Companies House API: UK Company Check (Insolvency, LEI, VAT)

What it does: UK company due-diligence snapshot in one call: Companies House profile, directors, owners (PSC), insolvency, overdue filings, Gazette notices, LEI, VAT and FCA.

Who it's for: KYB/onboarding, supplier vetting, credit-risk and compliance agents, CRMs and accounting automations.

Price: Pay per event: $0.02 per company checked. Companies that return no data are not charged. You only pay Apify for what you run; there is no monthly fee for this Actor.

One call = a UK company due-diligence snapshot from official sources only:

• Companies House: profile, status, officers, people with significant control (PSC), insolvency cases, recent filings, overdue accounts/confirmation statement flags.
• The Gazette: corporate insolvency notices (winding-up, liquidation, administration).
• GLEIF: Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).
• HMRC: UK VAT number check (optional).
• FCA register and Charity Commission (optional).

Output includes summary.red_flags, summary.risk (high / low / incomplete) and the licence of every source.

Input: {"company_number": "00445790", "company_name": "TESCO PLC", "vat_number": "GB220430231"} or a batch in companies (max 50).

Pricing: one company-check event per company that returns data.

Data: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. GLEIF data CC0.

Use cases for AI agents

KYB / know-your-business, supplier and customer due diligence, credit-risk pre-checks, director and beneficial owner (PSC) lookup, insolvency and liquidation screening, LEI lookup, UK VAT number validation. Works through the Apify MCP server.

Quick example

Input

{
 "company_number": "00445790",
 "company_name": "TESCO PLC",
 "include_fca": true,
 "include_charity": false
}

Output (one dataset item, shortened)

{
 "query": {
  "company_number": "00445790",
  "company_name": "TESCO PLC",
  "vat_number": null
 },
 "companies_house": {
  "status": "ok",
  "company_number": "00445790",
  "company_name": "TESCO PLC",
  "type": "plc",
  "date_of_creation": "1947-11-27",
  "date_of_cessation": null,
  "sic_codes": [
   "47110"
  ],
  "registered_office_address": {
   "address_line_1": "Tesco House, Shire Park",
   "address_line_2": "Kestrel Way",
   "country": "United Kingdom",
   "locality": "Welwyn Garden City",
   "postal_code": "AL7 1GA"
  },
  "accounts_next_due": "2027-08-26",
  "flags": {
   "company_status": "active",
   "is_active": true,
   "has_insolvency_history": false,
   "has_charges": false,
   "accounts_overdue": false,
   "confirmation_statement_overdue": false,
   "registered_office_is_in_dispute": false,
   "undeliverable_registered_office_address": false
  },
  "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790",
  "officers": [
   {
    "name": "TAYLOR, Christopher Jon",
    "officer_role": "secretary",
    "appointed_on": "2025-04-14"
   },
   {
    "name": "BETHELL, Melissa",
    "officer_role": "director",
    "appointed_on": "2018-09-24",
    "nationality": "British"
   },
   "..."
  ],
  "active_officer_count": 11,
  "psc": []
 },
 "gazette": {
  "status": "ok",
  "insolvency_notice_count": 0,
  "notices": [],
  "note": "Matched on company name; check the company number in each notice."
 },
 "gleif": {
  "status": "ok",
  "records": [
   {
    "lei": "2138002P5RNKC5W2JZ46",
    "legal_name": "TESCO PLC",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "entity_status": "ACTIVE",
    "registered_as": "00445790",
    "registration_status": "ISSUED",
    "next_renewal": "2027-01-10T00:00:00Z"
   }
  ]
 },
 "fca": {
  "status": "not_configured",
  "note": "FCA Register API needs a free key (FCA_API_EMAIL / FCA_API_KEY)."
 },
 "summary": {
  "red_flags": [],
  "risk": "low",
  "sources_checked": [
   "companies_house",
   "gazette",
   "..."
  ],
  "sources_not_configured": [
   "fca"
  ]
 },
 "licences": {
  "companies_house": "OGL v3 (Companies House)",
  "gazette": "OGL v3 (The Gazette)",
  "gleif": "CC0 (GLEIF)",
  "fca": "FCA Register API terms"
 },
 "checked_at": "2026-10-21T09:38:59+00:00"
}

Use it from AI agents (MCP) and code

• Apify MCP server: add https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=tudorlane/uk-company-check to Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT connectors, VS Code or any MCP client (sign in with Apify OAuth or an API token). The Actor appears as a tool the model can call.
• REST (sync): POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tudorlane~uk-company-check/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN with the input JSON as the body; results come back in the response.
• SDKs / no-code: apify-client (Python/JS), LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, n8n, Make and Zapier integrations.

FAQ

Do I need a Companies House key? No, a shared key is built in.

Is this a credit score? No. It surfaces official red flags (insolvency, overdue accounts, status) from public registers.

Batch? Up to 50 companies per run via companies.

What if the source is down? You get an error row and are not charged for it.

Support? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.

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Keywords: Companies House API, UK company check, KYB API, director lookup, PSC beneficial owner, insolvency check, Gazette notices, LEI lookup, UK VAT check, MCP tool, Apify Actor, AI agent tool.