The Companies House API is free and gives you access to UK company records. But it has real limitations — from rate limits and downtime to incomplete financials and zero international coverage. Here are five alternatives that go further.
What Is the Companies House API?
Companies House is the official register of companies in the United Kingdom. Every limited company, LLP, and certain other business entities incorporated in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland must file information with Companies House. That includes incorporation documents, annual accounts, confirmation statements, and officer appointments.
The Companies House API is a free REST API provided by the UK government that lets developers pull this data programmatically. Instead of manually searching the Companies House website, you can query company records, officer details, filing histories, and more — directly from your application.
It was launched alongside the new Companies House Service (CHS) in 2015. Since then, usage has exploded. Companies House now processes billions of data requests per year, up from around 300 million in 2014/15.
The API is used by accountancy firms, compliance teams, fintechs, credit agencies, and SaaS platforms that need to verify UK companies, check officer details, or monitor filing activity.
Companies House API: Features and Benefits
Before looking at alternatives, it's worth understanding what the Companies House API actually offers. For basic UK company lookups, it does the job.
What You Get
- Company search — Look up companies by name or registration number. Returns basic profile data including registered address, incorporation date, SIC codes, and company status.
- Company profile — Retrieve detailed information for a specific company, including status flags (active, dissolved, in administration), accounting reference dates, and confirmation statement dates.
- Officer data — Access current and resigned director and secretary appointments, including name, date of birth (month/year), nationality, and appointment dates.
- Filing history — View submitted documents including annual accounts, confirmation statements, change of officer filings, and charge registrations.
- Persons with Significant Control (PSC) — See who holds 25%+ of shares or voting rights in a company. This is the UK's beneficial ownership register.
- Charges — Access details of registered charges (mortgages, debentures) against a company.
- Streaming API — Subscribe to a real-time feed of changes to company records, filings, officers, charges, and PSCs.
- Document API — Download filed documents (accounts, resolutions, etc.) as PDFs.
Key Benefits
- Free to use. No subscription, no per-call charges. You just need to register for an API key.
- Official source. The data comes straight from the register. This is the authoritative record for UK companies.
- Real-time updates. The streaming API pushes changes as they happen, so you don't need to poll for updates.
- Well-documented. RESTful design, JSON responses, and a developer forum for support.
- No commercial restrictions. You can use the data in commercial applications without licensing fees.
Bottom line: For basic UK company verification — checking if a company exists, who the directors are, and whether it's still active — the Companies House API works well. The problems start when you need more.
Where the Companies House API Falls Short
The Companies House API is good for what it is. But it's a government registry, not a business intelligence platform. For teams that need rich company data for compliance, sales, or product workflows, the gaps become clear quickly.
Downtime and Reliability
As a government-run service, the Companies House API is subject to periodic maintenance windows and unplanned outages. If you're building a production application that depends on uptime — an onboarding flow, a real-time verification check, a customer-facing search — you're exposed. There are no SLAs. When it goes down, you wait.
Only ~40% of Financial Statements Are Digitised
This is the one that surprises most people. Companies House holds millions of sets of accounts, but only around 40% of those financial statements are available as structured, machine-readable data. The rest are scanned PDFs or image files. That means if you're trying to pull turnover, net assets, or profit figures via the API, you'll hit a wall for the majority of companies.
Basic Data Only
The API gives you what companies are legally required to file. Nothing more. That means no:
- Revenue estimates or employee count estimates
- Group structures or corporate hierarchies
- Firmographic enrichment (industry classifications beyond SIC codes)
- Contact information (phone numbers, email addresses)
- Social media profiles or web traffic data
- Credit scores or risk ratings
- UBO mapping beyond direct PSC declarations
UK Only
Companies House covers England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. If a company operates internationally — or you need to verify entities across borders — you'll need a separate data source for every jurisdiction. For compliance teams running global KYB checks, this is a dealbreaker.
Limited Search Filters
The search endpoint is basic. You can search by company name or number. That's it. There's no way to filter by company size, industry, region, turnover, or incorporation date range. If you need to build targeted lists or segment companies by firmographic criteria, you can't do it with the Companies House API alone.
Rate Limits
You're capped at 600 requests per 5-minute window. That's 2 requests per second. For a single developer testing an integration, it's fine. For production applications processing thousands of company lookups, it becomes a bottleneck fast. You can request a higher limit, but the process is manual and there are no guarantees.
The real cost of "free": The Companies House API has no price tag. But the engineering time spent working around its limitations — parsing PDFs, stitching together data from multiple sources, handling downtime, building retry logic — adds up fast. For many teams, a paid alternative with richer data and better reliability is cheaper in total cost of ownership.
What to Look for in a Companies House API Alternative
Not every alternative solves the same problem. The right choice depends on what you're building and who you're building it for. Here's what to evaluate:
- Data depth. Do you just need basic company records? Or do you need financials, ownership chains, credit scores, and contact data? The more you need beyond raw registry filings, the more you benefit from a commercial provider.
