🏛️ GLEIF LEI Lookup: Legal Entity & Company Data (KYB)

Overview

GLEIF LEI Lookup resolves Legal Entity Identifiers and registered company legal data from the official GLEIF database. Look up by company name or by LEI code and get back legal name, prior names, legal form, jurisdiction, registered and headquarters addresses, operating status, registration lifecycle (initial registration, last update, next renewal), managing LOU, and BIC codes where available. Built for KYB, AML and compliance, customer onboarding, and entity resolution across a messy vendor or counterparty master.

The LEI is the global standard for identifying legal entities in financial transactions and is mandatory for reporting under MiFID II, EMIR, Dodd-Frank, and more. GLEIF publishes the full reference database openly, but its API returns JSON:API with deeply nested entity and registration objects. This actor flattens it into one clean record per entity.

Reliability posture: blocked, empty, or failed lookups are never charged. no_match and not_found results are pushed to the dataset for visibility but billed nothing, only a delivered entity record is charged.

✅ No API key | ✅ Official GLEIF reference data | ✅ BIC to LEI mapping | ✅ First 10 records free | ✅ MCP-ready for AI agents

Features

Search by legal name or by exact 20-character LEI code, or mix both in one run. Full legal identity: legal name, prior names, legal form code, entity category, and operating status. Both the registered legal address and the headquarters address on every record. Registration lifecycle: initial registration date, last update, next renewal date (spot lapsed LEIs immediately). BIC codes and managing LOU (Local Operating Unit) attached where GLEIF has mapped them.

How it works

The actor calls the GLEIF API (api.gleif.org/api/v1/lei-records) for each legal name (fuzzy-matched, top N per name) and each direct LEI you supply. The nested JSON:API response is flattened into one record per entity with all identity, address, registration, and BIC fields in flat form.

Names with no match return a {"status": "no_match"} record; unknown LEIs return {"status": "not_found"}. Neither is charged. A final summary record reports counts by outcome.

🧾 Input configuration

{
  "legalNames": ["Siemens AG", "Tesla, Inc."],
  "leis": ["HWUPKR0MPOU8FGXBT394"],
  "matchesPerName": 3
}

📤 Output format

{
  "lei": "HWUPKR0MPOU8FGXBT394",
  "legal_name": "Apple Inc.",
  "other_names": ["Apple Computer, Inc."],
  "legal_form_code": "H1UM",
  "category": "GENERAL",
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "jurisdiction": "US-CA",
  "legal_address": "C/O C T Corporation System, 330 N. Brand Blvd, Suite 700, Glendale, US-CA, US, 91203",
  "legal_country": "US",
  "hq_address": "One Apple Park Way, Cupertino, US-CA, US, 95014",
  "hq_country": "US",
  "registration_status": "ISSUED",
  "initial_registration_date": "2012-06-06",
  "last_update_date": "2026-03-03",
  "next_renewal_date": "2027-03-08",
  "managing_lou": "5493001KJTIIGC8Y1R12",
  "bic": ["APLEUS66XXX"],
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-11T13:00:00.000Z"
}

Every entity record contains these fields:

Field	Description
🆔 lei	20-character Legal Entity Identifier
🏢 legal_name	Registered legal name
🗂️ other_names[]	Prior or alternative legal names
🏷️ legal_form_code	ELF code for the legal form
📋 category	Entity category (GENERAL, BRANCH, FUND)
🚦 status	Operating status (ACTIVE, INACTIVE)
🗺️ jurisdiction	ISO country and subdivision code
🏠 legal_address	Full registered legal address
🌐 legal_country	Country of legal address
🏢 hq_address	Full headquarters address
🌍 hq_country	Country of headquarters
📄 registration_status	Registration status (ISSUED, LAPSED, RETIRED)
📅 initial_registration_date	Date the LEI was first issued
🔄 last_update_date	Date of last update
⏳ next_renewal_date	Next renewal due date
🏛️ managing_lou	Managing Local Operating Unit LEI
💳 bic[]	Bank Identifier Codes mapped to the entity
🕒 scraped_at	ISO timestamp of capture

💼 Common use cases

KYB and onboarding Resolve a counterparty name to its authoritative LEI and capture its registered legal identity and address. Verify jurisdiction and operating status before opening an account.

AML and compliance Confirm a legal entity is ACTIVE and has a current (not lapsed) LEI registration. Cross-check the BIC in your payment file against the mapped LEI record.

Entity resolution Deduplicate and canonicalize company records across a messy customer or vendor master using LEI as the key. Cluster on managing_lou and jurisdiction for hierarchy discovery.

Regulatory reporting and renewal monitoring Enrich transaction records with valid LEIs for MiFID II, EMIR, and Dodd-Frank reporting. Flag counterparties whose LEI is approaching or past its next_renewal_date.

🚀 Getting started

1. Open the actor and paste Company names into the Company names field (one per line).
2. Optionally paste exact 20-character LEI codes into the LEI codes field.
3. Set Matches per name (default 5) to control how many candidate records return per name search.
4. Click Save & Start.
5. Download as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or pull via API or MCP.

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. GLEIF's reference database is fully open.

What is an LEI? A 20-character ISO 17442 code that uniquely identifies a legal entity in financial markets. It is the global standard for counterparty identification.

Can I search by name? Yes. Pass legalNames and the actor returns the best-matching LEI records for each. Adjust matchesPerName to control breadth.

How do I detect a lapsed LEI? Check registration_status and next_renewal_date. A LAPSED status or a past renewal date means the entity has not kept its LEI current.

How am I charged? Pay per LEI record at $0.005 per record. The first 10 records are free for life on every Apify account. No-match and not-found results are never charged.

Use in Claude, ChatGPT & any MCP agent

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/gleif-lei-lookup

Or call it programmatically with the Apify client:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

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

const run = await client.actor('themineworks/gleif-lei-lookup').call({
  legalNames: ['Apple Inc.', 'Siemens AG'],
  matchesPerName: 3,
});

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

🛠️ Complete your KYB and compliance pipeline

LEI is one anchor. Add filings, VAT, and reputation signals:

• SEC EDGAR Filings Scraper: full filing history for any US issuer.
• EU VAT VIES Checker: validate EU VAT numbers against the official VIES service.
• Trustpilot Business Search: consumer reputation signal for the entity's brand.

Typical flow: resolve counterparty LEIs with this actor, pull US filings via SEC EDGAR, and validate EU tax IDs on the same customer master.

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on the actor's Apify Console page or reach out through the Apify profile.