New Jersey Business Registry Lookup & Name Checker

Look up New Jersey registered businesses in the state's free public registry, clear a candidate name before filing, or trace a company through its principal, registered agent or previous name. The actor also lists the free document index for any entity, including the document names, filing years and whether certified or non-certified copies can be ordered. No login, account, API key or proxy setup is required.

What this actor does

• Six modes: byName, byKeyword, byEntityId, byLinkedName, availability, and documents
• Batch lookups: up to 50 names, 20 keyword phrases or 200 entity IDs per run
• Reverse searches: find entities by principal/officer name, registered-agent name or associated/previous name, with 17 entity-type codes and an exact city filter
• Name availability: see whether a candidate name is free, plus the source's list of similar registered names
• Free document index: list every orderable charter document with its filing year and copy options
• Provenance: every business record says which mode and search term produced it
• Fields the source does not publish for a record are omitted rather than sent empty

Services

Service	What you get	Cost
New Jersey Business Name Search	Name, keyword, entity ID and name-availability results	Free, no login
Business Records Service (BRS)	Reverse search by principal, registered agent or associated name; 10 results per page	Free, no login
BRS document index	Document names, filing years, certified/non-certified copy availability	Free, no login
Status reports, standing certificates, document copies, bulk lists	Not accessed by this actor	Paid state products

How it works

The actor queries the New Jersey Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services' own public search pages, reads the result tables, and returns them as clean JSON records. Name and keyword searches are single-page queries; reverse searches walk the source's 10-row pages until your maxItems is reached or the source runs out. Each business is deduplicated by its 10-digit entity ID, so batch queries never repeat a company.

The state site answers US addresses only, so the actor selects a working US connection automatically. You do not configure a proxy or supply credentials.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	byName	byName / byKeyword / byEntityId / byLinkedName / availability / documents
businessNames	array	["Amazon"]	Names to search (mode=byName) or candidate names to check (mode=availability). Up to 50.
keywordSearches	array	–	Keyword phrases (mode=byKeyword); every word in a phrase must appear in the name. Up to 5 words per phrase, 20 phrases.
entityIds	array	–	Exact 10-digit entity IDs (mode=byEntityId, documents). Up to 200.
linkType	string	principal	principal / registeredAgent / associatedName (mode=byLinkedName)
linkedName	string	–	Last name, business name, agent name, or previous/alternate name (mode=byLinkedName)
linkedFirstName	string	–	Optional first name for a principal search
linkedMiddleName	string	–	Optional middle name for a principal search
linkedCity	string	–	Optional city for a principal or registered-agent search
entityTypes	array	–	Keep only these 17 codes: NP, FR, DB, LF, DP, LP, NF, PA, LLC, FLC, LLP, FLP, GP, FGP, AUT, NJR, BDP
cityFilter	string	–	Exact, case-insensitive on-file city match
maxItems	integer	100	Hard cap on emitted records, 1–500

Example: batch name search with filters

{
  "mode": "byName",
  "businessNames": ["Amazon", "Prudential", "PURE"],
  "entityTypes": ["LLC", "DP"],
  "cityFilter": "NEWARK",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: check a name before filing

{
  "mode": "availability",
  "businessNames": ["My Brand New Startup Idea"]
}

Example: find entities by registered agent

{
  "mode": "byLinkedName",
  "linkType": "registeredAgent",
  "linkedName": "CT CORPORATION SYSTEM",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: list a document index

{
  "mode": "documents",
  "entityIds": ["5106301000", "0450567823"]
}

Example: keyword phrase search

{
  "mode": "byKeyword",
  "keywordSearches": ["Pizza NJ", "Garden Landscaping"],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Output

Registered-business records (byName, byKeyword, byEntityId, byLinkedName)

• businessName — name as filed with the state
• entityId — 10-digit New Jersey entity ID
• city — on-file city, when published
• entityTypeAbbr — short type code such as LLC, DP or FLC
• entityTypeFull — full type description; omitted for the rare NV rows that have none
• incorporatedDate — full incorporation date (YYYY-MM-DD) on name/keyword/ID searches
• incorporatedMonth — incorporation month (YYYY-MM) on reverse searches, which publish month/year only
• searchMode, searchTerm — which query produced the record
• linkType — principal, registeredAgent or associatedName on reverse searches
• sourceUrl — the registry page that produced the record
• recordType — "business", scrapedAt — ISO 8601 lookup time

Availability records (availability)

• queriedName — the candidate name that was checked
• isAvailable — true or false
• message — the registry's explanation as plain text
• similarBusinesses — up to 50 similar registered names when the name is unavailable
• sourceUrl, recordType: "availability", scrapedAt

Validation responses (name too short or containing a designator) produce no record and are reported in the run status.

