🇬🇧 UK Companies House Scraper — Company Data, Officers & KYC

Overview

Turn the official UK Companies House register into clean, structured JSON. Search by company name or look up exact company numbers, and get back company number, status, type, incorporation date, the structured registered office address, SIC industry codes, and the full officer roster (directors, secretaries, roles and appointment dates). Pure HTTP against the official Companies House API — no browser, no proxy, no scraping tricks.

Built for KYC and compliance onboarding, sanctions and PEP screening prep, UK sales prospecting, credit and supplier due diligence, and investigative research.

Reliability posture: blocked, empty, failed or unauthorised runs are never charged. You only pay for a company record actually delivered.

✅ Official API | ✅ No proxy needed | ✅ Full officer roster | ✅ MCP-ready for AI agents

🔑 You bring your own free API key

Companies House gives every developer a free API key. This actor accepts it as the apiKey input so the data comes through your free allowance, not a reseller markup.

1. Go to https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk.
2. Sign in (free), open Your applications → Create an application (choose the "Live" REST API).
3. Copy the application's API key.
4. Paste it into the actor's apiKey field.

The key is used as HTTP Basic auth (key as username, empty password) and is marked secret — this actor never stores or shares it.

Features

• Search the whole register by company name or keyword.
• Direct lookup of one or many exact company numbers.
• Full company profile: status, type, incorporation/cessation dates, jurisdiction, insolvency and liquidation flags.
• Structured registered office address and SIC industry codes.
• Optional full officer roster with roles and appointment dates for KYC.
• Same output whether you consume it via CSV, JSON, Excel, API, or an MCP tool call.

🧾 Input configuration

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR_COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY",
  "query": "monzo",
  "companyNumbers": [],
  "includeOfficers": false,
  "maxResults": 10
}

Or look up specific companies directly:

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR_COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY",
  "companyNumbers": ["09446231", "00445790"],
  "includeOfficers": true
}

Input	Description
apiKey	Required. Your free Companies House REST API key.
query	Company name/keyword search. Use this or companyNumbers.
companyNumbers	Array of exact company numbers for direct lookup.
includeOfficers	Fetch the officer roster for each company (one extra request each). Default false.
maxResults	Cap on companies delivered (1–2000). Default 50.

📤 Output format

{
  "company_number": "09446231",
  "company_name": "MONZO BANK LIMITED",
  "company_status": "active",
  "company_type": "ltd",
  "date_of_creation": "2015-02-06",
  "registered_office_address": {
    "address_line_1": "Broadwalk House",
    "address_line_2": "5 Appold Street",
    "locality": "London",
    "postal_code": "EC2A 2AG",
    "country": "England"
  },
  "sic_codes": ["64191"],
  "jurisdiction": "england-wales",
  "has_insolvency_history": false,
  "has_been_liquidated": false,
  "officers": [
    { "name": "SMITH, John", "officer_role": "director", "appointed_on": "2018-01-01", "nationality": "British", "occupation": "Banker" }
  ],
  "company_url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09446231",
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-31T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Field	Description
🆔 company_number	UK company number
🏢 company_name	Registered company name
🚦 company_status	active, dissolved, liquidation, etc.
🏷️ company_type	ltd, plc, llp, etc.
📅 date_of_creation	Incorporation date
📅 date_of_cessation	Dissolution date, if applicable
📮 registered_office_address	Structured registered office address
🏭 sic_codes	SIC industry codes
⚖️ jurisdiction	Registration jurisdiction
⚠️ has_insolvency_history / has_been_liquidated	Risk flags for due diligence
👤 officers	Officer roster (when includeOfficers is on)
🔗 company_url	Public Companies House page
🕒 scraped_at	ISO capture timestamp

💼 Common use cases

KYC and compliance onboarding — verify a UK counterparty, pull its officer roster and risk flags into a KYC file in seconds.

Sales prospecting into the UK — build a target list from a name search and enrich with status, type and incorporation date.

Credit and supplier due diligence — check company_status, insolvency/liquidation flags and incorporation age before signing.

AI research agents — give a compliance copilot live Companies House data via MCP so it can answer "is this UK company active and who runs it?".

🚀 Getting started

1. Paste your free apiKey.
2. Set query for a name search or companyNumbers for direct lookups.
3. Turn on includeOfficers if you need the roster.
4. Set maxResults, then click Start.
5. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or pull it via API or MCP.

Run on a schedule

Apify Console → this Actor → Schedules → Add schedule → pick a cadence (e.g. daily) → Save. It reruns with the same input on autopilot, no code required — useful for watching a watchlist of company numbers for status changes.

FAQ

Do I need an API key? Yes — a free one from Companies House. See the key section above. The key stays yours.

Why bring my own key? So you use your own free allowance directly. Companies House rate-limits to 600 requests per 5 minutes per key.

How much does it cost? You pay per company record delivered (tiered — cheaper the more you run). Empty, failed and unauthorised runs cost nothing.

Is this official data? Yes — served straight from the official Companies House public API, the legal source of truth for UK company data.

Use in Claude, ChatGPT & any MCP agent

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/companies-house-uk

Or call it programmatically:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('themineworks/companies-house-uk').call({
  apiKey: 'YOUR_COMPANIES_HOUSE_API_KEY',
  query: 'monzo',
  includeOfficers: true,
  maxResults: 25,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

🛠️ Complete your KYC pipeline

• Norway Company Register (BRREG) — the same officer/KYC shape for Norway.
• B2B Leads Finder — turn a company into decision-maker contacts.