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UK Companies House Bulk Scraper — 5M+ UK Companies by SIC, Location & Date (No API Key)

Apify Actor No API key Pricing Export

This repository is documentation only. The scraper runs as a hosted Actor on the Apify platform — no install, no server, no API key.

Extract any slice of the UK Companies House register5+ million UK businesses — as a clean, structured dataset. Filter by SIC industry code, company name, status, legal category, postcode, post town, county, country and incorporation date, and export only the companies that match, complete with full registered address, accounts filing dates, mortgage/charge counts and previous-name history. It reads official UK open company data, so there is no API key, no login and no proxy to configure — the fastest, most cost-efficient way to build UK B2B lead lists, market maps and business-intelligence datasets.

Unlike the per-company Companies House REST API, this Actor works at register scale: define your filters once and get thousands to millions of matching companies in a single run, then download the results as CSV, JSON, JSONL or Excel.


✨ What you get

Each result is one UK registered company that matched your filters. The dataset includes:

Field Description
companyName Registered company name
companyNumber Unique Companies House registration number (kept as text to preserve leading zeros)
status Company status — Active, Liquidation, Active - Proposal to Strike off, etc.
category Legal form — Private Limited Company, Public Limited Company, Limited Liability Partnership, …
incorporationDate Date the company was incorporated (ISO YYYY-MM-DD)
dissolution_date Dissolution date, if applicable
country_of_origin Country of origin as recorded by Companies House
address Registered office address object: careOf, poBox, line1, line2, postTown, county, country, postCode
sicCodes Standard Industrial Classification codes + descriptions (up to four)
accounts Accounts info: reference day/month, next-due date, last made-up date, accounts category
returns Annual return next-due and last made-up dates (legacy)
mortgages Charge counts: total, outstanding, part-satisfied, satisfied
previousNames Former company names with the date each change took effect
confirmationStatement Confirmation-statement next-due and last made-up dates
url Public Companies House "find and update company information" profile page
apiUrl Companies House REST API endpoint for enrichment (directors, PSC, filing history)

Two dataset views are pre-configured on the platform: Overview (key lead-gen fields) and Recently Incorporated (newest companies first, for new-business prospecting).

💡 Use cases

  • UK B2B lead generation — build targeted prospect lists of UK companies by industry (SIC), location and legal form.
  • New-business prospecting — surface freshly incorporated companies with incorporatedSince and reach them before competitors do.
  • Market & sector research — map the UK business landscape by SIC code, region or company type and size the addressable market.
  • Due diligence & KYB — verify a company's registration number, status, category and SIC codes at scale.
  • Geographic / postcode analysis — build county- or postcode-level business-density datasets for site selection and territory planning.
  • Firmographic enrichment — use each record's apiUrl to pull directors, PSC (persons with significant control) and filing history from the free Companies House REST API.
  • Compliance monitoring — track companies entering liquidation, administration or strike-off within a sector or region.

🚀 Quick start

All inputs are optional. An empty input returns active companies with the default status filter — a fast way to preview the output shape. Values inside a list filter are OR-ed; different filters are AND-ed.

Option 1 — Apify Console (no code)

  1. Open the UK Companies House Bulk Scraper and click Try for free.
  2. Set your filters (SIC prefix, status, location, incorporation dates) or leave them blank.
  3. Click Start, then export the results from the Output tab as CSV, JSON, JSONL or Excel.

Option 2 — Apify CLI

npm i -g apify-cli
apify login
apify call logiover/uk-companies-house-bulk-scraper \
  --input '{ "sicCodePrefixes": ["62"], "postTowns": ["LONDON"], "maxResults": 1000 }'

Option 3 — API (curl)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/logiover~uk-companies-house-bulk-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "companyCategories": ["Private Limited Company"], "countries": ["ENGLAND"], "incorporatedSince": "2026-01-01", "maxResults": 5000 }'

Option 4 — JavaScript & Python

See examples/javascript.md and examples/python.md for apify-client snippets, and examples/cli.md / examples/api-curl.md for more.

📥 Input

Field Type Description Default
snapshotMonth string Which monthly snapshot (YYYY-MM). Blank = latest. "" (latest)
sicCodePrefixes array SIC code prefixes (62, 70…). OR-ed. []
sicKeywords array Free-text substring within SIC descriptions (case-insensitive). OR-ed. []
nameContains string Substring match on company name (case-insensitive). ""
companyStatuses array (dropdown) Active, Liquidation, In Administration, … ["Active"]
companyCategories array (dropdown) Private Limited Company, Public Limited Company, LLP, … []
postCodePrefixes array Outward-code prefixes (EC, SW1, M, EH…). OR-ed. []
postTowns array Exact post-town match (LONDON, MANCHESTER…). []
counties array Substring match on county (GREATER LONDON…). []
countries array (dropdown) ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND, NORTHERN IRELAND, … []
incorporatedSince / incorporatedBefore string Incorporation date range (YYYY-MM-DD). ""
maxResults integer Hard cap on saved rows (0 = unlimited). 100
logEveryNRows integer Progress-log frequency in rows. 100000

Common SIC prefixes: 62 IT/software · 63 information services · 58 publishing · 70 management consulting · 73 advertising/market research · 64 financial services · 66 insurance · 71 architecture/engineering · 72 scientific R&D · 47 retail · 41 construction · 86 health · 85 education. The full SIC list is published by Companies House.

