GLEIF LEI Lookup – Legal Entity Identifier & Parent Companies

GLEIF LEI lookup: search the official Legal Entity Identifier database by company name or look up LEI, ISIN and BIC codes. Get legal name, legal form, registered and HQ address, company number, registration authority, LEI status and renewal date, plus direct and ultimate parents.

Price: $1.00 per 1,000 entities. No API key, no login. Inputs that can't be resolved are free.

What data do you get?

For every legal entity (company, bank, fund, branch, government body…):

• LEI (ISO 17442) and link to the GLEIF record page
• Legal name and other / trading / previous / transliterated names
• Legal form in plain words (e.g. Aktiengesellschaft, Public Limited Company) and its ISO 20275 ELF code
• Legal address and headquarters address (lines, city, region, postal code, country, one-line text)
• Company number (registeredAs) and registration authority name (e.g. Companies House, Division of Corporations, Delaware)
• Jurisdiction, entity category (general, branch, fund…), entity creation date
• Entity status (active/inactive) and LEI registration status (issued, lapsed, retired, merged…)
• Initial registration, last update and next renewal dates – spot lapsed LEIs before your counterparty does
• Direct parent and ultimate parent (LEI, name, country) from GLEIF Level 2 relationship data
• BIC/SWIFT codes mapped to the LEI, successor entity for merged companies

Why this LEI lookup?

• Official source – uses the GLEIF REST API only, with retries and rate limiting below GLEIF's 60 requests per minute. A wrong input produces a free error row; it does not fail the run.
• Name search that handles real-world input – case-, accent- and punctuation-insensitive, understands legal suffixes (Siemens AG finds Siemens Aktiengesellschaft), tolerates typos (Microsfot → MICROSOFT CORPORATION) and ranks results so the group's main entity comes first. Every result has a matchScore.
• Any identifier – paste LEIs, ISINs or BICs into one list; LEI check digits are validated before any request.
• Corporate parents included at no extra cost.
• $1 per 1,000 entities, with no charge for inputs that can't be resolved.

Use cases

• KYC / AML onboarding – verify a counterparty's legal name, address, register number and LEI status.
• Regulatory reporting (EMIR, MiFID II, SFTR, Dodd-Frank) – check that the LEIs in your trade reports are valid and not lapsed.
• Corporate group mapping – find the ultimate parent of suppliers, customers or investees.
• Data enrichment & CRM cleanup – turn company names into standardised legal entities with addresses and identifiers.
• Securities reference data – map ISINs to their issuer's LEI.
• AI agents – give an LLM a tool that answers "which legal entity is this company, and who owns it?" from the official register.

How to use it

1. Enter one or more Company names (e.g. Deutsche Bank) and/or LEI / ISIN / BIC codes.
2. Optionally limit name search to Countries (DE, GB, US…) and choose Entity status.
3. Set Max matches per company name (1 = best match only) and Max entities.
4. Click Start. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, or use the API, Make, Zapier, n8n or Google Sheets.

Input

Field	Type	Description
companyNames	array of strings	Company names to search.
leis	array of strings	LEIs (20 chars), ISINs (12 chars) or BIC/SWIFT codes (8/11 chars).
countries	array of strings	Optional ISO country codes for name search (legal address).
entityStatus	ACTIVE | INACTIVE | ALL	Name search filter. Default ACTIVE.
maxResultsPerName	integer	Best matches per name. Default 3.
includeParents	boolean	Add direct & ultimate parent. Default true.
maxItems	integer	Max entities in total (cost cap). Default 100.

Example:

{
    "companyNames": ["Barclays Bank PLC", "Siemens AG", "Nestle"],
    "leis": ["HWUPKR0MPOU8FGXBT394", "US0378331005"],
    "countries": [],
    "maxResultsPerName": 1,
    "includeParents": true
}

With empty input the Actor runs a small demo (Apple Inc. by LEI + "Deutsche Bank" by name).

Output

Real sample (BIC list shortened):

