US Business Entity Search - Multi-State Secretary of State Records

Search official Secretary of State databases across 17 US states in a single run. Returns normalized business entity data including name, type, status, filing date, registered agent, officers, and addresses -- all from official government sources.

Unlike single-state tools, this actor searches multiple states simultaneously and returns a unified schema. One API call covers New York, Texas, California, Colorado, Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Dakota, Alabama, Arkansas, and Rhode Island.

Why Use This Actor

• Multi-state search in one run. No need to run separate scrapers for each state and manually merge results.
• Official government sources. Data comes directly from state Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Department of State databases.
• Normalized output. Every result has the same schema regardless of source state -- no post-processing needed.
• Full entity details. Officers, registered agents, addresses, filing dates, entity types, and status.
• No proxies needed. These are public government APIs and portals, not scraping targets.
• Pay per result. Only pay for what you get.

Supported States

State	Source	Entities	Auth
NY	Department of State	3.2M+	None
TX	Comptroller of Public Accounts	3.8M+	None
CA	Secretary of State (CALICO API)	5.3M+	Free API key (apply here)
PA	Department of State (Socrata API)	1.8M+	None
CO	Secretary of State (Socrata API)	1.0M+	None
NJ	Division of Revenue	1.0M+	None
CT	Secretary of State (Socrata API)	1.3M+	None
MN	Secretary of State (MBLS Portal)	600K+	None
OR	Secretary of State (Socrata API)	600K+	None
WI	Dept. of Financial Institutions	500K+	None
KY	Secretary of State (BusSearch Portal)	500K+	None
IA	Secretary of State (Socrata API)	400K+	None
SC	Secretary of State (BusinessFiling Portal)	400K+	None
AL	Secretary of State	300K+	None
AR	Secretary of State	300K+	None
ND	Secretary of State (First Stop Portal)	200K+	None
RI	Secretary of State (CorpWeb Portal)	200K+	None

Together these seventeen states cover over 25 million registered business entities. All states except CA work out of the box with no API key needed.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQuery	string	"Construction"	Business name to search
states	string[]	All 17 states	State codes to search
maxResults	integer	25	Max results per state (1-300)
fetchDetails	boolean	true	Fetch full details (officers, addresses)

California Setup

To include California results, add "CA" to the states list and set the CA_SOS_API_KEY environment variable in your Apify actor settings. The key is free -- apply at calico.sos.ca.gov.

Output

Each result is a normalized BusinessEntity with a consistent schema regardless of source state:

{
    "entityName": "CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS LLC",
    "entityId": "4596064",
    "state": "NY",
    "entityType": "DOMESTIC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY",
    "status": "Active",
    "filingDate": "03/15/2019",
    "jurisdiction": "NEW YORK",
    "registeredAgent": "JOHN SMITH",
    "address": {
        "street": "123 MAIN STREET",
        "city": "NEW YORK",
        "state": "NEW YORK",
        "zip": "10001"
    },
    "officers": [
        { "name": "JOHN SMITH", "title": "MANAGING MEMBER" }
    ],
    "sourceUrl": "https://apps.dos.ny.gov/publicInquiry/",
    "searchQuery": "Construction"
}

Export results as JSON, CSV, or Excel directly from Apify.

Use Cases

• KYC/Compliance: Verify business registrations across multiple states before onboarding a client or vendor. Check entity status, standing, and jurisdiction of formation.
• Sales Intelligence: Find where a company is registered, who the officers are, and what registered agent they use. Build prospect lists from official records.
• Due Diligence: Cross-reference entity status across states for M&A, investment screening, or vendor audits. Identify inactive or dissolved entities.
• Lead Generation: Build databases of businesses by type (LLC, Corporation) across multiple US states. Combine with other data sources for enrichment.
• Legal Research: Find registered agents, service of process addresses, and corporate officers for litigation or compliance investigations.

Pricing

Free to try -- every Apify account includes $5/month in free platform credits, enough for 2,500 results at no cost.

Pay per result -- no monthly subscription required. See the Pricing tab for current rates.

Use with AI Assistants (MCP)

This actor works as an MCP tool with Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, and other MCP clients. Your AI assistant can search Secretary of State records directly.

Setup: Add this to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "us-business-entity": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=pink_comic/us-business-entity-search"
    }
  }
}

Then ask your AI: "Search for Construction companies in New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania" -- it will call the actor and return structured results.

For multiple actors, combine them: ?tools=pink_comic/us-business-entity-search,pink_comic/sec-edgar-company-filings

Related Actors

For single-state searches with additional state-specific fields:

• New York Business Entity Search - NY-only with stock info and DOS process address
• Texas Business Search - TX-only with franchise tax status and SOS file number
• California Business Search - CA-only with standing and suspension info
• Florida Business Filings - FL bulk filing data by date range

For federal business data:

• SEC EDGAR Company Filings - SEC filings, financial data, insider transactions