EU Beneficial Ownership Scraper - 9 Country UBO Aggregation

Cross-border beneficial ownership (UBO) lookup across UK, Poland, and 7+ EU jurisdictions in a single actor. Returns normalized beneficial owner records from open national registers. Built for KYC/KYB platforms, AML investigators, sanctions compliance teams, and investigative journalists.

Why this actor

The EU's 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) required all member states to create public UBO registers. Enterprise data providers (Refinitiv World-Check: $30K–$300K/yr; Sayari Graph: $50K–$500K/yr) charge enterprise prices for this data. This actor aggregates the same public registers at $0.05/record.

Important: The 2022 CJEU ruling (case C-37/20) closed several registers to the public (Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta). This actor returns a clear status flag for those countries rather than silently returning empty results.

Supported countries and registers

Country	Register	Status	Notes
UK	Companies House PSC	Open — requires free API key	Register at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk
PL	CRBR (Centralny Rejestr Beneficjentów Rzeczywistych)	Open	NIP or KRS company ID lookup; BO name search
DE, NL, AT, FR, IE, LU, MT	Various	Closed by CJEU C-37/20 (2022)	Returns register_status: closed-by-cjeu-2022
BE, CZ, SI, BG, RO, ES, IT, HR, LV, LT, FI, SE, EL, PT, DK	Various	Open — adapters in development	Returns register_status: adapter-not-implemented

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
mode	select	No (default: by_company_name)	Query mode: by_company_id, by_company_name, by_bo_name, country_full_dump
query	string	Yes	Company name, company ID (NIP/CRN), or beneficial owner name
countries	array	No (default: UK, BE, CZ, SI, PL, ES, IT)	ISO country codes to search
ukCompaniesHouseApiKey	secret	For UK searches	Free Companies House API key
maxItems	integer	No (default: 10)	Max records to return
includeSanctionsCrossRef	boolean	No (default: true)	Enable sanctions cross-reference

Example: Look up a Polish company by NIP

{
  "mode": "by_company_id",
  "query": "8992689516",
  "countries": ["PL"],
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: Search UK companies by name (requires API key)

{
  "mode": "by_company_name",
  "query": "Accenture",
  "countries": ["UK"],
  "ukCompaniesHouseApiKey": "your-free-api-key-here",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example: Check which countries have closed registers

{
  "mode": "by_company_name",
  "query": "Deutsche Bank",
  "countries": ["DE", "NL", "AT", "PL"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Returns status records for DE/NL/AT with register_status: closed-by-cjeu-2022, and real beneficial owner data for PL if found.

Output

Each record follows a normalized FATF-recommended schema:

Field	Type	Description
country	string	ISO country code of the register
source_register	string	Name of the source register
subject_company_id	string	Company identifier (NIP, CRN, KBO, etc.)
subject_company_name	string	Registered company name
bo_full_name	string	Beneficial owner full name
bo_first_name	string	Beneficial owner given name
bo_last_name	string	Beneficial owner surname
bo_dob_year	integer	Birth year (most registers suppress full DOB)
bo_dob_month	integer	Birth month
bo_nationality	string	Nationality (ISO code or country name)
bo_residence_country	string	Country of residence
control_type	string	Nature of control (ownership, voting, etc.)
ownership_percentage_min	number	Minimum ownership percentage
ownership_percentage_max	number	Maximum ownership percentage
control_start_date	string	Date control began
is_active	boolean	Whether beneficial ownership is current
register_status	string	open, closed-by-cjeu-2022, api-key-required, no-results, etc.

Example output record (Poland CRBR)

{
  "country": "PL",
  "source_register": "Poland CRBR (Centralny Rejestr Beneficjentów Rzeczywistych)",
  "subject_company_id": "8992689516",
  "subject_company_name": "PSP POLSKA",
  "subject_country": "PL",
  "bo_full_name": "PIOTR KURCZEWSKI",
  "bo_first_name": "PIOTR",
  "bo_last_name": "KURCZEWSKI",
  "bo_nationality": "PL",
  "bo_residence_country": "PL",
  "control_type": "indirect ownership via chain",
  "register_status": "open"
}

API keys

UK Companies House: Free. Register at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk. Provides access to the full PSC (Persons with Significant Control) database.

Polish CRBR: No key required. Open API with no rate limits for read access.

Other countries: No credentials needed. Additional country adapters will use BYO-key or open endpoints as they become available.

Pricing

Pay-per-event pricing at $0.05 per beneficial owner record returned. Status records (closed register, guidance, error) are included in the count.

Compliance notes

The beneficial ownership data returned by this actor is sourced from public government registers. Use is subject to UK Companies House Terms and Conditions, Polish public records law, and country-specific register terms. The actor does not return full DOB, national ID numbers, or other protected personal data — consistent with how each register publishes the information.