UK Companies House Watcher – Company Change Alerts

Monitor a watchlist of UK companies with the official Companies House Public Data API and get one clean record for each company that changed: status, name, registered office, SIC codes, insolvency/charges flags, new filing-history items, and officer appointments/resignations (role and date only).

Who it's for: credit controllers and finance teams, KYC/AML and supplier-risk teams, insolvency practitioners, B2B sales teams tracking accounts, investors and journalists.

Get a free API key

The actor needs a free Companies House REST API key:

1. Register at the Companies House developer hub: https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk/
2. Create an application (choose Live), then add a REST API key.
3. Paste the key into the apiKey input (stored as an encrypted secret). Alternatively set the COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY environment variable.

Use of the API is subject to the Companies House developer terms and conditions: https://developer-specs.company-information.service.gov.uk/terms-and-conditions (rate limit 600 requests per 5 minutes: https://developer-specs.company-information.service.gov.uk/guides/rateLimiting).

How it works

1. Add company numbers (e.g. 00445790, SC005336). You can also add companies from a name search or a SIC-code search.
2. The first run saves a baseline snapshot of each company in a named key-value store (stateStoreName). That store stays in your account between runs.
3. Schedule the actor to run daily or weekly. Each run compares the live data with the snapshot and outputs only what changed (onlyChanges: true).

What is detected

Change	Field
Status (e.g. active → liquidation / dissolved)	companyStatus, companyStatusDetail, dateOfCessation
Name change	companyName
Registered office moved	registeredOffice, registeredOfficeIsInDispute
SIC codes changed	sicCodes
Insolvency history / charges flags	hasInsolvencyHistory, hasCharges
Accounts / confirmation statement overdue	accountsOverdue, confirmationStatementOverdue
New filings	newFilings[] (transaction id, date, category, form type, description code)
Officer appointed / resigned	officerChanges[] = { role, change, date }

Input example

{ "companyNumbers": ["00445790", "02366995", "SC005336"], "onlyChanges": true }

SIC search: { "searchMode": "sic", "sicCodes": ["62020"], "companyStatus": "active", "maxResults": 500 }

Output example

{
  "companyNumber": "01234567", "companyName": "EXAMPLE TRADING (UK) LIMITED", "companyStatus": "liquidation",
  "hasChanges": true, "firstSnapshot": false,
  "changes": [{ "field": "companyStatus", "before": "active", "after": "liquidation" }],
  "newFilings": [{ "transactionId": "MzAz", "date": "2026-10-01", "category": "officers", "type": "TM01", "description": "termination-director-company-with-name-termination-date" }],
  "officerChanges": [{ "role": "director", "change": "resigned", "date": "2026-09-30" }],
  "companyUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01234567",
  "source": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (Companies House)"
}

Pricing

Pay per event. Platform compute is included.

• $0.0025 per company checked (profile + filings + officers, compared with the last snapshot)
• $0.004 per change alert (only for companies that actually changed)

Example: a daily watch of 500 companies where 10 change costs 500 × $0.0025 + 10 × $0.004 = $1.29 per run. A changed company costs $0.0065 in total. Set max cost per run to cap spending. The actor stops cleanly when the limit is reached.

Integrations (Zapier / Make)

Use Apify's Zapier or Make integration, or a webhook on "run succeeded", to send changed companies to Slack, email, Google Sheets or your CRM. Because only changes are output, every dataset item can be treated as an alert. Schedule runs in Apify Console (e.g. daily at 07:00 UK time).

FAQ

Where does the data come from? Only from the official Companies House Public Data API (api.company-information.service.gov.uk). The actor does no website scraping.

Is personal data included? No. Output is company-level only. Officer names, birth dates, nationalities, occupations, and residential or service addresses are never output or stored. Officer changes show only the role and the appointment or resignation date. Filing description_values, which can contain names, are dropped. A final check rejects any record that contains a personal-data field.

Why can't I see director names? This is deliberate (data minimisation). You can open companyUrl to see the official register.

How fresh is it? Companies House updates the API continuously. Each run reads live data.

How many companies can I watch? 150 per run by default, up to 10,000 (maxResults). The default timeout is 1 hour; raise it for large watchlists. Snapshots are saved every 25 companies, so an aborted or timed-out run keeps its progress. The API allows 600 requests per 5 minutes and each company takes up to 3 requests, so expect about 200 companies per 5 minutes. A 10,000-company run with filings and officers turned on takes about 4 hours. Turn off checkFilings/checkOfficers to speed it up 3×.

What does the first run output? A baseline record for every company (firstSnapshot: true). Change alerts start from the second run, and baseline records are not charged as alerts.

Can I run several watchlists? Yes. Give each one its own stateStoreName.

Officer changes are limited? The latest 100 appointments per company are compared. That covers almost all companies.

Licence & attribution

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (Companies House). Every record carries this in source.

Disclaimer

This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Companies House. Data is provided "as is" and should be checked against the official register before you make important decisions.

Running locally

npm ci
COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY=your-key npx apify run   # or: npm start (uses ./storage)
npm test                                         # unit tests with mocked API responses