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Head of Marketing, Quartix
KYC APIKYC · registry-sourced
KYC API: verify any business in real time
Check identity and legitimacy against 365M+ business records in 200+ countries, during onboarding rather than after. One API call verifies the business behind your customer, with no manual register lookups.
Free trial credits · 1 credit per verification · No card required
365M+
verifiable records
200+
countries, one schema
<200 ms
per check
95%
less verification time
GET /api/company/search?nationalId=34259528
Adyen N.V.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Registration (KVK)34259528
Status on registerActive
Address matchMatches register
Officers9 listed
UBOAvailable on record
Source: KVK register · sample1 credit · 182 ms
The basics
What is a KYC API?
A KYC API verifies business identity and legitimacy during onboarding, without manual checks or paperwork. Instead of looking up registrations, checking government sources and cross-referencing addresses by hand, one request does it all.
Submit a business name or registration number and get back verified identity data: legal name, registration status, address, executives and more.
up to 95%
shorter verification time
70 to 85%
lower compliance costs
KYC vs KYB, the difference
KYC (Know Your Customer) traditionally verifies individual identity. KYB (Know Your Business) verifies business identity: legal existence, registration status, ownership.
This page covers the KYC side: verifying the business behind your customer during onboarding. Screening businesses as counterparties in their own right, with UBO mapping and bulk checks, has its own page: see the KYB API.
Live example
Run a check right now
This is what your onboarding flow sees. Pick a business, no key needed for the sample.
- Registration, address, officers and UBO in one response
- Straight from the official register, not a scraped profile
- Bulk screening for your existing customer base
What you get back
50+ verified fields per business
Business identity
Legal name, trade names, registration number, legal form, incorporation date, status.
Address verification
Registered and operating address, postal code, city, country, coordinates.
Officers and ownership
Directors and executives, ownership structure up to the UBO where the register publishes it.
Financial indicators
Revenue range, employee count, credit risk signals.
Industry classification
SIC, NAICS and SBI codes, industry descriptions, sector classification.
Contact and digital
Phone, email, website, social profiles, domain information.
Compliance
Compliance-grade data, developer-grade integration
All business data is sourced from official registries, public records and verified partners. GDPR compliant, with transparent sourcing and data processing agreements available on request.
See our data sources
Use cases
Where teams put the KYC API to work
Fintech onboarding
Verify businesses opening accounts. Check registration status and legal form automatically during signup.
Marketplace trust
Validate sellers and vendors before approval. Ensure counterparties are legitimate registered businesses.
Insurance underwriting
Check legitimacy and risk indicators. Verify address, industry and financial health before issuing policies.
B2B platform compliance
Screen partners and suppliers. Automate due-diligence checks across your entire vendor base.
Accountancy client acceptance
Accountants and law firms are AML-supervised too. Run the registry check on every new client before the engagement letter goes out.
Fraud team lookups
Give analysts one place to pull age, status and address of any entity in a chargeback or mule investigation, instead of tab-hopping registers.
IntegrationREST APIJSONPython SDKJavaScriptSalesforceWebhooksZapier
KYC by region
KYC rules are local. So is the data.
The check is the same API call everywhere, but what a regulator accepts as verification differs per market. This is what that means in practice in our three biggest ones.
United Kingdom
- The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 ask for verification against a reliable, independent source. The register is that source: check the registration number, status and officers directly against Companies House data.
- Since the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, Companies House verifies director identities and the PSC register names beneficial owners publicly. UK UBO checks are easier than almost anywhere, use that.
- The catch: filed accounts arrive as iXBRL documents. We carry revenue and headcount as structured fields on 8.8M+ UK records, so risk scoring does not need a document parser.
United States
- There is no national register. Formation happens per state, so a counterparty in Delaware, Texas and California is three filings with three different field sets. The API normalises state registrations and SEC filings into one schema.
- FinCEN's CDD Rule makes you identify beneficial owners of legal-entity customers, but the federal BOI register is not public and domestic reporting was scaled back in 2025. You cannot simply look UBOs up, so registry linkage plus group structure is what fills the gap.
- Practical consequence: US KYB leans harder on cross-checking name, address, status and officers across sources than on a single authoritative extract.
European Union
- AML rules are still national law under the directives, with the new AML Regulation and the AMLA supervisor arriving in 2027. What counts as adequate verification already points at the national register in every member state.
- UBO registers exist everywhere but public access was curtailed after the 2022 Court of Justice ruling; access now runs on legitimate interest and differs per country. Registry-sourced officer and ownership data is the workable baseline.
