North Americaphase 1

United States: what can be established about a company

There is no national company register in the United States; entities are formed under the law of one of fifty states or the District of Columbia, and each state registry discloses a different and usually thin set of facts (name, status, registered agent, sometimes officers). Financial statements of private companies are not public. Public companies, by contrast, are among the best-documented in the world through SEC EDGAR. Beneficial ownership is not public: FinCEN's BOI database is closed to the public, and since the March 2025 interim final rule companies formed in the US no longer report at all; only foreign entities registered to do business in a US state still file.

Identifiers

Identifier	Format	Note
CIK	10-digit, zero-padded (e.g. 0000320193)	SEC EDGAR Central Index Key for filers, including non-public Form D filers
State file number	varies by state (e.g. Delaware 7-digit)	Issued by the formation state's Secretary of State or Division of Corporations; not unique across states
EIN	9 digits, 12-3456789	IRS employer identification number; generally not public, though it appears in some filings and nonprofit returns
SAM UEI	12 alphanumeric characters	Unique Entity ID issued through SAM.gov for federal contractors and grantees
LEI	20-character ISO 17442	Required for many regulated financial filings; GLEIF maps LEI to registration authority IDs

Sources

Each with what it discloses, how it is accessed, and our coverage level.

Registry

State business entity registers (e.g. Delaware Division of Corporations)Entity name, file number, formation date, status, registered agent and, in most states, filing history. Officer and director names are disclosed in some states (e.g. via annual reports) and not in others, including Delaware's free search.Secretaries of State / Divisions of Corporations (50 states and DC) · Coverage depends on the state. Delaware's detailed status and documents are paid. Names are not unique across states, so the same company name can belong to unrelated entities in different states.

open web
partial

Beneficial ownership

FinCEN Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI)Beneficial ownership reports under the Corporate Transparency Act. Access is limited to authorised government agencies and, with consent, financial institutions; the database is not public.Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), US Treasury · FinCEN's interim final rule of 21 March 2025 exempted all entities created in the United States and all US persons from reporting; only foreign reporting companies registered to do business in a state still file. OpenDossier records the reporting status, not the contents.

restricted
partial

Securities filings

SEC EDGAR full-text searchFull-text search of filings since 2001: annual and quarterly reports, 8-K current reports, proxy statements, beneficial ownership (13D/13G, Forms 3/4/5), Form D private placements and exhibits.US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) · Covers SEC registrants and Form D filers only. Filer names change with corporate events; use CIK, not name, as the key.

open API
full

Securities filings

SEC EDGAR APIs (submissions and XBRL company facts)Structured JSON of each filer's filing history and of XBRL financial data tagged in 10-K and 10-Q reports.US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) · Fair-access limit of 10 requests per second and a declared User-Agent are required. XBRL facts exist only for filings that carry inline XBRL.

open API
full

Regulators

SEC litigation releases and administrative proceedingsCivil actions filed in federal court and administrative proceedings instituted by the Commission, with complaints, orders and settlements.US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) · Releases name respondents as styled in the pleadings; matching to a state registry entity requires care where affiliates share a name.

open web
full

Regulators

FTC cases and proceedingsConsumer protection and competition enforcement actions, consent orders and complaints against companies.Federal Trade Commission (FTC) · State attorneys general bring many consumer actions separately; those are published state by state and OpenDossier ingests only a subset.

open web
partial

Courts

PACER (federal court records)Dockets and documents for all federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts, searchable across courts by party name through the PACER Case Locator.Administrative Office of the US Courts · US$0.10 per page, capped at US$3.00 per document, with quarterly fee waivers under a threshold (check the authority). State court records are separate and vary widely in availability.

paid per document
partial

Courts

CourtListener / RECAP ArchiveFree mirror of PACER dockets and documents contributed by RECAP users, plus a large corpus of published opinions, with an API and alerts.Free Law Project (non-governmental) · Not an official source. Coverage is whatever users have purchased and shared; absence from RECAP does not mean absence from PACER.

open API
partial

Sanctions

OFAC Sanctions List SearchSpecially Designated Nationals (SDN) and consolidated non-SDN lists, with aliases, addresses and identifiers; data files are published for bulk use.Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), US Treasury · Fuzzy name search produces false positives; OpenDossier reports a match score and the listed identifiers, not a conclusion.

open web
full

Insolvency

US bankruptcy courts (via PACER Case Locator)Chapter 7, 11 and 15 cases by debtor name, with petitions, schedules and docket entries.US Bankruptcy Courts · Searching the Case Locator is itself billed. Large cases are often mirrored free by claims agents, which OpenDossier links where available.

paid per document
partial

IP offices

USPTO Patent Public Search and TSDRPatents and applications by assignee, trade marks by owner (TSDR), and recorded assignments.US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) · Assignee names are free text and frequently abbreviated; the assignment database is the better guide to current ownership.

open web
partial

Procurement

SAM.gov entity registrations and exclusionsFederal contractor registrations (UEI, CAGE code, address, business types) and the exclusions list of parties debarred or suspended from federal awards.General Services Administration (GSA) · Registrations may opt out of public display. Contract award data is in USAspending.gov and the Federal Procurement Data System.

open API
partial

Caveats

There is no national register; the same name can be in use by unrelated entities in several states, and a company can be formed in one state and operate in another.
Private company financial statements, shareholder lists and beneficial owners are not public; what can be established is existence, status, registered agent and litigation exposure.
Since March 2025 domestic companies do not file beneficial ownership reports with FinCEN at all, and the BOI database was never public.
Federal court records are comprehensive but paid; state court coverage ranges from full online dockets to counter-only access.
EDGAR entity names are not normalised and subsidiaries appear only when they file (e.g. as guarantors or in Exhibit 21).

Questions

Is there a US company register I can search?

No single register exists. Each state keeps its own; some, such as Delaware, publish only name, status and registered agent for free. OpenDossier records which state the entity is formed in and links the state record.

Can I obtain a private US company's accounts?

No. Private companies do not file financial statements publicly. Financial data is available only for SEC registrants and for some regulated entities (banks, insurers, nonprofits) through their regulators.

Does the Corporate Transparency Act give access to beneficial owners?

No. The FinCEN BOI database is restricted to authorised agencies and, in limited cases, financial institutions. In March 2025 FinCEN also exempted all US-formed entities from reporting, so only foreign entities registered in a US state still file.

How complete is federal litigation coverage?

PACER holds every federal civil, criminal and bankruptcy docket. OpenDossier searches the PACER Case Locator and the free RECAP archive; documents not already in RECAP incur a per-page PACER fee.

Sources

Reviewed 26 October 2026. Rules and fees change; confirm with the authority before relying on them.

A brief on a company in United States

Coverage stated by section; official document fees at cost.

Request a brief