Companies House data in practice: fields KYB teams actually use

Companies House lists over 5 million active UK companies. Every filing enters a public register that regulators treat as the factual record. KYB teams check that source during onboarding. Internal audit often expects the lookup to reference Companies House itself, not a cached snapshot stored inside the legacy paid databases.

The UK register is unusually open. Core company data is public. Director appointments are public. The Persons with Significant Control register sits in the open as well. That mix lets a KYB process confirm incorporation, verify directors, and inspect ownership signals without touching an AML‑restricted dataset.

What the Companies House record actually returns

A company profile exposes fields that tend to become anchor values inside onboarding systems. OpenRegistry’s MCP interface returns the upstream record exactly as Companies House publishes it.

A get_company_profile response normally includes fields such as:

• company_name
• company_number
• company_status
• date_of_creation
• registered_office_address

The address object mirrors the structure used by Companies House. Typical fields include address_line_1, locality, postal_code, and country. Compliance pipelines often pass this block straight into jurisdiction checks or sanctions address matching.

The register also publishes statutory deadlines. Those appear inside the upstream jurisdiction_data object. Relevant fields include:

• accounts.next_due
• accounts.last_accounts.period_end_on
• confirmation_statement.next_due

Dates like these can affect onboarding decisions. A company that has already missed its accounts deadline or confirmation statement deadline still remains on the register. In some cases it has already started the strike‑off process.

Officers and control signals

Director verification usually follows the profile lookup. Companies House maintains a separate officer register that records appointments and resignations over time.

Calling get_officers returns entries containing fields such as:

• name
• officer_role
• appointed_on
• resigned_on

Compliance analysts often compare the onboarding contact with this list. If someone claims to represent the company but does not appear in the officer register, the case often moves to manual review.

Ownership indicators come from the PSC register introduced by the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. A get_persons_with_significant_control query returns fields including name, natures_of_control, notified_on, and ceased_on.

The natures_of_control values appear as structured phrases. One example: ownership-of-shares-25-to-50-percent. These phrases correspond to statutory PSC thresholds defined in UK company law. Many compliance pipelines translate them into a simplified ownership graph before running sanctions logic such as the OFAC 50% rule.

Filing history as an audit trail

Companies House also publishes the full filing history for each company. Think of it as a chronological log of legal events. Incorporation appears here. Director changes appear here. Share allotments and accounts submissions show up as well.

Calling list_filings returns entries with fields including type, category, date, and description. Each entry also includes document metadata pointing to the filing stored by Companies House.

An SH01 filing is a common example. It records the allotment of new shares. When ownership percentages shift soon after incorporation, that document often explains why. During enhanced due diligence, investigators sometimes read the filing history to understand a recent PSC update.

If the document itself is needed, fetch_document retrieves the original filing from the registry source.

What the register does not expose

Companies House provides open company data. It is not a full AML dataset.

The register does not run sanctions screening. It does not label politically exposed persons. Those checks happen later, once the entity and its ownership structure are resolved.

All filings are also self‑reported. Directors submit information themselves or through formation agents. Companies House runs validation checks before accepting filings, though it does not investigate every statement prior to publication. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 introduces stronger identity verification rules. Rollout is still in progress as of 2026.

Beneficial ownership can remain incomplete as well. The PSC register records control above defined thresholds. Complex structures can still obscure the ultimate owner. Cross‑border holding companies or trust arrangements often require investigation outside the UK register.

Querying Companies House through the OpenRegistry MCP

OpenRegistry exposes Companies House through an MCP server so assistants and internal agents can query the register directly.

A simple search call might look like this:

search_companies({
  "jurisdiction": "GB",
  "query": "Wise Ltd"
})

After retrieving the company number, most KYB pipelines request the full profile.

get_company_profile({
  "jurisdiction": "GB",
  "company_number": "07209813"
})

Governance checks tend to follow immediately.

get_officers({
  "jurisdiction": "GB",
  "company_number": "07209813"
})

get_persons_with_significant_control({
  "jurisdiction": "GB",
  "company_number": "07209813"
})

Each response preserves the raw jurisdiction_data block returned by Companies House. That detail matters during audits. The original field names remain visible rather than being mapped into a simplified schema used by an internal system.

Why KYB teams check the registry of incorporation

Regulators expect onboarding checks to trace back to the official register of incorporation. For UK entities, that register is Companies House.

Direct queries allow the compliance team to reproduce the state of the company at the moment the check ran. The company number anchors the audit trail. Filing history explains structural changes. PSC entries provide a legally defined signal of control.

Many KYB systems therefore resolve the entity first. Sanctions screening and risk scoring follow once the ownership chain is clear.

OpenRegistry exposes Companies House and 26 other national registers through the same MCP interface. Documentation and the server endpoint sit at openregistry.sophymarine.com.