Company search - 403 fobidden error

API Issues
1

Hi Team,

We are encountering an 403 Forbidden error when attempting to query the standard Search Companies API endpoint. Could you please assist us in resolving this access issue?

This is the exact error that we received:

{‘url’: ‘https://api.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/companies?company_name_includes=iCover&start_index=0’, ‘status’: 403, ‘ok’: False, ‘encoding’: None, ‘headers’: {‘Date’: ‘Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:45:13 GMT’, ‘Content-Length’: ‘0’, ‘Connection’: ‘keep-alive’}}

2

Try this format instead:

curl -i -u 'your-key-here-keep-the-colon:' 'https://api.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/companies?q=iCover&start_index=0'

Also confirm that you are using an API key associated with a public application and not one associated with a test/sandbox application.