📤 Output

A realistic (trimmed) sample dataset item:

{
  "companyName": "ACME TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED",
  "companyNumber": "12345678",
  "status": "Active",
  "category": "Private Limited Company",
  "incorporationDate": "2020-06-01",
  "dissolution_date": null,
  "country_of_origin": null,
  "address": {
    "careOf": null, "poBox": null,
    "line1": "10 Fintech Square", "line2": null,
    "postTown": "LONDON", "county": "GREATER LONDON",
    "country": "ENGLAND", "postCode": "EC2A 1AB"
  },
  "sicCodes": ["62012 - Business and domestic software development"],
  "accounts": {
    "referenceDay": "30", "referenceMonth": "6",
    "nextDueDate": "2026-03-31", "lastMadeUpDate": "2025-06-30",
    "category": "TOTAL EXEMPTION FULL"
  },
  "returns": { "nextDueDate": null, "lastMadeUpDate": null },
  "mortgages": { "numCharges": 0, "numOutstanding": 0, "numPartSatisfied": 0, "numSatisfied": 0 },
  "previousNames": [],
  "confirmationStatement": { "nextDueDate": "2026-06-14", "lastMadeUpDate": "2025-06-01" },
  "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12345678",
  "apiUrl": "https://api.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12345678"
}

Nested objects (address, accounts, mortgages, previousNames, confirmationStatement) are preserved in JSON/JSONL and serialized as JSON strings in flat CSV/Excel exports.

🔗 Integrations & automation

Everything runs on the Apify platform, so you can:

  • Schedule the Actor to refresh your UK company dataset monthly, right after each new register snapshot.
  • Fire webhooks on run completion to trigger downstream pipelines.
  • Push results to Google Sheets, Amazon S3, a database or a data warehouse.
  • Wire it into Zapier, Make, n8n or Pipedream to route new companies straight into your CRM.
  • Chain it with the free Companies House REST API (via each record's apiUrl) for director and PSC enrichment.

📦 Export formats

CSV · JSON · JSON Lines (JSONL) · Excel (.xlsx) · XML — from the run's Export button or via the Apify API dataset endpoints.

❓ FAQ

Is this a Companies House API alternative?

Yes. Instead of one API request per company, this Actor filters the whole register in a single run — a faster, free-source way to bulk-extract UK company data without the per-lookup pagination of the REST API.

Do I need a Companies House API key?

No. It reads official UK open company data — no registration, API key or authentication. You only need an Apify account.

How do I do a bulk Companies House data download without an API key?

Set your filters (or leave them empty) and run the Actor; it returns matching companies as a downloadable dataset — no key, login or signup needed.

How do I export UK companies by SIC industry code?

Add SIC prefixes such as 62 (IT) or 58 (publishing) to sicCodePrefixes, or free-text terms to sicKeywords, and only companies in those industries are saved.

How do I find newly incorporated UK companies?

Set incorporatedSince to a recent date (e.g. 2026-01-01) to return only companies incorporated on or after it — ideal for fresh new-business prospecting.

Can I get director or shareholder names from this data?

Director, officer and PSC details aren't part of the register export. Use each record's apiUrl to query the free Companies House REST API for officers, PSC and filing history on individual companies.

How many companies can I extract in one run?

Up to the full register (5M+). Set maxResults to 0 for everything matching your filters, or cap it for a quick sample.

How do I export Companies House data to Excel or CSV?

Run the Actor, then download the dataset as Excel, CSV, JSON or JSONL — nested fields are kept in JSON and serialized as JSON strings in CSV.

Is it legal to use this data?

The Companies House register is official open government data published for public re-use. You are responsible for using it in line with Companies House terms and applicable law, including UK GDPR where the data relates to individuals.

How fresh is the data?

The UK register snapshot is refreshed approximately monthly (around the 1st). Leave snapshotMonth blank to always use the latest.

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📄 Documentation only — this repository contains no Actor source code. The scraper runs on the Apify platform. ▶️ Run it: https://apify.com/logiover/uk-companies-house-bulk-scraper

Licensed under the MIT License · © 2026 logiover · Not affiliated with Companies House or the UK government.

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Extract 5M+ UK companies from Companies House by SIC code, location, status & incorporation date. No API key. Export to CSV/JSON/Excel. Docs for the hosted Apify Actor.

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