Look up US business entity registration status and officer details via the OpenCorporates API
domain: api.opencorporates.com · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Register for a free or paid OpenCorporates API key at opencorporates.com/api_accounts
Search for a company by name and jurisdiction: GET https://api.opencorporates.com/v0.4/companies/search?q={company_name}&jurisdiction_code=us_de&api_token={key} — jurisdiction codes follow ISO 3166-2 sub-codes (us_de = Delaware, us_ca = California)
Retrieve the full company record by OpenCorporates identifier: GET https://api.opencorporates.com/v0.4/companies/{jurisdiction_code}/{company_number}?api_token={key} — includes incorporation date, status, registered agent, and latest filing
Fetch officers (directors, agents): GET https://api.opencorporates.com/v0.4/companies/{jurisdiction_code}/{company_number}/officers?api_token={key}
Reconcile a company name to an OpenCorporates ID using the reconciliation API: POST https://reconcile.opencorporates.com/v0.4/companies?q={name}&jurisdiction_code={code} — returns confidence scores useful for bulk matching
For multi-jurisdiction lookups, search without a jurisdiction_code filter and disambiguate on the current_status and registered_address.country fields
Known gotchas
OpenCorporates aggregates data from official registries but updates may lag by days to weeks depending on the jurisdiction; real-time status verification for compliance decisions should be confirmed against the source Secretary of State website
Free API keys have strict rate limits (typically hundreds of requests per day); bulk business verification workflows require a paid API plan, and OpenCorporates enforces rate limits at the HTTP level with 429 responses
Company numbers vary by jurisdiction (Delaware uses 7-digit numeric IDs, California uses a C-prefixed number); the company_number field in the API reflects the official state registry format, which must be known in advance for direct lookup without search
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