UK Insolvency Register Search

Search the official UK Individual Insolvency Register for bankruptcies, Individual Voluntary Arrangements, Debt Relief Orders and Bankruptcy Restrictions Orders. Date of birth and last known address are withheld unless you deliberately switch them on.

🔍 What does UK Insolvency Register Search do?

It searches the official Individual Insolvency Register at insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk and returns every matching record as a clean row of data, ready for a credit file, a due diligence pack or your own screening tool.

• Searches by individual name or by sole trader trading name
• Returns the complete insolvency history record: case number, type, status, dates, court and appointed practitioner
• Filters by insolvency type: bankruptcy, IVA, DRO or BRO
• Paginates automatically through result pages
• Withholds date of birth and last known address by default

That last point is the one that matters. Most tools hand you every personal identifier they can find and leave the data protection problem with you. This one starts closed, and you have to make a deliberate choice to open it.

📊 What data can I extract from the register?

One row per insolvency record:

Field	Description
Identity
01_title	Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms
02_forename	First name or names
03_surname	Last name
04_fullName	Complete name as listed
05_gender	Male or Female
06_dateOfBirth	Date of birth. Only present when includePersonalIdentifiers is true
07_alsoKnownAs	Alternative names and aliases
Address and occupation
08_lastKnownAddress	Full address with city. Only present when includePersonalIdentifiers is true
09_postcode	UK postcode
10_tradingName	Business name for sole traders
11_occupation	Job or profession if listed
Insolvency details
12_insolvencyType	Bankruptcy, IVA, DRO or BRO
13_caseNumber	Official case reference number
14_status	Current status, for example discharged, active or suspended
Dates
15_orderDate	Date the bankruptcy order was made
16_arrangementDate	Date the IVA was arranged
17_notificationDate	Date notified to the register
18_year	Year of insolvency
Court and officials
19_court	Court that made the order
20_insolvencyServiceOffice	Handling office location
21_insolvencyPractitioner	Appointed practitioner name
22_firm	Practitioner's firm name
Other
23_caseDescription	Full case summary
24_detailsUrl	Link to the full record
25_retrievedAt	Timestamp of retrieval

Column names carry numeric prefixes so exports and previews keep the right order.

💡 Why search the insolvency register?

Credit and trade credit. Screen a customer or supplier for insolvency history before extending credit or signing a contract.

Debt recovery. Identify bankruptcy filings and insolvency appointments before deciding whether enforcement is worth pursuing.

Due diligence and AML. Check directors, partners and beneficial owners against the register as part of onboarding or a deal.

Early warning. Monitor key accounts for the first sign of financial distress, rather than finding out from a letter.

🚀 How do I use UK Insolvency Register Search?

1. Click Try for free.
2. Put the individual's name, or a sole trader's trading name, into searchName.
3. Set searchType to all, or narrow it to bankruptcy, IVA, DRO or BRO.
4. Set maxResults to cap the run. Leave includePersonalIdentifiers off unless you have a lawful basis for date of birth and address.
5. Click Start, then download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or pull them from the API.

⬇️ Input

{
  "searchName": "Smith John",
  "searchType": "all",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Field	Type	Default	What it does
searchName	string	Smith John	Individual name or sole trader trading name to search
searchType	string	all	Insolvency type to match, all, bankruptcy, IVA, DRO or BRO
maxResults	integer	50	Hard cap on billable results
includePersonalIdentifiers	boolean	false	Include date of birth and last known address, only with a lawful basis

⬆️ Output

Table view

Results arrive as an Entries table you can sort and filter in the Console, with the name, insolvency type, case number, status and order date lined up for scanning.

JSON

A typical row:

{
  "01_title": "Mr",
  "04_fullName": "John Smith",
  "09_postcode": "BR5 1BU",
  "12_insolvencyType": "Bankruptcy",
  "13_caseNumber": "5184020",
  "14_status": "Currently Bankrupt",
  "15_orderDate": "12/05/2026",
  "19_court": "Office of the Adjudicator",
  "24_detailsUrl": "https://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/eiir/case-details/1/false/750052504/591749120/"
}

Download it from the run as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it straight from the API.

Personal data and retention

This actor reads the public Individual Insolvency Register. The data is public, but it is still personal data and it is deliberately temporary.

Under the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016, entries are deleted three months after discharge. The same three month rule applies to IVAs and DROs after completion or termination. A copy you export does not expire by itself, so a retained dataset can outlive the official record.

Date of birth and last known address are therefore withheld by default. Set includePersonalIdentifiers to true only if you have a lawful basis for holding them and a retention policy that deletes them when the register does.

