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ABN Lookup API🇦🇺 ABR · full addresses added
ABN Lookup API: full Australian business records in one call
ABN Lookup, run by the ATO on the Australian Business Register, is free and validates ABNs well, but it returns only the state and postcode of a business, no street, and no phone, email, directors or financials. CompanyData gives you 8.5M Australian businesses with full addresses and those fields added, in one live REST API.
150 free calls in week one · No credit card · One API covers 200+ countries
8,516,590
Australian businesses
50+
data fields per record
Street
full addresses, not just postcode
<200 ms
median response time
GET /api/company/search?nationalId=88000014675
Woolworths Group Limited
Bella Vista, NSW, Australia
ABN88 000 014 675
ACN000 014 675
Street address1 Woolworths Way, Bella Vista NSW 2153
Websitewoolworthsgroup.com.au
Employee band100,000+
Source: ABR + enrichment · sample200 OK · 146 ms
The basics
What is the ABN Lookup API?
ABN Lookup is the public view of the Australian Business Register, run by the ATO as Registrar of the ABR, which is a different body from ASIC that runs the company register. Its web services are free: you register for an authentication GUID and query by ABN or ACN. It returns the entity name, status and type, and it handles trade names well, business names, main trading name and other trading names.
The gap is location and everything commercial. ABN Lookup returns only the state and postcode of the main business location, never the street or suburb, and it holds no phone, email, website, employee counts, financials, directors or shareholders. Directors and shareholdings are ASIC data behind a paid search. CompanyData starts from the same ABN and adds full street addresses, contact data, directors, employee bands and financials, in one API that also covers 200+ other countries.
The official service, in short
- Free web services, keyed on ABN or ACN, with trade names returned well
- Entity name, status and type, plus GST registration and main location details
- Only the state and postcode of the main location, never the street or suburb
- No phone, email, website, employee counts, financials, directors or shareholders
- SOAP-first, with the GUID passed as a request parameter that lands in logs
- One country, so separate integrations for the rest
Try it live
Look up any Australian business
The ABN Lookup fields, plus the full address and contacts it never returns, in one response. Pick a business, you need no key for the example.
- Full street addresses, not just state and postcode
- Phone, email, website and directors on the record
- The same request across 200+ countries
Side by side
ABN Lookup and CompanyData, field by field
ABN Lookup verifies the ABN and the trade names. CompanyData adds the street address, contacts, directors and financials it never held, in one call.
| Data point | Official register | CompanyData API |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses in the file | 9,020,431 | 8,516,590 |
| Legal name and trading names | ✓ | ✓ |
| ABN or ACN | 2,496,307 | 8,494,174 |
| Entity status and type | ✓ | ✓ |
| State and postcode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full street address | ✗ | 4,797,716 |
| Website | ✗ | 1,145,714 |
| Phone | ✗ | 1,159,172 |
| Mobile number | ✗ | 918,899 |
| Business email | ✗ | 735,498 |
| Director or contact person | ✗ | 5,378,402 |
| Employee data | ✗ | ✓ |
| Revenue and business size | ✗ | ✓ structured fields |
| International records | ✗ | 365M worldwide |
Our column counts every registered entity we hold for this country, active or inactive. Some registers only serve active entities through their API, which we think is a gap: a holding or a trust can be dormant and still matter as an entity, so we keep it. Measured live in our own file, August 2026, and refreshed monthly. Register figure: active ABNs on the ABR's live counter, 19 August 2026. It moves continuously. The ABR holds 20,460,022 records in total, so 11.4 million are cancelled.
The address gap
ABN Lookup returns only the state and postcode of the main business location. There is no street and no suburb, which is the biggest and least expected limitation, and it stops any use that needs to reach or route to a business. CompanyData returns full street addresses across the whole national file.
Access and price
ABN Lookup is free, but it is SOAP-first, passes your GUID as a request parameter that lands in logs, and holds nothing commercial. CompanyData is credit-based from USD 0.02 per credit, with 150 free calls in your first week and one schema for 200+ countries.
See the difference
Everything past the state and postcode
Full addresses, contacts, directors and employee bands: one lookup away. Defaults to Australia, switch country whenever you want.
Try one:
Best practice
Working with the official ABN Lookup service yourself
The ABN Lookup web services are free, but they are SOAP-first and hold only registration data. Here is how to get started in three steps, and the six things that cost teams the most time, whether you enrich with us or not.
1
Register for an authentication GUID
Sign up on abr.business.gov.au to get a GUID. It is passed as a request parameter, not a header, so it ends up in server and proxy logs, treat it as sensitive.
2
Call SearchByABNv202001
Six versioned SearchByABN methods coexist and an older one silently returns fewer fields. Use SearchByABNv202001, and SearchByASIC for ACN lookups.
3
Plan for state and postcode only
The response gives only the state and postcode of the main location. Anything that needs a street has to come from another source, which is where we come in.
Honestly: ABN Lookup is fine for verifying an ABN and pulling trade names, and it is free. If you need full street addresses, contacts, directors, employee bands or international coverage, you end up with us.
Get your API key01
The GUID is a parameter, not a header
ABN Lookup passes your authentication GUID as a request parameter, so it lands in server and proxy logs. Treat it as a secret and rotate it if a log is ever shared.
02
Only state and postcode come back
The main location is returned as state and postcode alone, never a street or suburb. This is the single biggest gap, and it blocks any use that has to reach the business.
