Bulk download via API

API Issues
1

Hello there,

Please can you tell me if it is possible to take a download of ALL companies house records, via the ‘advanced company search’ API. I understand that there is a monthly CSV released containing this information, however we would prefer to do this via API.

Is this possible or are there limits to the number of results which are downloadable?

Thank you

2

I’m not from Companies House, just another user, but they have repeatedly stated that the API (any of the endpoints) is not for bulk downloading their dataset. It is for more targetted queries. There are both rate limits to the Public Data API (600 queries per 5 minute period) and limits to the maximum number of results returned by some queries (e.g. I believe 10000 results from the Advanced Company Search - and similar limits apply to the other search endpoints).

If you want “all the data” I think your options are:

  • Content yourself with the bulk downloads (there are other datasets not listed there that you can specifically request from Companies House on this forum).
  • Maintain your own copy of the dataset by a) first obtaining the bulk data b) updating that as each change is made by subscribing to the Streaming API. Then - after e.g. a month when the next bulk data is released - you should be up-to-date going forward.
  • Using one of the third-party offerings for the purpose (various available).

Hope this helps.

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