UK Company Check: Companies House Due Diligence & Risk API

Check any UK company in one call. Give a company number or a name and get back a single due-diligence pack built from the official Companies House API: status, age, SIC codes, registered office, accounts and confirmation statement (due or overdue), recent filings, current and resigned officers with how many other companies they run, persons with significant control (PSCs), charges, insolvency, and a 0-100 risk score with plain-English flags.

Built for KYB and supplier checks, sales and credit screening, and AI agents. It runs as a normal Actor, as an MCP server (one tool, get_uk_company_pack) and as an HTTP API.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Companies House. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Why this Actor

• One pack, not ten scrapes. Profile, filing compliance, filings, officers, PSCs, charges and insolvency in one item, instead of separate Actors and joins.
• A risk verdict you can read. A 0-100 score with flags like "Annual accounts are overdue (were due 2026-03-31, 209 days ago)" or "First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off filed on 2026-09-01".
• Names work. "Tesco" resolves to TESCO PLC (00445790) and the closest alternatives come back with it, so an agent can confirm the right entity.
• Official API only. No scraping of the register website, no proxies.
• Privacy built in. No home-address detail for individuals and month and year of birth only (see "Data, privacy and lawful basis").
• Fair pricing. No start fee. Not-found and failed lookups are free.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Notes
companies	list of strings	required	Company numbers (00445790, SC123456, OC300001), register URLs, or names (Tesco PLC). Up to 500 per run.
maxFilings	integer	25	Recent filings per company (0-100).
includeResignedOfficers	boolean	true	Also list former officers. Counts are always included.
includeAppointmentCounts	boolean	true	Count each officer's other appointments and how many of those companies are dissolved or insolvent.
maxAppointmentLookups	integer	15	Cap on officer lookups per company (current officers first, then those who left in the last 12 months).
apiKey	secret string	none	Optional: your own free Companies House key. Leave empty to use the Actor's key.

{ "companies": ["00445790", "Tesco PLC", "SC002934"], "maxFilings": 10 }

Output

One dataset item per company. Views in the Output tab: Overview, Profile, Risk flags. Abridged example (synthetic data):

{
  "input": "Tesco",
  "status": "ok",
  "companyNumber": "00445790",
  "companyName": "TESCO PLC",
  "registerUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790",
  "resolution": { "method": "name-search", "confidence": "exact", "alternatives": [{ "companyNumber": "00519500", "name": "TESCO STORES LIMITED", "score": 52 }] },
  "profile": { "status": "active", "typeLabel": "Public limited company", "incorporatedOn": "1947-11-27", "ageYears": 78.9,
    "sicCodes": [{ "code": "47110", "description": "Retail sale in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating" }],
    "registeredAddressText": "Tesco House, Shire Park, Kestrel Way, Welwyn Garden City, AL7 1GA, United Kingdom" },
  "accounts": { "lastMadeUpTo": "2026-02-28", "nextDue": "2027-08-28", "overdue": false, "daysUntilDue": 306 },
  "confirmationStatement": { "nextDue": "2027-06-29", "overdue": false },
  "officers": { "activeCount": 4, "resignedCount": 2, "items": [
    { "name": "EXAMPLE, Alice Jane", "roleLabel": "Director", "appointedOn": "2020-10-01", "dateOfBirth": { "month": 3, "year": 1967 },
      "addressArea": "Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom", "appointments": { "total": 3, "active": 3, "dissolvedOrClosed": 0, "insolvent": 0 } } ] },
  "pscs": { "activeCount": 0, "statements": ["The company knows or has reasonable cause to believe that there is no registrable person ..."] },
  "charges": { "total": 3, "outstanding": 1, "satisfied": 2 },
  "insolvency": { "hasCases": false, "cases": [] },
  "filings": { "totalCount": 3000, "items": [{ "date": "2026-07-01", "type": "AP01", "description": "Appointment of Ms Alice Jane Example as a director on 2026-07-01", "documentUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/..." }] },
  "risk": { "score": 3, "band": "low", "summary": "Low risk (3/100): no adverse register signals found (accounts filed and up to date, confirmation statement up to date).", "flags": [{ "code": "OUTSTANDING_CHARGES", "severity": "info", "points": 3, "message": "1 outstanding charge(s) (secured lending). Normal for many trading companies." }],
    "positives": ["Accounts filed and up to date", "Confirmation statement up to date", "Trading history of 78 years"] }
}

