OpenCorporates alternatives for UK company data (2026)

What OpenCorporates does well

OpenCorporates describes itself as the largest open database of companies, built from more than 140 official registers. Its knowledge base cites more than 220 million companies and 310 million officers. Every record links back to its source register, which makes it a strong tool for cross-border investigations, journalism and anti-corruption research.

Its data is published under the Open Database Licence, a share-alike licence: if you build on the free data, you must attribute it and share your derived database on the same terms. Paid API plans remove the share-alike obligation. Journalists, NGOs, universities and researchers can apply for free access, and open data projects can get free share-alike keys.

Why look for an alternative?

Three common reasons:

1. You only need UK companies. OpenCorporates' UK data comes from Companies House, which you can query directly for free.
2. You need financial figures. OpenCorporates' data dictionary lists only a few UK accounts fields, such as the latest accounts date, cash, current assets and current liabilities, and no turnover or multi-year history.
3. Licence or budget. The share-alike terms do not suit many commercial products, and the cheapest paid plan is £2,250 a year for 500 calls a month.

Quick comparison

Companies House API

The Companies House public data API is free with a key. It returns company profiles, officers, persons with significant control, charges, insolvency details and filing history, and a separate streaming API pushes changes as they happen. Its documented rate limit is 600 requests in any five-minute period per key. Data is under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which allows commercial reuse with attribution and has no share-alike clause.

What it does not return is balance sheet figures as data: accounts come as documents you download. Bulk files for the register and accounts are also free; see Companies House bulk data and rate limits and workarounds.

Best for: UK-only projects that need the register, officers and ownership.

GLEIF

The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation publishes every legal entity identifier (LEI) with its registration details and, where reported, direct and ultimate parents. The API is free, needs no registration and the data is released under CC0. Only entities that have obtained an LEI are covered, which excludes most small UK companies.

Best for: matching counterparties in financial services and mapping corporate parents.

Moody's Orbis

Orbis, from Bureau van Dijk, now part of Moody's, covers more than 635 million entities with financials, ownership structures and corporate links. Pricing is by demo. Its UK and Irish counterpart, Fame, is covered on our DueDil alternatives page.

Best for: global groups, transfer pricing, M&A and compliance teams with an enterprise budget.

Kyckr

Kyckr connects to more than 300 company registries in over 100 countries and delivers filings and ownership data through a portal or API, often within minutes. Pricing is pay per call with no minimums, but rates are not published.

Best for: KYB onboarding that needs a fresh document from the official register.

Endole

Endole is UK-only, with company and director profiles, credit scores and limits, CCJs and 10-year financial trends for £39 a month or £25 a month billed annually. Its API uses credits bought separately, from 1p per credit according to its documentation, with a standard limit of 100 requests per 10 minutes.

Best for: UK credit checks where an API is a secondary need.

UK Company Data

UK Company Data, which we run, covers the whole Companies House register of 5.7 million companies and balance sheet figures parsed from about 37 million iXBRL accounts filed from 2008 to 2026. About 69.2% of active companies have figures from accounts with a balance sheet date in 2024 or later. You get net assets, cash, debtors, creditors, equity, employees and, where filed, turnover and profit as JSON, through a REST API or a remote MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor.

It is UK-only and does not include officers, PSCs or other countries. Companies that file only PDF accounts, including many large groups, have no parsed figures. The free key gives 50 requests a month; API Pro is £39 a month for 5,000 requests and a 50-company watchlist; a single company's full history is £9 as Excel or CSV. You can get a free key on the developer docs page.

Best for: UK financial data in code, screening and AI agents. See Companies House financial data as JSON.

How to choose

1. Many countries, provenance matters: stay with OpenCorporates, or apply for its free public-benefit access.
2. UK register only: the Companies House API and bulk files, free.
3. LEIs and parents in finance: GLEIF.
4. Global financials and ownership: Moody's Orbis.
5. Fresh registry documents for KYB: Kyckr.
6. UK balance sheets as data: UK Company Data, or compare more options in Companies House API alternatives.

Sources

• OpenCorporates pricing
• OpenCorporates knowledge base: introduction and company data dictionary
• Companies House API: rate limiting
• GLEIF: access and use LEI data
• Moody's Orbis
• Kyckr
• Endole API credits and rate limits

Sources: Companies House register and accounts data (Open Government Licence v3.0), legislation.gov.uk and GOV.UK guidance where linked. This page is general information, not legal, tax or credit advice. Spotted an error? Email info@globalmindsetmarketing.co.uk.