US Business Entity Search (Secretary of State)

Look up any company in official US state business registries, several states in one run. Give it company names and get back one normalized record per entity: legal name, state file number, entity type, status, formation date, home jurisdiction, registered agent with address, officers and managers, principal and mailing addresses, and a link to the official source. 19 states with no key: Florida (Sunbiz), Texas, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Minnesota, Kentucky, Alabama, Idaho, West Virginia, North Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Rhode Island and Missouri. California is the 20th, and it uses your own free CALICO key. JSON or CSV out, billed per record.

How it works

✨ Why use this scraper?

• One schema for every state. Each registry publishes different fields under different names. You get the same columns whether the record came from Sunbiz HTML, the Texas Comptroller API or a Socrata open-data feed.
• Florida included. Sunbiz is the registry most KYB checks need and the one most multi-state tools skip. This actor reads it, officers and authorized persons included.
• Officers, not only names. Florida, Texas, West Virginia, Connecticut, Minnesota and New York return directors, managers, members or the CEO with addresses where the state publishes them.
• Bulk input. Paste a list of company names. Every name runs against every selected state, in parallel.
• Three match modes. contains, startsWith, and exact, which ignores punctuation and legal-form words, so "Goldman Sachs" matches "GOLDMAN SACHS & CO. LLC".
• Fails loudly. A registry that is down shows up in FAILED_SEARCHES and in the run status, instead of a silent empty result.

Overview

The actor queries each state's official source directly: public open-data APIs where the state publishes one, the state's own JSON endpoint where it exists, and the public search pages otherwise. No login and no browser. California is the only state that asks for a key, the free CALICO subscription key from calicodev.sos.ca.gov. Leave states empty and that key out, and the run covers the other 19.

Supported inputs

State	Source	Match modes	Detail fields
Florida	Division of Corporations (Sunbiz)	starts with, exact	status, type, FEIN, filing date, last event, principal + mailing address, registered agent, officers / authorized persons
Texas	Comptroller of Public Accounts (franchise tax + SOS data)	all	SOS file number, SOS status, right to transact, formation state and date, registered agent, officers / managers, FEIN, DBA
New York	Department of State (data.ny.gov)	all	DOS ID, type, county, jurisdiction, filing date, registered agent, service-of-process address, chairman / CEO, principal location
Colorado	Secretary of State (data.colorado.gov)	all	entity ID, type, status, jurisdiction, formation date, principal + mailing address, registered agent
Connecticut	Secretary of the State (data.ct.gov)	all	account number, type, status, formation place and date, principal + mailing address, registered agent, principals, NAICS, business email
Oregon	Secretary of State (data.oregon.gov)	all	registry number, type, registry date, principal + mailing address, registered agent, authorized representative
Minnesota	Secretary of State (Business Filings)	all	file number, type, status, home jurisdiction, filing date, registered agent and office, CEO / manager, renewal due date
Kentucky	Secretary of State (Business Entity Search)	all	organization number, type, status, standing, home state, file date, last annual report, principal office, registered agent, industry, employees
Alabama	Secretary of State (Business Entity Records)	all	entity ID, type, status, place and date of formation, qualify date, principal + mailing address, registered agent and office
Idaho	Secretary of State (SOSbiz)	all	record number, type, status, standing, formed in, filing date, principal + mailing address, registered agent, annual report due date
West Virginia	Secretary of State (Business Organizations)	all	org ID, charter and class, charter state, filing date, termination, notice-of-process agent, principal + mailing address, officers, DBAs, business purpose
New Jersey	Division of Revenue & Enterprise Services	all	entity ID, type, city, incorporation date
North Dakota	Secretary of State (FirstStop)	all	record number, type, status, standing, filing date
Iowa	Secretary of State (Business Entities Search)	starts with (contains is filtered after a prefix search)	business number, type, status, filing date, registered agent, principal office, officers
Wisconsin	Department of Financial Institutions (Corporate Records)	all	entity ID, type, effective date, status. Detail adds the registered agent and principal office when the page publishes them
Pennsylvania	Department of State (data.pa.gov, current registrations)	all	filing number, type, formation date, address, county, parties (directors, officers, members)
Arkansas	Secretary of State (Corporation Search)	all	filing number, type, status, filing date, registered agent, officers, fictitious names, state of origin
Rhode Island	Department of State (Business Portal)	all	ID number, type, qualification date, NAICS, principal and mailing address, registered agent, officers
Missouri	Secretary of State (Business Entity Search)	all	charter number, type, status, formed date, home state, registered agent, principal office
California	Secretary of State CALICO API (your key)	contains, starts with	entity number, type, status, filing date, jurisdiction, agent, principal and mailing address, SOS/FTB standing