Every record carries 25_retrievedAt. Treat results as a point in time snapshot, not a permanent register. If you keep the output you become the data controller for it and are responsible for your own lawful basis, retention, and subject access handling.

Insolvency types explained

Bankruptcy, court order where an individual's assets are sold to pay creditors. Stays on the register for 3 months after discharge, which is typically 12 months from the order.

Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), formal agreement to repay creditors over time, usually 5 to 6 years. Stays on the register for 3 months after completion.

Debt Relief Order (DRO), for people with debts under £30,000, minimal assets and low income. Lasts 12 months. Stays on the register for 3 months after the end date.

Bankruptcy Restrictions Order or Undertaking (BRO or BRU), additional restrictions for bankrupts who acted improperly. Can last 2 to 15 years.

Notes on coverage

• Covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has a separate register
• Records remain on the register for 3 months after discharge or completion
• Historic records may not be available
• Name matching is exact, so use the correct spelling
• A typical run for 50 results takes 30 to 60 seconds, and is rate limited to respect government servers

💰 How much does it cost?

$0.001 per insolvency record returned, plus the standard $0.00005 Apify charges once when a run starts. There is no monthly rental, so you pay only for what a run actually returns.

So a typical search that returns 50 records costs $0.05005. A single name check that matches 3 records costs $0.00305, and a wider pull of 500 records costs $0.50005. A search that matches nothing costs $0.00005.

Paid Apify plans pay less per record: $0.00085 on Bronze, $0.0007 on Silver, $0.0006 on Gold, $0.0005 on Platinum and $0.0004 on Diamond, which is 40 percent of the list price. That 500 record pull is $0.20005 on Diamond.

Set maxResults to cap what a run can cost before it starts. The Apify listing always shows the current rates.

🔌 Integrations

Send results straight to Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable, Zapier, Make or your own webhook using Apify integrations. You can also trigger a run whenever something happens in another tool, which is the usual way to wire a register check into an onboarding flow.

🔗 Using UK Insolvency Register Search with the Apify API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/spookyweb~uk-insolvency-register-search/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchName": "Smith John", "searchType": "all", "maxResults": 50}'

Or with the Apify client:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('spookyweb/uk-insolvency-register-search').call({
  searchName: 'Smith John',
  searchType: 'all',
  maxResults: 50,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Full detail is in the Apify API reference, and every run is also callable from the Python and JavaScript clients.

❓ FAQ

What is withheld by default, and why?

Date of birth and last known address. Both are on the public register, and both are the fields that turn a register check into a personal profile. They are off unless you set includePersonalIdentifiers to true, so the default output answers the question the register exists to answer, is this person insolvent, without handing you identifiers you may have no lawful basis to hold.

What are the three insolvency types?

Bankruptcy, an Individual Voluntary Arrangement and a Debt Relief Order. A fourth entry type, the Bankruptcy Restrictions Order or Undertaking, is not an insolvency in itself, it is an extra restriction placed on someone who has already been made bankrupt and acted improperly. All four are searchable through searchType.

Can I search a trading name?

Yes. searchName matches an individual's name or a sole trader's trading name, so a search on a business name returns the sole trader behind it where the register lists one. The 10_tradingName field carries it back on the row.

How current is the register?

It is live, and it is deliberately short lived. Entries are removed three months after discharge, completion or termination, under the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016. That means a result is only true at the moment you ran it, which is why every row carries 25_retrievedAt.

What does the status field mean?

14_status is the register's own description of where the case stands, for example "Currently Bankrupt", discharged, active or suspended. It is the field to check before acting on a result, because a discharged bankruptcy and a current one mean very different things for a credit decision.

Does it cover Scotland?

No. Scotland maintains a separate register, the Register of Insolvencies, which this Actor does not read. Coverage here is England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

⚖️ Is it legal to search the insolvency register?

The Individual Insolvency Register is a statutory public register the Insolvency Service is required by law to publish, so anyone can check whether a person is subject to bankruptcy, an IVA or a debt relief order. This Actor reads only that public register, and it never logs in.

It does contain personal data, so this Actor withholds personal identifiers by default and you must switch them on deliberately. If you turn them on, you are the data controller for what you then do with them, and you need a lawful basis under UK GDPR. Use it for the checks the register exists for, such as credit, lending and due diligence.

Data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, so commercial use is permitted with attribution: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Apify's ethical scraping guide covers the wider picture.

👍 Your feedback

Found a bug, or want a field that is not here yet? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab. Requests that make the data more useful get built, and problems get fixed quickly.

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