- Geographic coverage. If your use case is strictly UK, a UK-focused provider works. If you verify companies across borders — even occasionally — you need global registry coverage.
- API reliability and uptime. For production applications, you need SLAs and consistent uptime. Government APIs don't guarantee either.
- Structured financials. Can the provider deliver parsed, machine-readable financial data — not just PDF links? This is critical for credit decisioning and risk workflows.
- Compliance readiness. If you're in KYB or AML, you need audit trails, ownership mapping, and data provenance. Not every provider offers this.
- Search and filtering. Can you query companies by size, industry, region, financial health? For sales and marketing use cases, advanced search is essential.
- Pricing model. Per-call credits, flat subscriptions, or enterprise contracts? Make sure the model fits your usage pattern.
Top 5 Companies House API Alternatives
Global Database is a B2B intelligence platform that sources company data directly from over 400 government registries worldwide — including Companies House. Unlike providers that scrape or aggregate from third-party vendors, Global Database connects to official registry sources to deliver verified company profiles, financial statements, ownership structures, and contact information.
For teams that have outgrown the Companies House API, Global Database is the most complete upgrade. You get everything Companies House offers — plus structured financials, group structures, credit reports, firmographic enrichment, and global coverage across 200+ countries. All through a single API. With 600+ million company records, the coverage extends far beyond the UK — making it a single source for both domestic and cross-border company intelligence.
✦ Strengths
- 400+ government registry sources
- 600M+ companies across 200+ countries
- Structured financial statements (not PDFs)
- UBO and ownership chain mapping
- Credit reports and risk scoring
- Firmographics, contact data, social profiles
- Real-time company monitoring (Signals)
- REST API, Chrome extension, bulk export
✦ Limitations
- Not free — credit-based pricing
- Enterprise plans require sales conversation
- Depth of data varies by country/registry
Endole positions itself as a direct Companies House API alternative for the UK market. It pulls data from Companies House and other authoritative UK sources, then enriches it with credit scores, 10 years of financial accounts, shareholder data, and group structures. The API gives you more than 100 data points per company.
It's a solid choice if your use case is strictly UK. The free tier lets you access basic Companies House data at no cost, with premium endpoints (financials, credit scores, shareholders) available on a pay-per-call basis.
✦ Strengths
- Direct Companies House API replacement
- 10 years of financial accounts
- Credit scores and CCJ history
- Shareholder and group structure data
- Free tier for basic company search
- RESTful API with sandbox testing
- Pay-per-call pricing (from £0.60/call)
✦ Limitations
- UK-only coverage
- No international registry data
- Limited firmographic enrichment
- No contact data (emails, phone numbers)
- No revenue estimates for micro-entities
Zephira is an API-first company data platform built for developers and technical teams. It sources data from government registries across 150+ countries and uses AI to normalise records across jurisdictions — standardising legal forms, industry codes, and company statuses so data from different countries is comparable without manual mapping.
Where Endole is UK-focused, Zephira is built for global workflows. The API delivers company registry details, firmographic data, financial statements, director and shareholder information, and web traffic insights — all in a single structured call.
✦ Strengths
- 150+ country coverage
- AI-powered data normalisation
- Fast response times, scalable rate limits
- Firmographics, financials, ownership data
- Web traffic and digital insights
- Transparent pricing from $99/month
- Full resale rights on all plans
✦ Limitations
- Not a sales prospecting tool — no contact emails/phones
- Developer-centric — less suited for non-technical users
- Coverage depth varies by region
- Newer platform — smaller user base than legacy providers
The ONS isn't a company data API in the traditional sense. It's the UK's national statistical authority. But if you need aggregate business data — company birth and death rates, industry breakdowns, regional employment figures, turnover by sector — the ONS publishes it for free.
You won't find individual company records here. There's no API that returns a company profile. Instead, the ONS releases datasets, bulletins, and reports that you can download and analyse. Think macro-level business intelligence, not entity-level lookups.
✦ Strengths
- Completely free — all public domain
- Authoritative UK business statistics
- Sector-level financial and employment data
- Business demography (births, deaths, survival rates)
- Regional economic breakdowns
✦ Limitations
- No individual company records
- No API for entity-level lookups
- Data published in spreadsheets, not JSON
- Periodic releases, not real-time
- Not searchable by company name or number
- UK aggregate data only
Company Check offers free access to basic UK company information — director records, registration details, and simplified financial summaries. It sources from Companies House and presents the data in a more accessible format than the raw register.
The free tier is limited. For detailed company reports — including ownership structures, credit data, and fuller financial histories — you'll need a paid subscription. It's more of a research tool than an API platform, though it does offer data exports.
