UK Companies House — Companies, Directors, Owners (PSC) & Filings

Pull UK company data straight from the official Companies House API: company profiles, directors and secretaries, persons with significant control (the owners) and filing history. Look companies up by number or name, or find them with advanced search (SIC code, location, status, incorporation date), for example every restaurant incorporated in Leeds in the last 30 days, with its directors.

It runs on your own free Companies House API key, so you get Companies House's full rate allowance (600 requests per 5 minutes) for your runs, with no shared key and no scraping.

$3 per 1,000 companies · $1.50 per 1,000 officer, owner or filing rows.

---

Get your free API key (2 minutes)

1. Go to https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk/ and register (free).
2. Create an application, choose the Live environment.
3. Create new key → type REST. Copy the key.
4. Paste it into Companies House API key in this actor's input. Apify stores it encrypted. The actor never logs it and never writes it to the output.

Without a key the run stops at once with a message saying how to get one, and nothing is charged.

What you can do with it

• KYC / due diligence: directors, owners and filing status for a list of company numbers.
• Lead generation: new companies by SIC code and town, with director names, for accountants, banks, insurers, web designers, payroll and formation agents.
• Compliance monitoring: accounts and confirmation statements due or overdue across a portfolio.
• Ownership research: persons with significant control and their natures of control.
• Filing alerts: the latest filings for each company, with links to the documents.

Input

Field	What it does
Companies House API key	Your own free REST key (required).
Company numbers	00612172, SC123456, OC301234 (leading zeros may be left off).
Company name searches + Matches per name search	Look companies up by name; take the best match or the top N.
Advanced search: name includes, SIC codes, location, status, incorporated from/to	Find companies by filters (up to 10,000 per run).
Company profile / Officers / PSCs / Filing history	Choose which row types to return.
Include resigned officers / ceased PSCs	Off by default: current ones only.
Filing categories, Max filings per company	e.g. accounts and confirmation statements, newest 25.
Maximum rows	A hard cap across all row types.

Example input

Directors and owners of two companies:

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR-COMPANIES-HOUSE-KEY",
  "companyNumbers": ["00612172", "SC123456"],
  "includeOfficers": true,
  "includePscs": true
}

New restaurants and takeaways incorporated in Leeds in the last 30 days, with directors:

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR-COMPANIES-HOUSE-KEY",
  "sicCodes": ["56101", "56103"],
  "location": "Leeds",
  "companyStatuses": ["active"],
  "incorporatedFrom": "30 days",
  "includePscs": false,
  "maxItems": 2000
}

Output

Each row has a recordType (company, officer, psc or filing) and always carries companyNumber, companyName and foundBy. The dataset has ready-made views for Companies, Officers and PSCs and Filings. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML. The example rows below are made up, to show the format:

{
  "recordType": "company",
  "companyNumber": "01234567",
  "companyName": "EXAMPLE TRADING LIMITED",
  "companyStatus": "active",
  "companyType": "ltd",
  "dateOfCreation": "2015-03-02",
  "registeredOfficeAddress": "1 Example Street, Leeds, LS1 4DT, England",
  "sicCodes": "56101, 56102",
  "accountsNextDue": "2027-03-31",
  "confirmationStatementNextDue": "2027-03-16",
  "hasInsolvencyHistory": false,
  "companyUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01234567"
}

{
  "recordType": "officer",
  "companyNumber": "01234567",
  "companyName": "EXAMPLE TRADING LIMITED",
  "personName": "EXAMPLE, Alice Jane",
  "personRole": "director",
  "startedOn": "2015-03-02",
  "nationality": "British",
  "occupation": "Director",
  "countryOfResidence": "England",
  "birthMonth": "1980-05",
  "personUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/AAA111/appointments"
}

PSC rows add naturesOfControl (for example "ownership of shares 75 to 100 percent"). Filing rows carry filingDate, filingType (CS01, AA...), filingDescription, filingPages and filingDocumentUrl.

The OUTPUT record gives the query (without your key), rows delivered, events charged, API calls made and any company numbers that were not found.

Pricing

Event	Price
Company profile returned	$0.003 ($3 per 1,000)
Officer, PSC or filing returned	$0.0015 ($1.50 per 1,000)
Actor start	Apify's minimum ($0.00005 per run)

A company with three directors and one owner costs $0.009. You are charged only for rows delivered, never past Maximum rows or your spending limit.

Good to know

• Companies House paces API keys at 600 requests per 5 minutes. The actor stays under that and waits automatically if it is ever told to slow down.
• Dates of birth are published by Companies House as month and year only, and so are they here.
• Officer and PSC data is personal data. UK GDPR applies to how you use it.
• Contains public sector information from Companies House, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This actor is independent and not endorsed by Companies House.

Related UK open-data actors

• UK Charity Register: every registered charity in England & Wales, with income, contacts, causes and trustees.
• UK Government Contracts (Contracts Finder): public-sector tenders and awards, with buyer contacts.
• UK Food Hygiene Ratings (FSA): every food business's hygiene rating.