Obtain an OpenCorporates API key by subscribing to a plan at opencorporates.com — the API requires authentication for production use; a trial key is available for limited testing
Search for a company across jurisdictions using GET https://api.opencorporates.com/v0.4/companies/search?q={companyName}&api_token=YOUR_TOKEN; filter by jurisdiction_code (e.g., us_de for Delaware, gb for UK) to narrow results
From the search results, select the best match using the company's name, registered number, and jurisdiction; extract the company_number and jurisdiction_code to uniquely identify the entity
Retrieve full company details including current status, registered address, officers, and filing history by calling GET https://api.opencorporates.com/v0.4/companies/{jurisdiction_code}/{company_number}?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN
Check the current_status field (e.g., Active, Dissolved, Inactive) and the registered_address for compliance verification; also inspect the registered_agent_name if applicable
For ongoing monitoring, implement a periodic re-check job comparing the retrieved company status and officer list against your stored records and alerting on changes
Known gotchas
OpenCorporates aggregates data from official registries but does not maintain data in real time; there is a lag between a change filed with a state registry and its appearance in OpenCorporates — for time-sensitive verifications, check the source registry directly
US state SoS registries do not expose standardized public APIs; OpenCorporates is one of the more comprehensive aggregation layers for multi-state lookups, but coverage and update frequency vary by state
OpenCorporates pricing is per-lookup at commercial scale; implement a local cache keyed on jurisdiction_code + company_number with a TTL appropriate to your compliance risk tolerance to reduce API call volume
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