Not supported yet:

• Other states. More registries are in progress; ask in the Issues tab if you need a specific one first.
• California without caApiKey. An all-states run skips California until you paste a key. Selecting California with no key fails that state and leaves the others running.
• Florida "contains" search. Sunbiz only searches by the start of the name, so contains behaves like startsWith there.
• New Jersey status, agent and officers. New Jersey sells these as paid business records; its free search lists name, ID, type, city and incorporation date only, so status and isActive are null for NJ rows and activeOnly cannot filter them.
• Kentucky officers. Kentucky loads them through a separate script call; the rest of the profile is returned.
• North Dakota officers and addresses. FirstStop's detail service returns an error for every record right now, so ND rows carry search-level fields only (detailLevel: "listing").
• New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania inactive entities. Those open-data extracts publish current registrations only, so a dissolved company is absent rather than returned as inactive.
• Iowa prefix search. The registry matches the start of the name, so contains cannot find a word in the middle of an Iowa name.
• Pennsylvania registered agent. The open-data rows are parties (Governor, President, member), not a separate agent field, so registeredAgent is empty and those people are officers.
• Missouri officers. The free detail page publishes the registered agent and principal office, not the officer list.
• California officers. The CALICO search returns the agent and addresses, not directors.

🎯 Use cases

Team	What they build
KYB / compliance	Verify that a merchant, vendor or counterparty legally exists, is in good standing, and who its officers are
Sales & lead generation	Find where a company is registered, its registered agent and its decision makers
Due diligence & M&A	Cross-check one company's filings across states: formation dates, foreign registrations, status changes
Legal & collections	Locate the registered agent and service-of-process address before serving papers
Data enrichment	Append official status, entity type and formation date to CRM or onboarding records

Under the hood

1. Each company name is paired with each selected state, and the searches run in parallel.
2. The adapter for each state queries that registry's own source and maps the answer onto the shared schema.
3. Names are matched in the chosen mode after normalizing punctuation, & and legal-form words.
4. With includeDetails on, the detail record is fetched for each match (officers, agent, addresses).
5. One dataset row is pushed per unique entity per state. An entity that matches two of your names is returned and billed once.

Input configuration

Field	Type	Default	Description
companyNames	array	—	Business names to look up. Required.
states	array	all no-key states	State codes: FL, TX, NY, NJ, CO, CT, OR, MN, KY, AL, ID, WV, ND, IA, WI, PA, AR, RI, MO, CA
caApiKey	string	—	Free California CALICO key. Required for CA. Stored as a secret.
matchMode	string	contains	contains, startsWith or exact
maxResultsPerState	integer	10	Records per name per state (max 200)
includeDetails	boolean	true	Fetch officers, agent and addresses
activeOnly	boolean	false	Skip dissolved, withdrawn, revoked and other inactive entities
maxItems	integer	1000	Cap on records for the whole run
maxConcurrency	integer	4	Parallel registry searches
proxy	object	none	Optional; the registries work without one

Example input

{
    "companyNames": ["Starbucks", "Goldman Sachs"],
    "states": ["FL", "TX", "NY", "CO"],
    "matchMode": "exact",
    "maxResultsPerState": 5,
    "includeDetails": true
}

Output overview

One row per entity. Addresses share one shape (street, city, state, zip, country, full), and officers are a list of { name, title, address }. Fields a registry does not publish are null (or [] for officers), never invented. stateSpecific holds extras only some states have: FEIN, DBA, NAICS, standing, last event, renewal dates.