If a lookup fails the item has status: "error", an errorCode (BAD_INPUT, NOT_FOUND, NO_API_KEY, RATE_LIMITED, UPSTREAM) and an error message. Name searches with no good match return NOT_FOUND with alternatives to try. Error items are never charged. The run summary is saved as OUTPUT_SUMMARY in the key-value store.

Risk score

Points are added for each adverse register fact and capped at 100. Higher means riskier. Bands: low 0-19, moderate 20-39, high 40-69, severe 70-100.

Signal	Points
Dissolved or closed	60, score at least 90
In liquidation, administration or receivership	60, score at least 85
Active proposal to strike off	45, score at least 70
Sanctioned PSC	50, score at least 80
Gazette notice for compulsory / voluntary strike-off (last 12 months)	35 / 30
Voluntary arrangement (CVA)	35
Insolvency history on file / previously liquidated	30 / 15
Accounts overdue (more than 90 days)	20 (30)
Confirmation statement overdue	15
Incorporated under 1 year / under 2 years	20 / 8
No current officers	20
Registered office undeliverable / in dispute	15 / 12
Director churn in the last 12 months	6-12
Dormant accounts	12
Every officer appointed in the last 12 months	10
Officer linked to 5+ dissolved or insolvent companies	8
No PSC and no PSC statement	6
Officer with 20+ appointments (nominee pattern)	5
Name change in the last 12 months	5
New charges in the last 12 months / outstanding charges	4 / 3

Filing-compliance and age flags are skipped once a company is dissolved or insolvent. Officer flags ignore corporate officers such as company secretarial firms. This is a transparent screening aid built only from register facts. It is not a credit score and says nothing about financial performance.

Pricing

Pay per event, no start fee:

Event	Price
Company pack (one company found and returned)	$0.01

Not-found, invalid and failed lookups are free. 100 companies cost $1.00. A monthly re-check of 50 suppliers costs $0.50 a month. If you set a maximum cost per run, the Actor stops cleanly when it is reached.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

The Actor is an MCP server with one read-only tool, get_uk_company_pack (inputs: company, maxFilings (default 10), includeAppointmentCounts, includeResignedOfficers). An agent can ask "Is ACME LTD up to date with its filings?" or "Who controls 00445790 and have its directors run failed companies?" and get structured JSON back.

Option 1: through the Apify MCP server (OAuth sign-in, easiest). Add this to Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json), Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json), VS Code or any client that supports remote MCP servers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "uk-company-check": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=reynolds/uk-company-due-diligence"
    }
  }
}

Your client opens an Apify sign-in the first time. To use a token instead, add "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" }. Combine it with other Actors, for example ?tools=reynolds/uk-company-due-diligence,reynolds/domain-intel. Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http uk-company-check "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=reynolds/uk-company-due-diligence".

Option 2: connect straight to the Actor's Standby MCP endpoint (lowest latency, needs an Apify API token):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "uk-company-check": {
      "url": "https://reynolds--uk-company-due-diligence.apify.actor/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

A plain HTTP endpoint is also available with the same header: GET https://reynolds--uk-company-due-diligence.apify.actor/v1/company?q=00445790&maxFilings=10 (or POST /v1/company with {"company": "Tesco PLC"}). It returns 404 with alternatives when nothing matches.

Clients that only support local (stdio) servers can use npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server --tools reynolds/uk-company-due-diligence with APIFY_TOKEN set in the environment.

Integrations: API, n8n, Make, Zapier, LangChain

• REST API (run and get results in one call):

  curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/reynolds~uk-company-due-diligence/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"companies": ["00445790", "Tesco PLC"], "maxFilings": 5}'
  

• n8n: add the Apify node, choose "Run an Actor and get dataset", Actor reynolds/uk-company-due-diligence, and pass the input JSON. Put a Schedule trigger in front and an IF node on risk.band after it to alert when a supplier moves to high or severe.

