HdL Municipal Business License Lookup

Search public business-license records from HdL Companies municipal portals by city, business name, street address, or a city's business-type category. Enter one or more HdL portal URLs and receive the account number, business name, dates, address, and source page as structured dataset records.

This Actor queries each city's own public search form. It does not search every HdL city automatically, access private license-holder accounts, or establish that a license is currently valid.

Records returned

Field	Meaning
licenseAccountNumber	Account number shown by the city portal; this may not be a statewide or professional license number
businessName	Business name displayed in the public search results
startDate	Start date displayed by the portal, normalized to YYYY-MM-DD when recognized
expirationDate	Expiration date displayed by the portal; it is not a current-status determination
address	Business address displayed in the result
portalHost	HdL municipal portal that supplied the record
sourceUrl	Public business search page for that portal
scrapedAt	UTC retrieval time

Optional values are returned as null. The source search page may expose only a subset of a license account's details. The Actor does not infer an active, compliant, or valid status from the dates.

Output example

{
  "licenseAccountNumber": "00209617",
  "businessName": "Starbucks Coffee #10112",
  "startDate": "2006-06-23",
  "expirationDate": "2027-06-30",
  "address": "68 RIO RANCHO RD, POMONA, CA 91766-4898",
  "portalHost": "pomona.hdlgov.com",
  "sourceUrl": "https://pomona.hdlgov.com/Search/Index/BusinessLicense",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-24T06:27:47.910Z"
}

Search a city portal

Find the HdL business-license portal linked by the municipality, then provide its base URL. For example, the City of Pomona portal links to a public business search.

Input	Type	Default	Details
portalUrls	array of URLs	https://pomona.hdlgov.com	One to 10 HTTPS municipal hosts ending in .hdlgov.com; each should be a portal base URL
searchType	select	businessName	Choose business name, business address, or business type
query	string	Starbucks	Name/type searches allow 50 characters; address searches allow 255
maxResults	integer	5	Maximum unique records across all portals, from 1 to 1,000

For a business-type search, use a category exactly as it appears in that city's portal. Category lists differ by municipality. For an address search, enter the street portion; city portals may ask you to omit city, state, and ZIP.

Example input

{
  "portalUrls": ["https://pomona.hdlgov.com"],
  "searchType": "businessName",
  "query": "Starbucks",
  "maxResults": 5
}

Search two cities with the same business name:

{
  "portalUrls": [
    "https://pomona.hdlgov.com",
    "https://novato.hdlgov.com"
  ],
  "searchType": "businessName",
  "query": "Starbucks",
  "maxResults": 25
}

The result limit applies across all selected portals, which are searched sequentially. Duplicate account numbers are removed within the same city portal.

API example

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~hdl-municipal-business-license-lookup/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"portalUrls":["https://pomona.hdlgov.com"],"searchType":"businessName","query":"Starbucks","maxResults":5}'

Keep Apify tokens in an authorization header or secret manager. Do not put them in Actor input.

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. The apify-actor-start event is automatic and the apify-default-dataset-item event applies to each record saved to the default dataset. There is no separate custom charge for the same result. Platform usage remains the Actor owner's cost; event prices must cover compute and any configured proxy usage.

Event	FREE	BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD
Actor start (one-time)	$0.005	$0.005	$0.005	$0.005
Municipal license record	$0.005	$0.004875	$0.00475	$0.004

The event totals by tier are $0.010 / $0.009875 / $0.00975 / $0.009 for one record, $0.030 / $0.029375 / $0.02875 / $0.025 for five records, and $0.130 / $0.126875 / $0.12375 / $0.105 for 25 records (FREE / BRONZE / SILVER / GOLD). Set maxTotalChargeUsd to at least $0.010 to cover the start event and one result. The Actor applies a verified free-plan limit of five records per run and also honors a run-level charge limit.

The price table in .actor/pay_per_event.json is the local pricing definition. Confirm active prices and platform-usage settings in the live Actor configuration before relying on them.

Access behavior and limits

• The Actor opens the public HdL search page and submits its ordinary business-name, address, or category form over HTTPS.
• It tries direct HTTP first. If a portal returns HTTP 403 or a recognizable security challenge, it tries that city search through the configured, encrypted DataImpulse route, then falls back to Apify residential proxy if DataImpulse is unavailable or remains blocked. Proxy URLs are never Actor inputs or logs. Platform proxy usage and any external proxy-provider charges are separate costs for the Actor owner; a remaining denial is reported as BLOCKED.
• City portals are separate tenants. The portal URL must be linked by the municipality and must use an HdL subdomain.
• Portals that return an access denial, Cloudflare challenge, or unsupported form layout are reported in SUMMARY; no CAPTCHA or authentication is bypassed.
• Results are read from the page returned by the city's search form. If that page reports more matches than the Actor returns, maxResults controls saved records. Very broad searches may return a large source page; direct pages over 3 MB and proxied pages over 250 KB fail with a prompt to narrow the search.
• Requests are sequential and bounded. The Actor makes up to three attempts for retryable network, server, or rate-limit failures and stops after its run-time budget.
• A valid search with no match writes zero dataset items and an EMPTY outcome. Access denials are BLOCKED; invalid inputs or unavailable business-type categories are REJECTED; an unexpected source or parsing error is FAILED. Partial results remain available if a later city portal fails.

The SUMMARY key-value record contains the outcome, source and saved-result counts, per-city diagnostics, and warnings. Dataset rows contain only business records.

Responsible use

These are public municipal records, but an address may identify a home-based business or sole proprietor. Follow the source municipality's terms and applicable privacy, marketing, and data-retention rules. Independently confirm important records with the municipality before making compliance, enforcement, credit, employment, housing, insurance, or other high-impact decisions. HdL Companies and each municipality remain the authoritative sources.

Support

When reporting a problem, include the Actor run ID, the public portal host, search type, and the SUMMARY outcome. Omit tokens and private license-holder details.