NC SOS Business Search & Entity Enricher

Bulk search and enrich North Carolina Secretary of State business entity records from Apify. Enter company names and export structured NC business data including entity status, SOS ID, business type, formation date, registered agent, principal office address, company officials, filing metadata, source URLs, and annual-report phone numbers when available.

Use this Actor when you need an unofficial API-style workflow for NC SOS business search, North Carolina business entity lookup, registered agent lookup, company status verification, or CSV enrichment from public NC Secretary of State Business Registration records.

What is the North Carolina SOS Business Search Actor?

This Actor searches the public North Carolina Secretary of State Business Registration system by entity name and saves structured results to an Apify dataset. It is built for due diligence, lead enrichment, real estate research, public-record lookup, and automation workflows where copying search results by hand is too slow.

It works as an unofficial, Apify-hosted API-style NC Secretary of State business search workflow: submit one or more company names, run the Actor from the Apify Console or Apify API, and export the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, JSONL, XML, RSS, or HTML.

What can this Actor do?

• Search NC Secretary of State Business Registration records by entity name.
• Run bulk searches from a list of company names.
• Export one dataset item per matched NC SOS entity.
• Return entity name, SOS ID, status, business type, date formed, prior names, and official source URL.
• Visit profile pages to include registered agent, principal office address, and company officials when available.
• Fetch the latest annual-report PDF and OCR page 1 to extract the public principal office phone number when present.
• Include filing-list metadata without downloading every filing PDF.
• Label possible affiliate/owner-name fallback matches separately from direct legal-name matches.
• Preserve row-level caveats and errors instead of silently turning source problems into false no-matches.

What data can you extract from NC Secretary of State business records?

Field	Description
search_term	Original company/entity name you submitted.
matched	Whether an NC SOS entity match was returned.
match_type	direct_legal_name, possible_affiliate, or no_match.
affiliate_query	Broader owner/brand query used when the affiliate resolver is enabled.
name	Entity legal name as shown by NC SOS.
sos_id	North Carolina Secretary of State ID.
status	Entity status, such as Current-Active.
business_type	Corporation, LLC, limited partnership, etc.
date_formed	Formation date shown by NC SOS when available.
registered_agent_name	Registered agent from the entity profile when available.
principal_address	Principal office address from the entity profile when available.
company_officials	Officials listed on the NC SOS entity profile when available.
latest_filing_type	Latest annual-report filing used for phone extraction.
latest_filing_date	Date of the filing used for phone extraction.
nc_sos_principal_phone	Phone number OCR-extracted from public annual-report PDFs when present.
nc_sos_phone_confidence	Confidence label for phone extraction.
source_url	Official NC SOS profile URL.

How to bulk search NC business entities

Paste one or more company names into searchTerms and run the Actor. For a first test, use a small batch such as:

{
  "searchTerms": ["Red Hat Inc", "Lowe's Companies Inc"],
  "maxResultsPerSearch": 5,
  "includeProfiles": true,
  "includeFilings": false,
  "includePhones": true,
  "enableAffiliateResolver": true,
  "managedBrowser": true,
  "managedBrowserHeadless": true,
  "managedBrowserTimeoutSeconds": 240,
  "requestDelaySeconds": 1.5
}

After the run finishes, open the dataset and export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or JSONL.

How to use this Actor through the Apify API

You can run this Actor from Apify Console, schedules, integrations, webhooks, or the Apify API. Use it when you need repeatable, API-style North Carolina business entity search behavior but want Apify to handle the run, dataset, exports, and monitoring.

Example API flow:

1. Start the Actor with searchTerms.
2. Wait for the run to finish.
3. Read the default dataset items from Apify.
4. Export to CSV/Excel or pull JSON into your pipeline.

Example input body:

{
  "searchTerms": ["Red Hat Inc", "Lowe's Companies Inc"],
  "maxResultsPerSearch": 1,
  "includeProfiles": true,
  "includePhones": true
}

Tip: set maxResultsPerSearch to 1 when you only need the best match for each company name. Increase it when you want to review multiple possible matches.

How to enrich a CSV of North Carolina companies

If you have a spreadsheet of NC company names, copy the company-name column into searchTerms or call the Actor through the Apify API from your own script. The output dataset can be exported back to CSV or Excel with official-source fields such as status, SOS ID, registered agent, address, and profile URL.

Common CSV enrichment workflows:

• Verify whether NC leads are active business entities.
• Add SOS IDs and official profile URLs to a lead list.
• Add registered agent and principal office fields to a company list.
• Pull public annual-report phone numbers when available.
• Separate exact legal-name matches from possible affiliate/brand-name matches.

Can I get phone numbers from NC SOS annual reports?