Document-index records (documents)

• entityId, businessName
• documents[] — documentName, filingYear, certifiedAvailable, nonCertifiedAvailable
• documentCount — number of documents found; 0 is a real value
• searchMode: "documents", searchTerm, sourceUrl, recordType: "documentIndex", scrapedAt

Use cases

• New-business filing prep — clear a candidate name and see conflicting registrations before filing
• Vendor and counterparty checks — confirm legal name, entity type, city and incorporation date
• Lead list building — collect New Jersey businesses by name prefix, keyword or entity type
• Registry enrichment — append state entity details to an existing company dataset by entity ID
• Compliance and legal research — trace a company through a principal, registered agent or previous name, and inspect its charter-document history
• Name-change and merger research — find entities that used an earlier or alternate name

Usage cost

Runs are billed in Apify platform compute units for the time the actor is running. The default prefill performs one search and returns one record, so a scheduled run costs a fraction of a cent. Larger batch or reverse-lookup runs take longer because the source serves 10 rows per page. The US connection is included in the platform's proxy allowance; the actor does not purchase paid state reports, certificates or document copies.

FAQ

Is this an official New Jersey state tool? No. It is an independent, third-party actor that reads the state's free public search pages. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the State of New Jersey.

Does a name search find the word anywhere in the name? No. New Jersey's name search is a prefix match: Amazon finds names that begin with Amazon, and a leading The is ignored. mazon will not find Amazon. Keyword search is different — every keyword word can appear anywhere in the name, in any order.

Why do I get exactly 500 rows for a broad query? The state's public search displays at most 500 rows per query. That is the source's limit, not a cap added by this actor. Use a longer name prefix, more specific keywords, or a list of entity IDs to reach other records.

What is the difference between a reverse search and an officer/agent field? The free BRS search can find businesses by a principal or registered-agent name, but it does not publish the officer or agent values for a company. Those values are inside the state's paid status report, which this actor never requests.

Can I download the actual documents? No. The free document index lists document names, filing years and whether certified/non-certified copies are orderable. The copies themselves are paid state products.

Why is there no active/inactive status? The free search does not include an operating-status or standing column. Status reports are a separate paid product.

Why does an availability check reject a name that looks fine? The availability tool requires at least four effective characters after ignoring articles, conjunctions, spaces and punctuation, and it rejects names that already contain a designator such as LLC or Inc. Both cases are reported in the run status, not as a false "not available" result.

Do I need to set up a proxy? No. The actor chooses a working US connection automatically. Just fill in the input and run it.

How fresh is the data? The state says electronic filings are reflected within about two business days. County-level DBAs and trade names are separate registries and are not part of this dataset.

Notes

• The 10-digit entity ID is the natural key; duplicate rows in a batch are collapsed to one record.
• Name and keyword searches return full dates; BRS reverse searches publish month and year only.
• Cities are published for about two-thirds of entities; missing cities are omitted, not empty strings.
• The rare NV entity type has no full description and is returned with the code alone.
• Invalid entity IDs and source validation messages are listed in the run status instead of being silently dropped.

Limitations

• 500-row display limit on every free search surface; broad prefixes cannot be exhausted in one query.
• No status, standing, officers, directors, registered-agent values or street address — these live in paid state reports.
• No document downloads — only the free index is available.
• No bulk entity list by filing date or type — the state sells that list.
• No county-clerk DBAs — they are not part of the state registry.
• No trade-name/trade-mark search in this version.
• Reverse searches return month/year only, not a full incorporation date.
• Result ordering follows the source and can shift between runs for common names.