California SOS Business Search Scraper

Search the official California Secretary of State BizFile Online business registry by company name or California entity number. The actor returns compact, typed records for due diligence, KYB checks, registered-agent research, business-status monitoring, and AI-agent workflows.

What it does

Use this actor when you need public California registry data for corporations, LLCs, LPs, and nonprofit entities. It opens the official search page in a browser session, then calls the registry's own same-origin JSON search request from that session so Imperva cookies remain consistent. It does not file documents, order certificates, download filing images, log in to an account, or bypass a CAPTCHA or anti-bot challenge.

The actor is designed for compliance teams, legal and due-diligence researchers, sales operations teams validating business names, journalists, and AI agents that need a small structured answer instead of a browser transcript.

When to use it

Use it for questions such as:

• Is a company registered with the California Secretary of State?
• What is the entity number, status, standing, entity type, initial filing date, or formation jurisdiction?
• What registered agent or address did the public registry return?
• Which companies in a short list look active, suspended, forfeited, dissolved, or otherwise need review?

Do not use it for California tax balances, certified copies, private account data, LLP or general-partnership records that the portal does not index, or legal conclusions. The status risk score is a transparent triage signal, not a legal, credit, or compliance opinion.

Input

{
  "businessNames": ["Apple Inc", "C0806592"],
  "maxItems": 10,
  "includeRawFields": false,
  "requestDelayMs": 2500
}

businessNames is required and accepts company names or entity numbers. maxItems defaults to 10 and caps the total unique records across all queries. includeRawFields defaults to false and can be enabled when you need the original fields returned by the registry. requestDelayMs defaults to 2500 milliseconds between separate searches.

Output

One dataset item is emitted per unique registry row. The stable fields are:

Field	Description
entityName	Registered entity name
entityNumber	California entity/file number when returned
status	Public registry status
standing	Public standing value when returned
entityType	Entity classification
formationDate	Initial filing or formation date
jurisdiction	Formed-in state or country
registeredAgent	Public agent text
principalAddress	Principal address when returned
mailingAddress	Mailing address when returned
riskScore	0-100 triage score from status and standing text
riskLevel	low, medium, high, or critical
riskSignals	Human-readable reasons for the score
searchQuery	Input query that produced the row
sourceUrl	Official BizFile Online search page
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 collection timestamp
rawFields	Original row fields when opted in; otherwise null

Active or good-standing text maps to a low score. Suspended, inactive, delinquent, or not-good-standing text maps to a high score. Dissolved, cancelled, revoked, surrendered, merged, or forfeited text maps to a critical score. Unknown or missing status text is intentionally called out rather than silently treated as healthy.

The OUTPUT key-value record contains terminal status, counts, warnings, and target diagnostics. An empty match is a successful empty run. If Imperva blocks every search, the run is marked blocked with a diagnostic message rather than pretending that the business names have no matches.

Pricing

Pricing is configured as pay-per-event:

• apify-actor-start: $0.00005 once per run.
• sos-record: $0.008 per unique normalized record returned.

The actor also supports Apify's compute and proxy usage billing when enabled in Console. The maxItems cap gives agents and batch workflows a predictable upper bound on result charges.

JavaScript API

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/sos-scraper').call({
  businessNames: ['Apple Inc', 'C0806592'],
  maxItems: 10
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python API

from apify_client import ApifyClient
import os

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("YOUR_USERNAME/sos-scraper").call({
    "businessNames": ["Apple Inc", "C0806592"],
    "maxItems": 10,
})
items = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())
print(items)

Reliability notes

BizFile Online is a JavaScript single-page application protected by Imperva. The actor keeps the seed navigation and API request in the same Playwright session and uses the official request payload observed by the application. When configured, it tries the DataImpulse gateway first with a consistent browser session and automatically moves to the configured Apify proxy tier if the DataImpulse tunnel fails. If both proxy paths are blocked, the run reports a target-access diagnostic. The actor does not attempt to evade a CAPTCHA, reuse user cookies, or submit private information.

Public government data can change. Field mapping is defensive and preserves optional raw fields when requested. The actor caps concurrency at one browser request and includes a configurable delay to avoid unnecessary load. Use scheduled runs for monitoring rather than a tight polling loop.

Legal and data-use notice

This actor accesses publicly displayed business-registry information. Users are responsible for complying with the California Secretary of State website terms, applicable laws, privacy obligations, and any downstream data-use restrictions. The data is not certified, and the California Secretary of State is the authoritative source for legal reliance.

FAQ

Why did a run return no records?

The query may have no matching indexed entity, or the target may have returned a valid empty response. Check the OUTPUT warnings and try the registered name or entity number.

Why did a run become blocked?

Imperva can reject a browser session before the JSON search executes. The actor uses DataImpulse first when its secret environment variables are configured, then the default Apify proxy tier when the DataImpulse tunnel is unavailable. Persistent blocks mean the advertised public mode is unavailable for that run; the actor reports this explicitly.

Does this download filing PDFs?

No. It is a read-only structured business-search actor. It does not order documents or access authenticated filing workflows.

Can I search all California businesses?

Use a bounded list of names or entity numbers. This actor is designed for targeted lookups and bounded batches; maxItems is capped at 10,000 to keep runtime, load, and billing predictable.

What does the risk score mean?

It is a deterministic mapping of returned status and standing text. It flags records for review; it does not determine legal good standing, solvency, tax compliance, or fraud.