• Make and Zapier: use the Apify app's "Run an Actor" action with the same Actor and input, then read the dataset items in the next step.

• LangChain (Python):

  from langchain_apify import ApifyActorsTool
  uk_company_tool = ApifyActorsTool("reynolds/uk-company-due-diligence")
  # give uk_company_tool to your agent; it takes the Actor input as JSON
  

Companies House API key

The Actor reads the free official Companies House API. The hosted Actor has a key configured, so most users need nothing. To use your own key (higher throughput for big batches):

1. Go to developer.company-information.service.gov.uk and register or sign in.
2. Create an application and choose the Live environment.
3. Add a REST API key to the application.
4. Paste it into the apiKey input (stored as a secret), or set the environment variable COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY when running the code yourself.

Companies House allows 600 requests per 5 minutes per key. A full pack uses about 6 requests plus one per officer looked up, so a run handles roughly 25-100 companies a minute depending on settings. The Actor throttles itself and backs off if limited.

Data, privacy and lawful basis

• Source. Only the official Companies House Public Data API. The register is public by law under the Companies Act 2006, and the data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Minimisation. For individual officers and PSCs the Actor drops premises, street and postcode and keeps only the town and country of the published correspondence address. Date of birth is month and year only. Insolvency practitioners are returned by name and role only. Corporate officers and PSCs keep their full registered address.
• Your responsibility. Officer and PSC names are still personal data under UK GDPR. You are the controller of what you collect and you need a lawful basis. For due diligence, KYB, anti-money-laundering checks, credit and supplier vetting, that is usually legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) or a legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)). Use the data only for the purpose the register exists for, keep it no longer than needed, and do not use officer details for unsolicited marketing (PECR applies to marketing emails, calls and texts).
• Accuracy and corrections. Data is as filed with Companies House. Errors must be corrected at Companies House, and each item links to the register page. Officers can ask Companies House to suppress some details.
• No storage by the Actor. Results go only to your own dataset. Nothing is kept between runs.

FAQ

Is this the same as the Companies House website? It uses the same official register, through its API, and joins the separate sections into one pack with a risk verdict.

What if a name matches several companies? You get the best match with resolution.confidence and up to five alternatives. If nothing scores well you get NOT_FOUND with suggestions and pay nothing. Use the company number for certainty.

Does it cover Scotland, Northern Ireland and LLPs? Yes. Any entity on the UK register, including SC, NI, OC, SO, NC and other prefixes.

Does it include financial figures? No. It reports accounts type and filing dates, and links to each filed document. Turnover and profit from iXBRL accounts are not parsed yet.

What does a failed lookup cost? Nothing.

Limitations

• The risk score uses register facts only. It does not use financial accounts, court judgments (CCJs), sanctions lists or credit data, beyond the register's own PSC sanctions marker.
• Appointment checks look at each officer's 50 most recent appointments. Roles inside the company's own group (same distinctive name word, e.g. "Tesco") are left out, and a company only counts as failed if it became insolvent or was dissolved while the person was still in office. Totals are complete.
• Officer lists are capped at 300 per company and charges at 50 (counts stay correct).
• Officers are matched by their Companies House officer ID, so the same person filed under different IDs is counted separately.

Local development

npm install
npm run build
npm test                                  # unit tests on synthetic fixtures (no key needed)
npm run cli -- "Tesco" --fixtures         # offline demo
COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY=... npm run cli -- 00445790 --filings 5
COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY=... npm run smoke # live smoke test
npm run start:mcp                         # MCP over stdio
PORT=8787 npm run start:http              # HTTP API; UKC_ENABLE_MCP_HTTP=1 also serves /mcp

The HTTP server also has an x402 pay-per-call stub for self-hosting (off by default, X402_ENABLED=1, $0.01 per successful pack; real payment verification is not implemented yet). Environment: COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY, UKC_CONTACT (contact added to the User-Agent).