United States Public Company Check (CIK)

Check public companies in the United States by their SEC Central Index Key (CIK) or Employer Identification Number (EIN) in one call and get a clean English JSON answer with red flags, source attribution and a date on every field. Built for AI agents (MCP) and for KYB / AML onboarding, counterparty and supplier due diligence, vendor risk and compliance checks.

• One number → one answer from official open registers plus GLEIF Global LEI Index: Level 1 (LEI-CDF), Level 2 (RR-CDF), Reporting Exceptions and Official sanctions lists: US OFAC (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), EU consolidated financial sanctions (FSF), UK Sanctions List (FCDO) — legal entities only.
• One schema for every country: the same fields and flags whether you check one United States company or a thousand — your agent parses one format.
• Agent-ready: an MCP server (Streamable HTTP, /mcp) with check_company, check_companies and list_sources, a plain GET /check?country=&id= endpoint, and classic batch runs (list of numbers → dataset).
• Change history: registers publish only the current state; we keep our own snapshots, so every answer shows what was added or removed since history_since (e.g. a status change or a new sanctions listing).
• Pay per check (one charge per company answered; the price is on the Pricing tab), no subscription. Malformed numbers, sole traders and individuals are not charged. In Standby (MCP / HTTP) mode Apify also bills the small platform usage of the server run, as for every Standby Actor. Set a maximum cost per run in Apify to cap spending: when it is reached, the Actor returns an error instead of data.

What we check

Source	Licence	Publisher updates
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: EDGAR Submissions (bulk submissions.zip) (US)	U.S. public information: "Information presented on sec.gov is considered public information and may be copied or further distributed by users of the web site without the SEC's permission."	daily
GLEIF Global LEI Index: Level 1 (LEI-CDF), Level 2 (RR-CDF), Reporting Exceptions	CC0 1.0	daily
Official sanctions lists: US OFAC (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), EU consolidated financial sanctions (FSF), UK Sanctions List (FCDO) — legal entities only	Several, see Data licences	daily

Data refreshed at least weekly; every field carries its source date (provenance), and every answer lists each source with the date it was loaded (sources[].loaded_at; list_sources is free).

flags — true is a red flag: not_found (the number is not in the register dump), not_active, insolvency, liquidation, sanctions (match by registration number or LEI), sanctions_name_match (same name, same country: verify manually). false means there is no record in the loaded snapshot — it is not a clean bill of health. null means unknown. Call list_sources (free) for load times.

United States: Only entities that file with the U.S. SEC (EDGAR): public companies and some privately held issuers with SEC-registered securities or offerings. Private LLCs and corporations registered only with a state are not covered; individuals, funds and other non-operating filers are excluded. A valid SEC Central Index Key without a record therefore returns not_found: null (unknown, not fictitious) and is not charged.

Coverage: only entities that file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — public companies and some privately held issuers. Companies registered only with a U.S. state (most private LLCs and corporations) are not included. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Status is derived from the filing history (the SEC has no official company status): active = a periodic report (10-K, 10-Q, 20-F, 40-F, 1-K…) filed in the last 18 months; inactive = registration revoked, deregistered with Form 15 and no own filings since, or no periodic report for 18 months; unknown = files with the SEC (prospectuses, 8-Ks) but does not file periodic reports, e.g. a subsidiary or debt guarantor after Form 15. US-specific flags: bankruptcy_8k_recent (an 8-K tagged Item 1.03 in the last 24 months — tags are self-reported, verify the linked document), deregistered, not_reporting, sec_registration_revoked, ein_ambiguous. insolvency and legal_form are always null: the SEC does not track bankruptcy or legal form.

Lookup by CIK or EIN. An EIN shared by several SEC filers is billed and returns the candidate CIKs in records.

Identifiers

Country	Identifier	Format	Example
United States (US)	SEC Central Index Key (CIK) or Employer Identification Number (EIN)	CIK of 1-10 digits or EIN as XX-XXXXXXX	0000320193

Spaces, dashes and a country prefix are accepted. Legal entities only: sole traders and other natural persons are not supported, not stored and not charged. No data about people (officers, owners, contacts) is ever returned; addresses are city level only.

Input

{
  "country": "US",
  "ids": [
    "0000320193"
  ]
}

Up to 10,000 numbers per run.

Output (one dataset item per company, shortened)

{
  "country": "US",
  "id": "0000320193",
  "id_scheme": "US-CIK",
  "name": "…",
  "status": "active",
  "legal_form": null,
  "address": {
    "city": "…",
    "country": "US"
  },
  "flags": {
    "not_found": false,
    "not_active": false,
    "insolvency": null,
    "liquidation": null,
    "sanctions": false,
    "sanctions_name_match": false
  },
  "provenance": {
    "status": {
      "source": "register",
      "as_of": "2026-11-05T03:00:00+00:00"
    }
  },
  "history": [],
  "history_since": "2026-11-05",
  "sources": [
    {
      "key": "register",
      "title": "…",
      "license": "…",
      "loaded_at": "…"
    }
  ],
  "disclaimer": "… Not legal advice."
}

Use from an AI agent (MCP)

Add the Actor as a remote MCP server: https://kyb-data--united-states-public-company-check.apify.actor/mcp with your Apify token, or through mcp.apify.com. Tools: check_company(company_id, country), check_companies(company_ids, country) (up to 50), list_sources().

Data licences

All data comes from official open sources under open licences; attribution (title, dataset URL, licence, loaded_at) is included in the sources field of every answer.

• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: EDGAR Submissions (bulk submissions.zip): U.S. public information: "Information presented on sec.gov is considered public information and may be copied or further distributed by users of the web site without the SEC's permission." (SEC Privacy and Security Policy, Website Dissemination; read 2026-11-06). Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the SEC.; publisher's terms: https://www.sec.gov/search-filings/edgar-search-assistance/accessing-edgar-data; modified: derived status and filing summary, normalised fields; persons and streets removed
• GLEIF Global LEI Index: Level 1 (LEI-CDF), Level 2 (RR-CDF), Reporting Exceptions: CC0 1.0 (GLEIF LEI Data Terms of Use, II.3: "The data available through the Access Service are provided under the CC0 licence"; read 2026-11-05)
• Official sanctions lists: US OFAC (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), EU consolidated financial sanctions (FSF), UK Sanctions List (FCDO) — legal entities only: OFAC: US government work, not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. 105); EU FSF: © European Union, reuse authorised with acknowledgement (Commission Decision 2011/833/EU, CC BY 4.0); UK: contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (FCDO) (licence text: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3)

Disclaimer

Data from official open registers and official sanctions lists, as attributed in sources, as of the load date shown. Registers can be incomplete or late. Not legal advice — verify important decisions with the original register.