{
    "type": "entity",
    "lei": "G5GSEF7VJP5I7OUK5573",
    "legalName": "BARCLAYS BANK PLC",
    "otherNames": [],
    "legalForm": "Public Limited Company",
    "legalFormCode": "B6ES",
    "status": "ACTIVE",
    "registrationStatus": "ISSUED",
    "category": "GENERAL",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "country": "GB",
    "legalAddress": {
        "addressLines": ["1 CHURCHILL PLACE"],
        "city": "LONDON",
        "region": "GB-LND",
        "postalCode": "E14 5HP",
        "country": "GB",
        "text": "1 CHURCHILL PLACE, E14 5HP LONDON, GB-LND, GB"
    },
    "headquartersAddress": { "addressLines": ["1 CHURCHILL PLACE"], "city": "LONDON", "region": "GB-LND", "postalCode": "E14 5HP", "country": "GB", "text": "1 CHURCHILL PLACE, E14 5HP LONDON, GB-LND, GB" },
    "registeredAs": "01026167",
    "registrationAuthority": "Companies House",
    "registrationAuthorityId": "RA000585",
    "entityCreationDate": "1971-10-04T00:00:00Z",
    "initialRegistrationDate": "2012-06-06T15:51:54Z",
    "lastUpdate": "2026-04-13T15:09:56Z",
    "nextRenewal": "2027-04-30T00:00:00Z",
    "corroborationLevel": "FULLY_CORROBORATED",
    "managingLou": "213800WAVVOPS85N2205",
    "directParent": { "lei": "213800LBQA1Y9L22JB70", "name": "BARCLAYS PLC", "country": "GB" },
    "ultimateParent": { "lei": "213800LBQA1Y9L22JB70", "name": "BARCLAYS PLC", "country": "GB" },
    "bic": ["BARCGB22XXX", "BARCGB21CHP", "BARCUS33XXX"],
    "expiration": null,
    "successorEntity": null,
    "url": "https://search.gleif.org/#/record/G5GSEF7VJP5I7OUK5573",
    "matchedQuery": "Barclays Bank PLC",
    "matchScore": 100,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-07T19:16:24.753Z"
}

Inputs that cannot be resolved produce a free row:

{ "type": "error", "query": "7LTWFZYICNSX8D621K87", "errorCode": "INVALID_INPUT", "error": "\"7LTWFZYICNSX8D621K87\" looks like an LEI but its check digits are wrong (typo?)." }

errorCode values: INVALID_INPUT, NOT_FOUND, NO_MATCH, LOOKUP_FAILED, SEARCH_FAILED.

directParent / ultimateParent are null when the entity has no parent or did not report one (e.g. owned by natural persons). Console views: Overview, Addresses & registration, Not found & errors.

Pricing

Pay-per-event – you only pay for entities you receive. Platform usage is included.

Event	Price	When
entity	$0.001 per entity ($1.00 / 1,000)	Each legal entity saved to the dataset
Errors / not found	Free	Invalid codes, unknown LEIs, names without matches

Job	Cost
Verify 100 LEIs	$0.10
Best match for 1,000 company names	$1.00
5,000 entities with parents	$5.00

Corporate parent lookups are free. Set Max cost per run in run options – the Actor stops cleanly at your budget.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor works as a tool for AI agents through the Apify MCP server (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, n8n…). Agents get small, typed inputs and flat JSON outputs. Example tool input an agent can send:

{
    "companyNames": ["Siemens AG"],
    "maxResultsPerName": 1,
    "includeParents": true,
    "maxItems": 1
}

Typical prompts: "What is the LEI of Barclays Bank PLC and who is its parent?", "Is LEI 529900SS7ZWCX82U3W60 still active?", "Which company issued ISIN US0378331005?".

FAQ

Do I need a GLEIF account or API key? No. GLEIF publishes LEI data as open data via a free public API.

How fresh is the data? GLEIF updates its golden copy several times per day; every run queries the live API.

Why does a name return several entities? Large groups have many subsidiaries and branches with similar names. Results are sorted by name similarity, then active status, then the oldest LEI (usually the main entity). Use maxResultsPerName: 1 for the best match only, or add countries.

Why is directParent null? Either the entity is the top of its group, or it reported an exception to GLEIF (e.g. natural-person owners, no consolidated accounts).

Can I look up thousands of LEIs? Yes. LEIs are fetched in batches of 100 per request. With parents enabled each entity needs two extra API calls, and GLEIF allows 60 calls per minute, so large runs take a few minutes. Turn off includeParents for maximum speed.

Does BIC lookup work for every bank? Only for BICs that SWIFT/GLEIF have mapped to an LEI. Use the 11-character form (DEUTDEFFXXX); 8-character codes get XXX added automatically.

Is it legal?

LEI data is public open data published by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation under the CC0 licence, which allows free reuse. The Actor only uses the official public API and only returns data about legal entities, not about private individuals.

Related actors

Other actors by the same developer:

• UK Companies House Scraper – New Companies by SIC & Profiles – company register data for UK entities
• TED, SAM.gov, UK & Brazil Tenders Scraper – Public Procurement – public contracts won by the entities you look up
• Bulk WHOIS Lookup – RDAP, DNS Records, SSL & Redirects – check the domains of counterparties

Support & feedback

Found a bug or need a field? Open an issue in the Issues tab.