03
ABN validation has a specific weighting
An ABN is 11 digits, validated with weights 10,1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 that must sum to a multiple of 89. A cheap client-side check before you ever call.
04
ACN is nine digits and companies only
For a company the last nine digits of the ABN are the ACN. Sole traders and partnerships have an ABN but no ACN, so key on the ABN as the stable identifier.
05
Use the versioned method, or lose fields
Six SearchByABN versions coexist and an old one silently returns fewer fields. SearchByABNv202001 is the current one; the JSON endpoint covers only a subset of methods.
06
Withdrawn data must be deleted
The agreement requires deleting withdrawn records, so a cache needs reconciling against the weekly bulk extract rather than being kept indefinitely.
Use cases
What teams use Australian business data for
KYB and onboarding
Verify Australian counterparties on the ABN. Status, entity type and GST registration checked automatically, with a full address on file.
Lead generation
Build prospect lists filtered by industry, state, revenue or employee band, with street addresses to reach them.
CRM enrichment
Backfill full addresses, contact data and directors across your Australian accounts, past the state and postcode ABN Lookup returns.
Risk and compliance
Track status changes and cancellations across your Australian supplier base, with directors attached.
Form autofill
Type-ahead on business and trading names in your signup form, so the ABN and address arrive clean rather than free-typed.
ERP and finance systems
Key Australian suppliers and customers to an ABN once, then keep name, status and full address current automatically.
Beyond Australia
Australia is one of 200+ countries on the same API
The same request, the same response schema, from ABN Lookup to Companies House, the German Handelsregister and Sirene. Build the Australian integration once and take it across the border.
Explore the Company Data API
More local registers
The same API, register by register
Customer stories
What teams build with business data
Onboarding, KYB and supplier checks in production, on the same endpoints you tried above.
BankID · Digital identity
Live business KYC inside BankID
Norway's national trust mark verifies businesses against the register in real time, cutting verification time by 99%.
Read the story
Cellbunq · KYB
Global KYB compliance on one integration
Up-to-date business details from around the world, screened straight inside the onboarding flow.
Read the story
Zen.com · Fintech
Customer onboarding without the friction
Large-scale KYB verification through business lookup, built straight into the signup path.
Read the story
Sumsub · KYB platform
Verifying the address and the director, at scale
350M statutory addresses and registry director records inside Sumsub's global KYB flows, so shell offices and nominee directors get caught at onboarding.
Read the story
Veriff · Identity verification
UBO checks where the paperwork is hardest
Registry-sourced business and UBO data across Africa, Asia and Latin America, with 80% fewer manual reviews.
Read the storyABN Lookup API pricing
Transparent, credit-based pricing. Start with a free trial.
Free trial
Make your first 150 lookups free
- 150 lookups and 10 exports in week one, key right after signup
- 1 credit per business returned, usage-based after that
- No credit card, no contract, no sales call
Questions? Ask a human.
No ticket queue. Your question lands with our data team and you get an answer within 24 hours.
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BerlinFriedrichstraße 123 · +49 30 21480480
DubaiBuilding A1, Dubai Digital Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis
Mon to Fri 9:00 to 17:30 CET · info@companydata.com
What our customers say
Real feedback from the people using CompanyData every day.
★★★★★
The best data company we have worked with.
Helmut Huberti, M.D.
World Arthrosis Org., Heidelberg
★★★★★
Great feedback from our team on the data quality.
Stefania Guerra
Dyson, Milan
Frequently asked questions
What is the ABN Lookup API?
ABN Lookup is the public view of the Australian Business Register, run by the ATO as Registrar of the ABR, a different body from ASIC that runs the company register. Its free web services let you query by ABN or ACN and return the entity name, status, type, GST registration and trade names.
Is the ABN Lookup API free?
Yes. You register for an authentication GUID, which is then passed as a request parameter rather than a header, so it lands in logs and should be treated as a secret. There is no published rate limit, though name searches cap at 200 records.
CompanyData is a separate, enriched source: your first 150 lookups are free in week one, then pricing is usage-based.
What address does ABN Lookup return?
Only the state and postcode of the main business location. There is no street and no suburb, which is the biggest and least expected gap, and it blocks any use that needs to reach or route to a business. We return full street addresses across the national file.
Does ABN Lookup have phone, email or directors?
No. ABN Lookup holds no phone, email, website, employee counts, financials, directors or shareholders. Directors and shareholdings are ASIC data behind a paid search. We add contact data, directors and employee bands alongside the ABN Lookup fields.
How are ABN and ACN validated?
An ABN is 11 digits, validated with weights 10,1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 that must sum to a multiple of 89. An ACN is 9 digits and applies to companies only; for a company the last nine digits of the ABN are the ACN. Sole traders and partnerships have an ABN but no ACN.
Can I get Australian business data in bulk?
ABN Lookup offers a weekly bulk extract, but it carries the same registration-only fields, so you still get no street address or contacts. We support bulk selections filtered by industry, state, revenue and employee band, exported to Excel, CSV or straight over the API, with full addresses and enrichment attached.
How many Australian businesses do you cover?
8.5M Australian registrations, continuously updated from the register and other official sources.
Make 150 free API calls before you spend anything
Tell us which Australian businesses you need. You get a trial key with 150 lookups and 10 exports, plus a real sample response for your segment, within 24 hours.
or call +31 (0)20 705 2360