California Fresh Business Leads

What does CA Business Leads – SOS Entity Search do?

CA Business Leads connects directly to the California Secretary of State's bizfile portal to discover newly incorporated LLCs, Corporations, Limited Partnerships, and other entity types the moment they appear in public records. Set a date range, hit run, and get a structured, enriched dataset of fresh California business entities — no API key required.

The Actor runs a full A–Z name sweep across your filing date range, automatically expands sub-variants when result caps are hit, and optionally enriches every record with principal address, mailing address, registered agent details, and standing status (SOS, FTB, Agent, VCFCF) pulled from the bizfile portal. Results are sorted by descending filing date so the freshest leads are always at the top.

Why use CA Business Leads?

California files more new business entities than any other US state. These early-stage companies are in active buying mode — they need banking, insurance, payroll, legal, web, and accounting services right now, before they've built vendor relationships.

Who uses this Actor:

• Business bankers targeting newly formed LLCs and Corporations to offer business checking accounts, credit lines, and SBA loans before competitors reach them.
• Insurance agents pitching general liability, workers' comp, and commercial auto policies to entities that have just formed but have no coverage yet.
• Web agencies and designers reaching out to new businesses that need branding, websites, and social media presence.
• Accountants and CPAs offering Tax ID/FEIN setup, bookkeeping, and first-year tax filing to entities within days of incorporation.
• Commercial real estate brokers finding new tenants before businesses sign a lease elsewhere.
• Registered agent services approaching entities that listed a principal address (not a registered agent) at time of filing.
• B2B SaaS companies prospecting into specific verticals (e.g., filter by searchTerms: ["Tech", "AI", "Solar"]) to find their ideal customer profile at inception.

How to use CA Business Leads

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console and click Try for free.
2. Set Date From and Date To to your desired filing date range (e.g., last 7 days).
3. Optionally add Search Terms to filter by entity name keywords. Leave empty for a full sweep of all new filings.
4. Leave Enrich with Filing Details enabled (default) to get principal addresses and standing info per entity.
5. Set Max Items to control how many results to return (default: 10; remove limit for full coverage).
6. Click Start and wait for the run to complete.
7. Download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
dateStart	string	2025-01-01	Earliest filing date to include (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateEnd	string	today	Latest filing date to include (YYYY-MM-DD)
searchTerms	list	(empty)	Optional name keywords (e.g. Tech, Solar). Empty = full A–Z sweep
enrichDetails	boolean	true	Fetch principal address, mailing address, and standing per entity
maxItems	integer	10	Cap on total results returned, sorted by newest first
extractOfficers	boolean	false	Download SI PDFs and extract CEO/Secretary/CFO names (slower)
proxyConfiguration	object	Datacenter	Proxy settings for bypassing WAF on the bizfile portal

Example input:

{
  "dateStart": "2026-04-01",
  "dateEnd": "2026-04-07",
  "searchTerms": [],
  "enrichDetails": true,
  "maxItems": 100
}

Output

Results are pushed to the default dataset. You can download them in JSON, CSV, HTML, or Excel from the Dataset tab in Apify Console.

Example output record:

{
  "entityId": "C4912345",
  "entityName": "ACME VENTURES LLC",
  "filingDate": "2026-04-06",
  "status": "Active",
  "standing": "Good",
  "entityType": "Limited Liability Company",
  "formedIn": "CA",
  "registeredAgent": "JOHN DOE",
  "agentInfo": {
    "type": "Individual",
    "name": "John Doe",
    "address": "123 Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90001"
  },
  "principalAddress": "456 Business Ave, San Francisco, CA 94105",
  "mailingAddress": "456 Business Ave, San Francisco, CA 94105",
  "standingSOS": "Good",
  "standingFTB": "Good",
  "standingAgent": "Good",
  "standingVCFCF": "Exempt",
  "statementOfInfoDueDate": "10/31/2026",
  "officers": [],
  "linkedInSearchUrl": ""
}

Data fields

Field	Description
entityId	California SOS filing number (e.g. C4912345)
entityName	Registered business name
filingDate	Date the entity was filed with the CA SOS (YYYY-MM-DD)
status	Entity status: Active, Cancelled, Suspended, etc.
standing	Combined standing from bizfile search result
entityType	Entity type: LLC, Corporation, LP, etc.
formedIn	State or country of formation
registeredAgent	Registered agent name from search result
agentInfo	Structured agent object with type, name, and address
principalAddress	Principal business address (requires enrichDetails: true)
mailingAddress	Mailing address (requires enrichDetails: true)
standingSOS	Secretary of State standing (requires enrichDetails: true)
standingFTB	Franchise Tax Board standing (requires enrichDetails: true)
standingAgent	Agent standing (requires enrichDetails: true)
standingVCFCF	VCFCF standing (requires enrichDetails: true)
statementOfInfoDueDate	Due date for the Statement of Information
officers	Array of officers extracted from SI PDF (requires extractOfficers: true)
linkedInSearchUrl	Pre-built LinkedIn people search URL for the CEO

How much does it cost to scrape California business filings?

This Actor uses pay-per-result pricing — you're only charged for leads returned, never for failed or empty runs.

Plan	Price per result
No discount	$0.05
Bronze	$0.035
Silver	$0.03
Gold	$0.025

Use case	Estimated results	Estimated cost (no discount)
1 day of new filings	~300–600 entities	$15–$30
1 week of new filings	~2,000–4,000 entities	$100–$200
Keyword search (e.g. "Tech")	~50–200 entities	$2.50–$10
Quick test (maxItems: 10)	10 entities	$0.50

Apify provides a free $5 credit for new accounts — enough to pull ~100 leads and validate the data quality before committing to a larger run.

Tips for best results

• Set a narrow date range (7–14 days) for the freshest leads with no wasted spend.
• Use maxItems during testing to control cost. Set to 10 or 50 before running a full sweep.
• Leave enrichDetails enabled — principal addresses are essential for direct mail campaigns and are fetched in the same run.
• Enable extractOfficers only if you specifically need CEO/decision-maker names. It significantly slows the run (one browser page per entity).
• Use searchTerms to focus on a specific vertical. Good examples: ["Tech", "AI"], ["Solar", "Energy"], ["Medical", "Health"], ["Realty", "Properties"].
• Datacenter proxies (enabled by default) are used for all requests. If you encounter persistent blocking on high-volume runs, try switching to residential proxies in the Proxy Configuration field.

FAQ and support

Is scraping the CA SOS bizfile portal legal? Yes. The California Secretary of State's bizfile portal contains publicly disclosed business entity records. This data is filed voluntarily with a government agency and is available to the general public under California law. This Actor accesses only public data and does not attempt to bypass authentication or access private records.

How fresh is the data? New entity filings typically appear on the bizfile portal within 24 hours of processing by the CA SOS. For the absolute freshest leads, set dateStart and dateEnd to yesterday.

Why does the principalAddress sometimes show the agent's address? Many newly formed entities list their registered agent's address as the principal address at time of filing. This is common for entities formed through incorporation services. The address is accurate — it's what was filed with the state.

How do I automate daily lead collection? Use Apify Scheduling to run the Actor daily with a 1-day date window. Connect the output dataset to Google Sheets, Airtable, or your CRM via a webhook or Zapier integration.

Need a custom solution? For high-volume needs, custom filtering, CRM integration, or multi-state coverage, open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.