consistent format. It covers New York, Colorado, Oregon and Connecticut, using the open data each state publishes for public reuse. Every record links to the state data row it came from, so any value can be checked at the source in one click.

Use it when you need to:

• Check that a supplier, customer or counterparty is a real registered entity, and whether it is active, delinquent or dissolved
• Build a list of newly formed LLCs and corporations in a date window, newest first
• Look up entities by the state's own entity number
• Enrich a company list with entity type, formation date, state of formation and business city

For AI agents: call it to confirm that a named company exists in a state register and to get its status, type and formation date with a link that proves it.

What it does not do

• It covers four states, not all fifty. Other states do not publish a register as open data without a signup, so they are not included.
• It does not return officers, directors, owners or individual registered agents. A registered agent appears only when it is a company, such as a commercial agent service.
• It does not return street addresses, emails or phone numbers. Business location is city, state and ZIP.
• New York and Oregon publish active entities only. An entity missing from their results is either inactive or not registered there; this tool cannot tell which. Colorado and Connecticut publish every status.
• Data is as fresh as each state's own publishing schedule. When tested on 2026-10-18, New York, Colorado and Connecticut already held entities formed on 2026-10-16, and Oregon held entities formed up to 2026-10-13. The retrieved_at field says when the Actor read the data, not when the state last updated it.
• It is not legal, tax or compliance advice, and a state register entry is not proof of what a business does.

Sample output

Input:

{ "entity_numbers": ["19971030166"], "states": ["CO"] }

Output:

{
  "legal_name": "PETSMART CHARITIES, INC.",
  "entity_number": "19971030166",
  "state": "CO",
  "entity_type": "Foreign Nonprofit Corporation",
  "entity_type_code": "FNC",
  "status": "Good Standing",
  "status_detail": null,
  "status_group": "active",
  "formation_date": "1997-02-27",
  "jurisdiction_of_formation": "AZ",
  "principal_city": "Phoenix",
  "principal_state": "AZ",
  "principal_zip": "85027",
  "address_type": "principal_office",
  "registered_agent_company": "CORPORATE CREATIONS NETWORK INC.",
  "verify_url": "https://data.colorado.gov/resource/4ykn-tg5h.json?entityid=19971030166",
  "state_record_url": "https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityDetail.do?quitButtonDestination=BusinessEntityResults&fileId=19971030166",
  "state_search_url": "https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityCriteria.do",
  "source_dataset": "data.colorado.gov 4ykn-tg5h (Business Entities in Colorado)",
  "source_license": "Public Domain (declared on the dataset by the publisher, Colorado Department of State)",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-10-18T12:00:00Z"
}

Check it yourself: open state_record_url and compare the name, form, status, formation date and principal office with the record above. The verify_url shows the raw state data row in your browser.

A handled error, for an input with nothing to search for ({}): the run stops with the message "Give at least one of: query (a company name), entity_numbers, or formed_after (a date, for a list of newly formed businesses)." Nothing is charged.

Configuration

Input	Type	Default	Meaning
query	text	bakery	Part of a legal business name. Not case sensitive.
entity_numbers	list	none	State entity numbers, digits only, up to 200. Numbers are not unique across states, so pick the state too.
states	list	all four	Any of NY, CO, OR, CT. Results are shared across the states chosen.
formed_after	date	none	YYYY-MM-DD. Use it for new business lists. Results are newest first.
formed_before	date	none	YYYY-MM-DD. Combine with formed_after for a window.
entity_kind	choice	any	llc, corporation (for profit), nonprofit, partnership.
status	choice	any	active, active_or_delinquent, inactive. New York and Oregon are skipped for inactive.
max_results	number	25	1 to 5000, shared across states. You pay per entity returned.

You must give at least one of query, entity_numbers, formed_after or formed_before.

Output fields

Field	Meaning
legal_name	Name as the state publishes it. Colorado appends notes such as ", Dissolved July 20, 2026" to some names; they are kept as published.
entity_number	The state's entity number, as text.
state	NY, CO, OR or CT.
entity_type	The state's own type. Colorado codes are expanded to the wording the state shows; the raw code is in entity_type_code.
status, status_detail	The state's status text. Connecticut adds a sub-status such as "Annual report past due".
status_group	active, delinquent (still registered but behind on filings or already warned), inactive (dissolved, withdrawn, revoked, merged) or other.
formation_date	The date of the state's first filing for the entity. For an out-of-state entity registered in this state, that is its registration date here. Null when the state has no usable date.
jurisdiction_of_formation	Where the entity was formed, as the state records it.
principal_city, principal_state, principal_zip	Business location.
address_type	principal_office, business_address, mailing, or service_of_process. New York publishes a location address for only about one entity in twelve, so for the rest the address the state forwards legal papers to is used and labelled.
registered_agent_company	The registered agent, only when it is a company. Null when the agent is a person, missing, or not clearly a company.
verify_url	The state data row for this entity, as raw JSON, checkable in any browser.
state_record_url	The state's own web page for the entity (Colorado and Oregon).
source_dataset, source_license, retrieved_at	Where the row came from, its licence, and when it was read.

Errors

Every error is a plain sentence and nothing is charged. Bad input names the field and how to fix it. If one state does not answer, the other states still return results and the run log says which state is missing. If every state fails, the run fails with the reason. A state that is rate limiting is retried twice and then given up on.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.002 per entity returned, which is $2 per 1,000 entities, plus Apify's standard small start fee. Searches that match nothing, invalid input and failed states are not charged.

Sources and licences

Open data from the state portals: New York Department of State (OPEN-NY terms of use, free reuse), Colorado Department of State (Public Domain), Oregon Secretary of State (public domain by statute ORS 276A.368) and Connecticut Secretary of the State (Public Domain). The run log carries the attribution for each state that returned data.