Output sample

{
    "searchQuery": "Starbucks",
    "state": "FL",
    "stateName": "Florida",
    "entityName": "STARBUCKS CORPORATION",
    "entityId": "F94000004842",
    "entityType": "Foreign Profit Corporation",
    "status": "ACTIVE",
    "isActive": true,
    "jurisdiction": "WA",
    "formationDate": "1994-09-20",
    "principalAddress": {
        "street": "2401 Utah Avenue S.MS: S-LA1, Suite 800",
        "city": "Seattle",
        "state": "WA",
        "zip": "98134-1435",
        "country": null,
        "full": "2401 Utah Avenue S.MS: S-LA1, Suite 800, Seattle, WA 98134-1435"
    },
    "mailingAddress": {
        "street": "P.O. Box 34110",
        "city": "Seattle",
        "state": "WA",
        "zip": "98124-1110",
        "country": null,
        "full": "P.O. Box 34110, Seattle, WA 98124-1110"
    },
    "registeredAgent": {
        "name": "THE PRENTICE-HALL CORPORATION SYSTEM, INC.",
        "address": {
            "street": "1201 HAYS STREET",
            "city": "TALLAHASSEE",
            "state": "FL",
            "zip": "32301",
            "country": null,
            "full": "1201 HAYS STREET, TALLAHASSEE, FL 32301"
        }
    },
    "officers": [
        {
            "name": "Ford, Beth",
            "title": "Director",
            "address": {
                "street": "2401 Utah Avenue S.MS: S-LA1, Suite 800",
                "city": "Seattle",
                "state": "WA",
                "zip": "98134-1435",
                "country": null,
                "full": "2401 Utah Avenue S.MS: S-LA1, Suite 800, Seattle, WA 98134-1435"
            }
        }
    ],
    "stateSpecific": {
        "fein": "91-1325671",
        "lastEvent": "NAME CHANGE AMENDMENT",
        "lastEventDate": "2024-02-14"
    },
    "detailLevel": "full",
    "sourceUrl": "https://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=EntityName&directionType=Initial&searchNameOrder=STARBUCKS%20F940000048420&aggregateId=forp-f94000004842-98da992f-f634-4270-af0f-16cbcac4df4c&searchTerm=STARBUCKS&listNameOrder=STARBUCKS%20F940000048420",
    "dataSource": "Florida Division of Corporations (Sunbiz)",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-02T06:08:15.041Z"
}

Key output fields

Field	Description
entityName	Legal name as the registry holds it
entityId	The state's own identifier: document number (FL), SOS file number (TX), DOS ID (NY), entity ID (NJ, CO, AL, CA), account number (CT), registry number (OR), file number (MN, AR), organization number (KY), org ID (WV), record number (ID, ND), business number (IA), DFI ID (WI), filing number (PA), identification number (RI), charter number (MO)
entityType	Entity type as the state words it, e.g. "Foreign Limited Liability Company"
status / isActive	Status text from the registry, plus a normalized true / false / null
jurisdiction	State or country of formation
formationDate	Formation or registration date in that state, YYYY-MM-DD
registeredAgent	{ name, address }
officers	[{ name, title, address }]: directors, officers, managers, members, authorized persons
principalAddress / mailingAddress	Address objects
stateSpecific	Extra fields by state (FEIN, DBA, NAICS, standing, last event, renewal date)
detailLevel	full when the detail record was read, listing when only the search row was
sourceUrl	Link to the record at the official source
searchQuery	The input name that produced this row

FAQ

Is this data official? Yes. Every record comes from the state's own registry or the state's own open-data portal, and sourceUrl points back to it. Registries update on their own schedule (open-data feeds are refreshed daily to weekly).

Why are some fields empty for one state and filled for another? States publish different things. Colorado's feed has no officers, Texas has no entity-type wording, New York names a registered agent only when the entity appointed one (otherwise the Secretary of State is the statutory agent and the service-of-process address is in stateSpecific).

