The short answer
Companies House is the UK’s registrar of companies. It incorporates and dissolves companies and publishes, for each one, its company number, status, registered office, officers, persons with significant control, filed accounts, charges and insolvency information.
At a glance
- Term
- Companies House
- Also known as
- UK company register · Companies House API
- Category
- Registers & filings
- Where it matters
- Company and founder due diligence
Companies House in practice
Most of the register is free to search and available through a public REST API and a streaming API that pushes changes as they happen, plus monthly bulk snapshots. Filed accounts are increasingly submitted in iXBRL.
Information is largely filed by the companies themselves, so it is declared rather than verified in every detail.
Why Companies House matters
- Officers and PSCs show who runs and controls a UK company.
- Charges show secured lending; insolvency cases and status show distress.
- New incorporations and officer changes are timely sales triggers.
Companies House in MarketPrior
MarketPrior reads UK Companies House officers and PSCs, the company dossier (iXBRL accounts, PSC, insolvency and filing status) and the monthly bulk register, and uses the streaming API for new companies, officer changes and charges in the lead feed. The UK disqualified-directors register, the London Gazette and FCA records are read alongside.