JurisdictionsEurope
United Kingdom
How to use Kausate in United Kingdom — what you can call, which identifiers it uses, and which documents you can order
New to the API? Start with the jurisdictions overview, which explains how ordering, identifiers and documents work everywhere.
Company data here comes directly from Companies House.
What you can call here
| Operation | Status |
|---|---|
| Autocomplete | Live |
| Company search | Live |
| Company report Includes: Registered details, Legal representatives and Shareholders. | Live |
| Shareholder graph | Live |
| Beneficial owners | Live |
| Financials | Live |
| List documents | Live |
| Retrieve a document | Live |
| Prefill | Live |
How to search
Use company search with jurisdictionCode: "gb". Pass a name as companyName or a registration number as companyNumber.
Fields
An advancedQuery for United Kingdom accepts these fields:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
name | Company name to search for. |
companyNumber | Companies House company number (e.g., '09410276') |
Examples
{ "jurisdictionCode": "gb", "advancedQuery": { "companyNumber": "09410276" }}Other accepted values: SC123456.
Search notes
- If a search sends both a company number and a company name, only the number is used.
Company identifiers
A registration number sent as companyNumber is matched against the searchable schemes below; you do not name the scheme. All of them can appear in a company’s identifiers.
| Identifier | Type | Format |
|---|---|---|
| GB Companies House Number GB Companies House company registration number | gb_company_number | ^[0-9]{8}$|^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{6}$|^[0-9]{2}[A-Z]{6}$ |
Identifier notes
- Companies House registration numbers also cover limited partnerships and Scottish limited partnerships, not only limited companies. A private-equity or fund vehicle listed as a shareholder may carry the number of the fund's general partner (a partnership), which has no UK share register and cannot be looked up for further shareholder data.
- A Companies House number taken from elsewhere in a response (for example a linked PSC or officer record) may not be in canonical form. Search accepts it as written, but left-pad a numeric-only number with zeros to 8 digits and upper-case any letters before comparing it with another number.
Documents you can order
| Document | Order by | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Accounts Accounts from GB Companies House. Pass a kausateDocumentId to fetch a specific filing, or use the document code or the annual_accounts shortcut alone to fetch the most recent annual accounts. | annual_accounts | Live |
| Articles of Association Most recent Articles of Association filing from GB Companies House (incorporation memorandum-and-articles or special-resolution adopting/altering articles). | articles_of_association | Live |
| Companies House Confirmation Statement / Annual Return (Incl. Shareholders) Confirmation Statement / Annual Return from GB Companies House (Incl. Shareholders) | shareholders_list | Live |
| Document Filing document from GB Companies House (accounts, returns, resolutions, etc.) | A document ID from the list operation | Live |
| Incorporation Certificate | GBCHIC | Live |
| Company Snapshot PDF company snapshot from GB Companies House with overview, officers, PSCs, and filing history | register_extract | Live |
Order a document by its shortcut, for example annual_accounts. A document shown with a code has no shortcut: order it by the code, for example GBCHIC. The other filings differ per company: call list documents first and order the ID it returns.
Access
You can connect your own registry account for United Kingdom. Store the credentials through the Integrations API, then send your customer ID with each call.
Companies House
Optional — we use our own access unless you supply yours.
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
api_key | Your own Companies House API key. |
Local notes
Gotchas
| Topic | Details |
|---|---|
| Unavailable for LLPs and branches | Shareholder requests return 'unavailable', not an empty list, for LLPs, limited partnerships, Scottish partnerships, overseas companies, registered overseas entities, and UK establishments (no UK share register), plus companies limited by guarantee, charitable incorporated organisations, and royal-charter or registered-society bodies (members, not shareholders). |
| Only iXBRL accounts give figures | Structured financials come only from iXBRL accounts filings. Accounts filed as PDF return no structured financial data, even though the filing history shows they exist. |
| Share register can be stale | Confirmation statements restate the full shareholder list only when shareholders changed, so the register returned may come from an earlier statement or a pre-confirmation-statement filing. Each record names its source filing. |
| Corporate number needs a PSC match | A corporate shareholder's registration number appears only when matched to a Person with Significant Control (PSC) entry, which covers holders of 25%+ only. Below that threshold, or on an ambiguous name match, only the name is returned. |
| Funds filed as one entry | Private-equity and fund ownership is often filed as a single combined entry: a fund manager acting as general partner for a fund. The shareholder is then identified by the general partner's registration number, not the fund's, and parallel funds under the same general partner holding shares in the same company can appear as one shareholder entry. |
| Model articles return the bundle | Most UK companies run on standard 'model articles' with no standalone articles filing. Requesting articles then returns the incorporation bundle: certificate plus memorandum and articles, often several dozen pages rather than one or two. |
| Protected PSCs have no identity | A PSC the register protects ('super secure', for personal safety) is returned as an owner entry with no name, person or company, only the register's own statement that the details are withheld. Count it as a controller on file whose identity is not public. |
| UBO chain follows corporate PSCs | UBO resolution follows UK corporate PSCs upwards with no fixed depth, until it reaches an individual, an entity the UK register does not hold, or a company number that repeats. Every active PSC of the company itself is its own entry; an owner further up is returned with one indirect interest whose details list the chain. Where the chain is cut short, the details say the register was not read above that point. |
| Two kinds of unavailable | Financials are unavailable either because no accounts filing exists or because filings exist but none converted to structured data. The response distinguishes the two. |
| New companies use the incorporation filing | A company with no confirmation statement or annual return yet returns shareholders from the incorporation filing's 'Initial Shareholdings' section, which does not reflect later share transfers. |
| No usable filing is an error | When no confirmation statement, annual return, or incorporation filing yields a share register, shareholder extraction returns an error, not an empty list. |
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
ltd / plc | The original legal form is the register's short company-type value: ltd is a private limited company, plc a public limited company. The full name is in the normalized legal form beside it. |
private-limited-guarant-nsc | A private company limited by guarantee; "nsc" stands for no share capital. It has members rather than shareholders. |
llp / limited-partnership | A limited liability partnership and a limited partnership. Neither has a share register. |
active / dissolved | The two most common company statuses, returned as the register's lower-case values. A company the registrar has proposed to strike off is still returned as active: the strike-off proposal is not part of the status. |
liquidation / insolvency-proceedings / receivership | Insolvency statuses. The company is reported as not active. |
administration / voluntary-arrangement | The company is in administration, or under a voluntary arrangement with its creditors. It is reported as not active. |
director / secretary | The two standard company offices, as the register's lower-case role values. |
corporate-director / corporate-secretary | The office is held by a company rather than an individual. The entry is still shaped like a person, so the role value is the only sign that the officer is a company. |
llp-member / llp-designated-member | The officers of a limited liability partnership: a member, and a designated member, who carries the partnership's filing duties. |
SIC code | A UK Standard Industrial Classification code describing a company's business activity (e.g. "62020"). Only the first 4 digits carry standard meaning; the 5th is a UK-only subdivision, so two GB SIC codes differing only in that digit map to the same NACE Rev. 2 category. |
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