OpenCorporates
World's largest open database of company information. 230+ million entities from 140+ jurisdictions. Free for journalists.
What should journalists know about OpenCorporates?
OpenCorporates solves one specific problem well: instead of searching the UK's Companies House, then Delaware's Division of Corporations, then the Cayman Islands registry, you search once across 140+ jurisdictions. That's its core value and it's genuinely useful. The database holds 230+ million entities and was used in the Panama Papers, Pandora Papers, Troika Laundromat, and Global Witness investigations. ICIJ matched Panamanian companies from the Panama Papers against OpenCorporates' registry data to track companies that changed agents after the leak. In February 2026, OpenCorporates launched the plei (proto legal entity identifier) — a free, open alternative to the paid LEI system, starting with all US entities and expanding globally. It's a certified B-Corp with a genuine corporate transparency mission. The catch: this is raw registry data, not enriched intelligence. No beneficial ownership graphs, no financial data, no risk scoring. Nearly half of its data sources are labeled 'offline' — meaning they no longer receive regular updates from government registries. You get what public registries publish, with all the gaps that implies. For journalists, it's a strong first stop alongside Aleph and ICIJ Offshore Leaks, but you'll always need to verify against original registries for the most current filings.
Cross-border company lookups from a single search. Finding officers, directors, and registered agents across jurisdictions. Tracing corporate networks and subsidiaries. Cross-referencing company names with ICIJ Offshore Leaks or Aleph. Bulk entity verification via API. Matching company registration data against leaked document sets.
Beneficial ownership analysis — OpenCorporates shows registered officers, not always the real owners behind shell structures. Use Open Ownership or Sayari for UBO data. Financial statements or credit data — check Orbis (Moody's/BvD, from $20K/year) or local registries. US-only investigations where individual state Secretary of State databases may have more current data. Real-time monitoring or risk scoring — this is a registry mirror, not an intelligence platform.
Security & Privacy
Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers
Data is scrambled when stored on their servers
Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data
Privacy policy summary
No account required for basic web searches. The underlying data comes from public government registries. OpenCorporates collects standard usage analytics. Paid and Public Benefit accounts require contact and billing information. API usage is logged. The company's Articles of Association commit it to open corporate data as a public benefit.
How to protect yourself:
Free web search caps results — create a free account for expanded access, or apply for a Public Benefit API key if you're a working journalist. Always cross-reference OpenCorporates results with the original registry (data freshness varies by jurisdiction — check their coverage heatmap). Pair with Aleph for document-level searches and ICIJ Offshore Leaks for leaked datasets. For beneficial ownership, supplement with Open Ownership's BODS data or the UK PSC register. Note that 'no results' API calls still count against your monthly quota.
UK-based certified B-Corp with a corporate transparency mission enshrined in its Articles of Association. The data is public registry information — low sensitivity. Free web search requires no account. Standard web analytics present. API keys are issued per account. No evidence of data breaches or security incidents. Low-risk for journalists; the main concern is data freshness, not security.
Who Owns This
Known issues
Nearly half of data sources are labeled 'offline' — they no longer receive regular registry updates, so dissolved or restructured companies may show stale data. Data is 'as is' from registries with no enrichment or validation layer. Beneficial ownership coverage is limited to jurisdictions that publish it (mainly UK PSC data). US coverage is uneven — some states like Alaska publish extensive data while others provide almost nothing. Paid API plans cap at 500 calls/month and 200 calls/day even on the Basic tier, and empty-result queries still consume quota. No financial data, no credit reports, no risk scoring.
Pricing
Free web search with result limits. Paid API plans start at £2,250/year (Essentials), £6,600/year (Starter), £12,000/year (Basic). Enterprise pricing on request. Journalists and NGOs can apply for free API access under a share-alike public benefit licence.
Registered journalists, media organizations, academics, and NGOs can apply for free API access via OpenCorporates' Public Benefit programme. Independent journalists need to show published work and may be asked for a press pass. Attribution required in published work. Apply at their service desk portal.
This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-02, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.
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