- One integration covers KVK, Handelsregister, Sirene, KBO and the other 23 registers, with GDPR-documented sourcing per field, which is what your DPO will ask about first.
More than a check
More than just KYC checks
Screen UBOs, revenue, entities or entire groups in a single call. Search any of the 365M+ records, in any country, right here.
Try one:
Still weighing your KYC options?
We wrote an honest buyer's guide to the KYC API market, including the cases where we are not the right fit.
Customer stories
BankID, Sumsub and Cellbunq verify on this API
National identity schemes, KYB platforms and fintechs screening businesses at onboarding, on the endpoint you just called.
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
Ignite Procurement · Supplier verification
Supplier checks inside the procurement platform
Registry-sourced records verify suppliers across markets, straight in the spend-management flow.
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
watchTowr · Security research
Mapping corporate structures attackers actually see
Group linkage and subsidiary records feed external attack-surface mapping for security teams.
Read the storyKYC API Pricing
Transparent, credit-based pricing. Start with a free trial
Free trial
Start verifying without a card
- Free trial credits on the full API, all verification endpoints
- 1 credit per business verification, transparent credit pricing
- Volume discounts on higher tiers
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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Mon to Fri 9:00 to 17:30 CET · info@companydata.com
What our customers say
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Great feedback from our team on the data quality.
Stefania Guerra
Dyson, Milan
Frequently asked questions
What is a KYC API?
A KYC API is a programming interface that allows you to automatically verify the identity and legitimacy of businesses. Instead of manual checks against government registries, the API returns verified business data such as registration status, legal form and address in a single request.
How does KYC verification work via API?
Submit a business name, registration number, or domain to the API. CompanyData matches it against 365M+ business records across 200+ countries and returns verified identity data including legal name, status, address, ownership, and financial indicators. The entire process takes less than 200ms.
What is the difference between KYC and KYB?
KYC (Know Your Customer) traditionally refers to verifying individuals. KYB (Know Your Business) focuses specifically on verifying business identity: legal existence, registration status and ownership. CompanyData's API handles both individual business lookups and bulk business verification.
Which KYC API provider is best?
The best KYC API provider depends on your needs. CompanyData offers the broadest coverage (365M+ businesses in 200+ countries) with real-time responses and transparent pricing. Other providers like Moody's/Kompany, Trulioo, and LexisNexis focus more on regulated industries. CompanyData is ideal if you need global coverage, enriched data, and developer-friendly integration.
See the KYC API buyer's guide for the full comparison.
How much does a KYC API cost?
CompanyData uses credit-based pricing starting at $34/month with 2,000 credits per year. Each business verification costs 1 credit. A free trial is available, and volume discounts apply on higher tiers.
Is there a free KYC API?
CompanyData offers a free trial so you can test the full API, including all KYC verification endpoints, before committing. After the trial, paid plans start at $34/month with 2,000 credits per year.
How do I integrate a KYC API?
CompanyData's KYC API is a standard REST API with JSON responses. Integration takes minutes: sign up for an API key, make an HTTP request to the search or lookup endpoint, and parse the JSON response. SDKs are available for Python and JavaScript. Full documentation is at companydata.com/api-docs.
What compliance standards does CompanyData meet?
CompanyData is fully GDPR compliant with transparent data sourcing. All business data is sourced from official registries, public records, and verified data partners. Data processing agreements (DPAs) are available upon request.
What are the 5 stages of KYC?
Most compliance teams break KYC into five stages: a Customer Identification Program (collect who the customer claims to be), Customer Due Diligence (verify it against a reliable, independent source), Enhanced Due Diligence for higher-risk relationships, ongoing monitoring, and record-keeping for the regulator.
This API covers the business side of stages one, two and three: registry-sourced identity for CDD, officers and UBO structure for EDD, and bulk re-screening of your existing base for ongoing monitoring.
Does the API do document or biometric ID checks?
No, and that is a deliberate scope. Most tools ranking for "KYC API" verify individuals with document scans and selfie matching. This API verifies businesses against official registers: legal existence, status, address, officers and ownership.
The two are complements, not substitutes. Identity platforms such as Veriff and Sumsub run their document checks next to our registry data.
Local registers
Verification against the local register, country by country
Make 150 Free API Calls Before You Spend Anything
Tell us what you need to verify. You get a trial key with 150 business lookups and 10 exports, plus a real sample response for your target market, within 24 hours.
or call +31 (0)20 705 2360