✦ Strengths
- Free basic company search
- Clean, user-friendly interface
- Director and officer records
- Simplified financial summaries
- Credit history and CCJ data (paid)
- Good for quick manual lookups
✦ Limitations
- UK-only coverage
- No REST API for integration
- Limited data on paid plans compared to competitors
- No firmographic enrichment
- No ownership chain / UBO mapping
- Not designed for compliance workflows
Companies House API vs Alternatives: Comparison Table
| Feature | Companies House API | Global Database | Endole | Zephira | ONS | Company Check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic Coverage | UK only | 200+ countries | UK only | 150+ countries | UK only | UK only |
| Structured Financials | ~40% digitised | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes (10Y) | ✓ Yes | ✗ Aggregate only | Simplified |
| Ownership / UBO Data | PSC only | ✓ Full chain | ✓ Group structure | ✓ UBO mapping | ✗ No | Basic (paid) |
| Credit Scores | ✗ No | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✓ Yes (paid) |
| Firmographic Enrichment | ✗ SIC codes only | ✓ Full | ✗ Limited | ✓ AI-normalised | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Contact Data | ✗ No | ✓ Email, phone, social | ✗ No | Limited | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| REST API | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Company Monitoring | ✓ Streaming API | ✓ Signals | Filing alerts | ✓ Watch API | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Advanced Search Filters | ✗ Name/number only | ✓ Full (50+ filters) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | Basic |
| Pricing | Free | Credit-based / subscription | Free tier + pay-per-call | From $99/mo | Free | Free tier + subscription |
| Uptime SLA | ✗ No | ✓ Yes | Not published | ✓ Yes | N/A | ✗ No |
Which Alternative Is Right for You?
The right choice depends on your use case, not just the feature list.
If you need a full Companies House replacement with global reach — Global Database gives you everything the Companies House API offers, plus structured financials, ownership mapping, credit scores, contact data, and coverage of 600M+ companies across 200+ countries. It's the most complete option for teams that need both UK and international company data in a single platform.
If you only need enriched UK data and want to keep costs low — Endole is a good fit. It layers credit scores, financial histories, and shareholder data on top of Companies House records. The free tier and pay-per-call model make it accessible for smaller teams and developers.
If you're building a fintech or compliance product — Zephira's API-first approach, transparent pricing, and cross-border normalisation make it a strong choice for engineering teams embedding company verification into onboarding flows or KYB products.
If you need UK business statistics, not company records — the ONS is the right source. It won't replace the Companies House API for entity-level lookups, but it's unmatched for macro-level UK business data.
If you just need quick, occasional UK company lookups — Company Check's free tier handles basic searches without needing to integrate an API.
Try Global Database Free
Access verified company data from 400+ government registries. Structured financials, ownership mapping, credit reports, and contact data — all through a single API.
Start Free Trial →Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The Companies House API is completely free. You need to register for a developer account and generate an API key, but there are no subscription fees or per-call charges. The trade-off is limited data depth, no SLA, and a 600-request-per-5-minute rate limit.
You can make up to 600 requests within a 5-minute window, which works out to about 2 requests per second. If you exceed this, you'll receive 429 (Too Many Requests) errors until the window resets. You can request a higher limit by contacting Companies House, but approval is not guaranteed.
Only around 40% of financial statements held by Companies House are available as structured, machine-readable data. The rest were filed as paper documents or scanned images and have not been converted to digital formats. This means you can't reliably extract financial data via the API for the majority of UK companies.
Partially. The API provides basic company verification data — registration status, directors, PSC (beneficial ownership) records, and filing history. However, it lacks credit risk data, structured financial analysis, and international coverage. Most compliance teams combine Companies House data with a commercial provider like Global Database or Zephira to run complete KYB checks.
Yes, through the Persons with Significant Control (PSC) register. This shows individuals or entities that hold 25% or more of a company's shares or voting rights. However, it only covers direct declarations — it doesn't trace ownership chains through multiple layers of corporate entities. For full UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner) mapping, you'll need a provider that offers multi-level ownership tracing.
Global Database offers the broadest coverage, with 600M+ companies sourced from 400+ government registries across 200+ countries. Zephira covers 150+ countries with an API-first approach. Both providers normalise data across jurisdictions so records from different countries are comparable. Endole and Company Check are UK-only.
Yes. As a government service, the Companies House API is subject to scheduled maintenance windows and occasional unplanned outages. There is no published uptime SLA. If you're building a production application that needs guaranteed availability, consider a commercial alternative that offers uptime commitments.
You can access filing metadata (when accounts were submitted, which type) and download filed documents. However, for structured financial data — turnover, assets, liabilities, profit — only about 40% of accounts are digitised. For the rest, you'd need to parse PDFs manually. Commercial providers like Global Database and Endole deliver structured financial data for a much higher proportion of UK companies.
The streaming API maintains a persistent HTTP connection that pushes updates to your application as changes happen on the register. There are four streams: company profiles, filing history, officers, and charges/PSCs. This means you don't need to poll for updates — your application receives changes in real time. You're limited to two concurrent streaming connections per account.
The API does not include credit scores, revenue or employee estimates, contact information (phone, email), social media profiles, web traffic data, group corporate structures beyond direct subsidiaries, firmographic enrichment, or data on companies registered outside the UK. It only provides what companies are legally required to file with the registry.
This article was last updated in February 2026. Product features, pricing, and coverage are subject to change. Visit each provider's website for the most current information.