Yes, when includePhones is enabled, the Actor finds the latest Annual Report filing for each matched entity, downloads the public NC SOS PDF, OCRs page 1, and extracts the principal office phone number when the form exposes one.

Phone-related output fields:

• nc_sos_principal_phone
• nc_sos_phone_confidence
• nc_sos_phone_source
• latest_filing_type
• latest_filing_date

This uses public NC SOS filing PDFs. It does not infer phone ownership beyond the label present in the annual-report form.

Example output

{
  "search_term": "Red Hat Inc",
  "rank": 1,
  "matched": true,
  "match_type": "direct_legal_name",
  "affiliate_query": null,
  "relationship_basis": "direct NC SOS legal-name search",
  "name": "RED HAT, INC.",
  "sos_id": "...",
  "internal_id": "...",
  "status": "Current-Active",
  "business_type": "Business Corporation",
  "date_formed": "...",
  "prior_names": [],
  "registered_agent_name": "...",
  "principal_address": "...",
  "company_officials": [
    {
      "title": "Vice President",
      "name": "...",
      "address": "...",
      "official_url": "https://www.sosnc.gov/online_services/search/Business_Registration_official/..."
    }
  ],
  "latest_filing_type": "Annual Report",
  "latest_filing_date": "...",
  "nc_sos_principal_phone": "+1...",
  "nc_sos_phone_confidence": "high",
  "nc_sos_phone_source": "principal_office_phone",
  "filings": [],
  "source_url": "https://www.sosnc.gov/online_services/search/Business_Registration_profile/...",
  "source": "NC Secretary of State Business Registration",
  "transport": "managed_browser"
}

Input settings

searchTerms

Required. One or more business/entity names to search.

maxResultsPerSearch

Maximum number of matching records saved per search term. Default: 10.

For lower-cost enrichment, use 1 when you only need the best match. For research, use a higher number to inspect possible matches.

includeProfiles

Default: true.

Fetches each matched profile page and extracts profile fields such as principal office, registered agent, and company officials when present.

includeFilings

Default: false.

Fetches filing-list metadata for each matched profile. It does not download every filing PDF.

includePhones

Default: true.

Fetches the latest Annual Report filing, OCRs the public PDF, and returns the principal office phone number when present.

enableAffiliateResolver

Default: true.

When an exact legal-name search returns no NC SOS records, retries with conservative brand/owner tokens. These rows are labeled as possible_affiliate so they are not confused with direct legal-name matches.

managedBrowser

Default: true.

Runs NC SOS requests through a managed browser session. This is the recommended Apify cloud setting.

managedBrowserHeadless

Default: true.

Keep enabled for Apify cloud runs.

managedBrowserTimeoutSeconds

Default: 240.

Maximum time to wait for the managed browser session to reach the NC SOS search page before failing.

requestDelaySeconds

Default: 1.5 seconds.

Polite delay between NC SOS requests for fallback/debug runs. The managed-browser path has its own pacing.

sessionJson

Fallback only. Leave blank for normal managed-browser runs. Do not publish or share session cookies.

How much does NC business entity scraping cost?

Pricing is per saved result. A search term can return multiple matching entities depending on maxResultsPerSearch.

For predictable costs:

• Use maxResultsPerSearch: 1 when you only need the best match.
• Keep includeFilings: false unless you need filing metadata.
• Keep a small first run to confirm output shape before running a large batch.

Common use cases

• API-style North Carolina business entity search workflows.
• NC Secretary of State registered agent lookup.
• Bulk NC company status verification.
• CSV enrichment for business leads.
• Real estate LLC and entity research.
• Due diligence on NC corporations and LLCs.
• Public-record lookup for automation pipelines.
• Finding principal office phone numbers exposed in public annual-report PDFs.

Is there an official NC Secretary of State API?

North Carolina provides a public Secretary of State Business Registration search website. Bulk export and API-style workflows are limited for many users. This Actor provides an unofficial Apify workflow for repeatable searches, structured datasets, CSV export, scheduling, Apify API runs, and integration with your own tools.

This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the North Carolina Secretary of State.

What this Actor does not do

• It does not identify beneficial owners.
• It does not guarantee that a registered agent or company official is the true owner, operator, or decision-maker.
• It does not download private records or account-only data products.
• It does not infer private phone ownership.
• It does not download every filing PDF in the default Store-ready configuration.
• It does not provide legal, compliance, or investment advice.

Notes and limits

NC SOS can change its page markup, rate limits, or access controls. If the site returns an interstitial or 403, reduce batch size, increase timeouts, and retry. No scraper can guarantee permanent access if the source site changes its controls.

Use this Actor responsibly and review NC SOS terms and applicable public-records rules for your use case.