🇬🇧 United Kingdom

Overview

AiPrise verifies UK businesses against Companies House. A business verification returns the company profile, directors and other officers, shareholders, persons with significant control (PSCs, the UK's UBOs) and the documents filed with Companies House.

Coverage

Data point	Returned	Note
Company profile	Yes	Legal name, legal form, status, registration date, registered address
Directors and legal representatives	Yes	Directors and other officers
Shareholders	Yes	From confirmation statements
Ultimate beneficial owners	Yes	Persons with significant control (PSC)
VAT number check	Yes	Separate check against the national VAT register

Document	Returned
Register extract	Yes
Certificate of incorporation	Yes
Confirmation statement	Yes, when filed
Financial statements	Yes, when filed
PSC and officer filings	Yes, when filed

Documents, as the register names them

Trade Register Extract
Certificate of Incorporation
Confirmation Statement (with shareholders)
Annual Accounts
Officer appointments, registered office changes and PSC filings

Speed

Step	Typical	9 in 10 within
Business verification (company data, officers, shareholders, PSCs)	6 seconds	69 seconds
Filed documents	12 seconds	18 seconds

These are typical times from production, not a service-level commitment: set timeouts well above them, or use callbacks.

Company types

Every entity on the Companies House register is covered.

Company type	Legal forms	Covered	What to expect
Private limited company	Ltd	Yes	Full data: officers, shareholders, PSCs, documents
Private company limited by guarantee	Private limited by guarantee without share capital	Yes	Officers and PSCs; no shareholders
Limited liability partnership	LLP	Yes	Members and PSCs
Private unlimited company	Private unlimited company	Yes	Full data
Public limited company	PLC	Yes	Full data
Charitable incorporated organisation	CIO	Yes	Profile and trustees
Limited partnership	LP	Yes	Profile and partners
Overseas company or entity	UK establishment, overseas company, overseas entity	Yes	UK registration data

Sources

Register	What it gives
Companies House	Company profile, officers, shareholders, PSCs, filed documents

Identifiers

Send the company number as business_entity_id, with country_code set to GB.

Identifier	Format	Example
Company number (CRN)	8 characters: 8 digits, or a 2-letter prefix and 6 digits (for example `SC` for Scotland, `NI` for Northern Ireland, `OC` for LLPs)	`01234567` or `SC123456`
VAT number	`GB` followed by 9 digits. Used only for the VAT check.	`GB123456789`

You can also search by legal name.

Statuses and legal forms

Every result carries the register's own status in registration_info.status and an AiPrise status in registration_info.normalised_status. The normalised status is one of Active, Suspended, Dormant, Dissolved / Struck Off, In Liquidation / Insolvency or Unknown.

Register status	Normalised status
active	Active
active-proposal-to-strike-off	Dissolved / Struck Off
liquidation	In Liquidation / Insolvency
dissolved	Dissolved / Struck Off
Inactive	Dormant
voluntary-arrangement	Unknown
removed	Unknown

Legal forms come back in English in entity_type, for example Private limited company, Limited liability partnership and Public limited company.

Quirks and gotchas

Country-specific behaviour to know before you integrate.

Quirk	Details
Prefixed numbers	Scottish, Northern Irish and LLP company numbers start with two letters (`SC`, `NI`, `OC`). Send them with the prefix.
Proposal to strike off	`active-proposal-to-strike-off` maps to `Dissolved / Struck Off`, even though the company is still on the register. Read the register status if you need the difference.
PSCs are the UBOs	UBOs come from the persons with significant control register. A PSC can be a company rather than a person.
Guarantee companies have no shareholders	Companies limited by guarantee have members, not shareholders, so shareholders are empty.

Limits

Shareholders come from the latest confirmation statement, so recent changes may not show yet.