Why did a Florida search return names that only start with my query? Sunbiz only searches by the beginning of a name. Use startsWith or exact for predictable Florida results.

Am I charged for searches that find nothing? No. Billing is per record in the dataset. A name that matches nothing in a state costs nothing.

What happens when a state registry is down? The other states still run. The failed name/state pairs are saved to the FAILED_SEARCHES record and named in the run status. A run where every search fails ends as FAILED.

Can I search by officer or registered agent name? Not yet. Searches are by business name.

Your feedback

If this actor saves you time, a short review on this page helps other people find it. If a state, field or search mode is missing, open an issue first: requests usually ship within days.

Support

• For issues or feature requests, please use the Issues tab of this actor on Apify Console.
• For further assistance, contact the author:
  • Author's website: https://muhamed-didovic.github.io/
  • Email: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com

Additional services

• Request another state, a custom field set, or a private build: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com
• Need scheduled monitoring of a company portfolio (status, agent or officer changes) delivered to your database? Contact muhamed.didovic@gmail.com
• For API services of this actor, reach out to muhamed.didovic@gmail.com
• Explore other scrapers at memo23's Apify profile

Explore More Scrapers

• Handelsregister Scraper: the official German company register with officers, representation rules and name history
• Italy Company Registry Scraper: Registro Imprese records with VAT, REA, ATECO, financials and PEC email

🤖 For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Compact reference for AI agents calling this actor via the Apify MCP server or the Apify API (actor: memo23/us-business-entity-search).

Purpose: Looks up US companies by name in official state business registries (FL, TX, NY, NJ, CO, CT, OR, MN, KY, AL, ID, WV, ND, IA, WI, PA, AR, RI, MO, and CA when caApiKey is set) and returns one normalized record per entity with status, type, formation date, registered agent, officers and addresses.

Minimal input:

{ "companyNames": ["Acme Corp"], "matchMode": "exact" }

Output: searchQuery, state, stateName, entityName, entityId, entityType, status, isActive, jurisdiction, formationDate, principalAddress, mailingAddress, registeredAgent {name, address}, officers [{name, title, address}], stateSpecific, detailLevel, sourceUrl, dataSource, scrapedAt. Address objects: street, city, state, zip, country, full.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• states empty means every no-key state. California is included only when caApiKey is set. Unsupported codes are skipped with a warning, never an error.
• Use matchMode: "exact" for verification (punctuation and LLC/Inc/Corp are ignored); contains for discovery.
• Florida and Iowa only support prefix search; contains cannot find a word in the middle of those names.
• isActive is null when the status text is ambiguous; check status.
• includeDetails: false returns name, ID, type and status faster, without officers and addresses.
• Failed registries are listed in the FAILED_SEARCHES key-value record; a run fails only if every search fails.
• Pay-per-event billing: a small actor-start fee plus one charge per record; see the Pricing tab.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This actor reads public business registration records that US state governments publish for anyone to search. It does not log in, bypass authentication, or access non-public data. You are responsible for using the data in line with each registry's terms of use and with laws that apply to you, including the FCRA, which does not allow this data to be used as a consumer report. The actor and its author are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any state government or Secretary of State office; agency names are used only to describe the sources the actor reads. Registry data can be out of date or incomplete; confirm critical facts with the issuing state before acting on them.

The author provides this actor "as is", without warranty of any kind, and disclaims any liability for damages arising from its use.

SEO Keywords

secretary of state business search, business entity search, us business entity lookup, sunbiz scraper, florida business search, texas business entity search, new york dos entity search, colorado business search, connecticut business registry, oregon business registry, minnesota business search, north dakota business search, new jersey business search, kentucky business search, alabama business entity search, idaho business search, west virginia business search, kyb api, kyb verification, company registration lookup, registered agent lookup, llc lookup, corporation search, company officers lookup, business verification api, state business registry scraper, company formation date lookup, entity status check, vendor due diligence, merchant onboarding verification