UK Companies House API – Company Search, SIC Codes & Filings

Get UK company data from Companies House through the official Companies House REST API: full company profiles by company number or URL, company name search, advanced search by SIC code, incorporation date, status, company type and location, accounts and confirmation-statement due dates, risk flags and filing history. You bring your own free Companies House API key; we return clean, flat JSON/CSV/Excel rows.

Why this Actor

• 💸 $1.50 per 1,000 full company profiles ($0.0015 each), $0.50 per 1,000 basic search rows, filings $0.20 per 1,000. The most-used Companies House Actors charge $4 or more per 1,000 companies.
• 🔑 Your own free API key. Companies House gives every developer a free key (600 requests per 5 minutes). It is used only inside your run and never stored.
• ✅ Pay only for results. Not found, invalid numbers, a missing or rejected key and API errors are free.
• 🏭 Lead lists by industry and date. Advanced search finds e.g. all active software companies (SIC 62012) incorporated in Manchester since 1 Oct 2026, up to 5,000 per query.
• 📅 Compliance view. Next accounts and confirmation-statement due dates, overdue flags, charges, insolvency history, liquidation, disputed/undeliverable office address.
• 🏷️ Human-readable labels. SIC codes come with their industry descriptions, status and company type with plain-English labels.
• 🛡️ Company-level data only. We deliberately do not fetch officers, directors' details or persons with significant control (personal data), and filing rows have officer names removed.
• 🤖 Agent friendly. No browser, no proxies, small memory — works great from MCP, Make, Zapier, n8n and the Apify API.

How to get a free Companies House API key (2 minutes)

1. Go to https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk/ and Sign in / Register.
2. Open Your applications → Create an application (name it anything, choose Live).
3. Click Create new key → REST, then copy the key into the Companies House REST API key field.

How much does it cost?

Event	Price
Company with full profile	$0.0015
Basic search row (full profile switched off)	$0.0005
Filing history item	$0.0002
Actor start	$0.00005 / GB

Examples: 1,000 companies by number = $1.50. 5,000 new companies from an advanced search with basic rows = $2.50. 100 companies with their 10 newest filings = $0.15 + $0.20 = $0.35.

Input examples

Look up companies by number or URL

{
  "companiesHouseApiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
  "companies": ["00445790", "SC123456", "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00502851"]
}

Search by name (ranked like the Companies House search)

{ "companiesHouseApiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "searchTerms": ["greggs", "octopus energy"], "maxResultsPerSearch": 20 }

New companies by industry and place (advanced search)

{
  "companiesHouseApiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
  "sicCodes": ["62012", "62020"],
  "companyStatus": ["active"],
  "incorporatedFrom": "2026-10-01",
  "location": "Manchester",
  "maxAdvancedResults": 500,
  "includeFullProfile": false
}

Field	Default	Description
companiesHouseApiKey	–	Your free REST API key (secret).
companies	–	Company numbers (00445790, SC123456, short numbers are zero-padded) or company page URLs.
searchTerms	–	Company names / keywords.
maxResultsPerSearch	20	Ranked results per name search (max 1,000).
sicCodes, incorporatedFrom/To, dissolvedFrom/To, companyStatus, companyType, location, nameIncludes	–	Advanced-search filters (combined with AND).
maxAdvancedResults	100	Max companies from the advanced search (max 5,000 per query).
includeFullProfile	true	Fetch the full profile for every search result (one extra API request each). Off = basic rows, cheaper and faster.
includeFilingHistory	false	Add the newest filings to each full row.
maxFilingsPerCompany	10	Filings per company (max 100).
filingCategory	all	e.g. accounts, confirmation-statement, incorporation, capital.

Output

One row per company. Full rows look like this (illustrative values, shortened):

{
  "companyNumber": "00445790",
  "companyName": "TESCO PLC",
  "companyStatus": "active",
  "companyStatusLabel": "Active",
  "companyType": "plc",
  "companyTypeLabel": "Public limited company",
  "jurisdiction": "england-wales",
  "dateOfCreation": "1947-11-27",
  "sicCodes": ["47110"],
  "sicDescriptions": ["Retail sale in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating"],
  "registeredOfficeAddress": "Tesco House, Shire Park, Kestrel Way, Welwyn Garden City, AL7 1GA",
  "addressPostalCode": "AL7 1GA",
  "accountsLastMadeUpTo": "2026-02-24",
  "accountsNextDue": "2027-08-24",
  "accountsOverdue": false,
  "confirmationStatementNextDue": "2027-05-01",
  "hasCharges": true,
  "hasInsolvencyHistory": false,
  "previousCompanyNames": [{ "name": "...", "effectiveFrom": "...", "ceasedOn": "..." }],
  "companyUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790",
  "source": "company-number",
  "detailLevel": "full",
  "status": "ok"
}

With includeFilingHistory, each full row also has filings (date, category, type e.g. AA/CS01, description, pages, madeUpDate, filingUrl to the PDF) and filingsTotal. Search rows add searchTerm and searchRank. Errors are rows with status: "error", errorCode (MISSING_API_KEY, INVALID_API_KEY, NOT_FOUND, INVALID_COMPANY_NUMBER, HTTP_xxx) and error — never charged. A run summary is saved as OUTPUT.

Dataset views: Companies (overview) and Compliance & risk flags. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel or via the API.

Use cases

• B2B lead lists: new companies by SIC code and town, ready for your CRM (company-level data).
• KYB / onboarding checks: status, incorporation date, registered office, overdue accounts, insolvency and charges flags.
• Monitoring: schedule a daily run with incorporatedFrom set to yesterday to catch new incorporations in your niche, or re-check a portfolio of company numbers for status changes and overdue filings.
• Data enrichment: turn a spreadsheet of company numbers into clean rows with industry descriptions.

FAQ

Do I need to pay Companies House? No. The REST API and keys are free. Companies House limits each key to 600 requests per 5 minutes; the Actor paces itself (about 2 requests per second) and waits automatically if it hits the limit. One full company costs one request (plus one for filings).

Why no directors or PSC data? Officer and beneficial-owner records are personal data. This Actor focuses on company-level information so you can use it with fewer data-protection obligations. You are still responsible for how you use the data (Companies House data is available under the Open Government Licence).

Is this an official Companies House product? No. It is an independent tool that calls the official public API with your key. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Companies House.

What if my key is wrong? The run stops at the first HTTP 401, records INVALID_API_KEY and charges nothing further. Make sure you created a REST key for a Live application.