🇬🇧 UK Companies House Scraper

Search and extract official UK company data from Companies House — the authoritative government register of every limited company in the United Kingdom. Free, public, and comprehensive.

🔍 What this Actor does

• Search by company name — find companies matching a keyword or name
• Lookup by company number — fetch specific companies by their registration number
• Full company profiles — status, type, jurisdiction, SIC codes, accounts, registered address
• Officer information — directors and secretaries for each company
• Filing history — latest filings, dates, and descriptions
• Clean structured output — flattened JSON ready for spreadsheets, CRMs, or databases

📥 Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	string	*	Company name or keyword to search (e.g. "Tesco", "tech startup")
companyNumbers	string	*	One or more company numbers, comma or newline separated (e.g. "02012345, 03126067")
apiKey	string	✅	Your free Companies House API key (see below)
includeOfficers	boolean	no	Fetch directors and secretaries. Default: true
includeFilingHistory	boolean	no	Fetch recent filing history. Default: false
maxResults	integer	no	Max companies from search. Default: 50, Max: 500

* At least one of searchQuery or companyNumbers is required.

📤 Output

Each result is a flat JSON object written to the default dataset:

{
  "company_number": "02012345",
  "company_name": "ACME LTD",
  "company_status": "active",
  "type": "ltd",
  "date_of_creation": "1986-07-10",
  "jurisdiction": "england-wales",
  "address_line_1": "1 Field Croft",
  "locality": "Wakefield",
  "postal_code": "WF3 3SZ",
  "country": "England",
  "sic_codes": "62012, 62020",
  "next_accounts_due_on": "2025-12-31",
  "last_accounts_type": "full",
  "next_confirmation_statement_due_on": "2025-08-15",
  "companies_house_url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02012345",
  "officer_count": 2,
  "directors": "John Smith, Jane Doe",
  "secretaries": "",
  "latest_filing_date": "2024-06-30",
  "latest_filing_type": "AA",
  "latest_filing_description": "accounts-with-full-accounts-type"
}

Summary stats are also stored as key-value store items: total companies, active vs dissolved counts, and companies with officers.

🔑 Getting a Companies House API Key

This Actor requires a Companies House API key. It's free and takes 2 minutes:

1. Go to https://developer.company-information.service.gov.uk/manage-applications/add
2. Create a new application (any name works, e.g. "Apify Scraper")
3. Copy the generated API key
4. Paste it into the apiKey input field when running this Actor

Keep your key private — never commit it to source control.

⚠️ Rate Limits

Companies House enforces a 600 requests per 5 minutes rate limit. This Actor respects that by running at 2 concurrent requests with a 0.6s delay between each, staying safely under the limit.

If you hit the rate limit (429 responses), the Actor will automatically wait 60 seconds and retry.

💰 Pricing

This Actor uses Apify's pay-per-result model. You're charged per company result written to the dataset. See the Apify Store listing for current pricing.

🎯 Use Cases

• Lead generation — find companies by sector (SIC code search via API)
• Compliance & due diligence — verify company status, directors, and filing compliance
• Market research — analyse company demographics, age, and geography
• CRM enrichment — bulk-lookup companies by registration number
• Monitor filings — track when companies file accounts or confirmation statements

🛠️ Example

Search for "coffee shop" in London:

searchQuery: coffee shop
maxResults: 100
includeOfficers: true
apiKey: [your-key]

Lookup specific companies:

companyNumbers: 02012345, 03126067, 04456789
includeFilingHistory: true
apiKey: [your-key]

📊 Data Source

All data comes directly from the Companies House REST API, the official UK government register. Data is public, free, and updated daily.

📄 License

MIT — use this Actor's source code however you like.

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Built with ❤️ using the Apify SDK for Python.