Companies House holds public data on 5 million UK businesses. Learn how to use incorporation dates, SIC codes, and director networks for smarter B2B targeting.
There is a public database with detailed information on over 5 million UK businesses. It includes incorporation dates, registered addresses, director names, annual filing history, SIC industry codes, and company status.
It is completely free to access. And almost nobody in B2B sales is using it properly.
Companies House is the official registrar for UK companies. Every limited company, LLP, and registered partnership is legally required to file information here. This is not scraped data or estimated figures. It is verified, legally mandated disclosure.
Most people think of Companies House as a place to check if a company exists. It is much more than that.
Company Status
Is the business active, dormant, or dissolved? This immediately filters out dead companies before you waste an email on them.
Incorporation Date
When was the company formed? A business incorporated last month has very different needs than one that has been running for 15 years. New incorporations are strong signals for services like accounting, insurance, web design, and office supplies.
SIC Codes
Every UK company must declare its industry using Standard Industrial Classification codes. These are far more granular than typical "industry" filters. SIC code 62012 is "Business and domestic software development." SIC code 62020 is "Information technology consultancy activities." You can target at a precision that generic databases cannot match.
Director Information
Companies House lists every active director with their name, appointment date, nationality, and date of birth (month and year). For B2B outreach, knowing the actual decision-maker's name, not just a generic "info@" email, dramatically increases response rates.
Filing History
Annual accounts, confirmation statements, and officer changes are all public record. A company that just filed a change of registered address might be expanding. A company that filed dormant accounts might be winding down. These are actionable signals.
Registered Address
While this is often a registered office rather than a trading address, it confirms the company operates in the UK and gives you geographic targeting capability.
The raw Companies House API returns structured but dense data. It is not designed for sales teams. There is no "find me all active software companies in Manchester founded in the last two years" button.
Most lead generation tools ignore Companies House entirely because they are built for the US market. They focus on databases like ZoomInfo or LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which have limited coverage of small UK businesses.
This creates an opportunity. If you are selling B2B services in the UK market, Companies House gives you a prospecting layer that your competitors are probably not using.
Companies House has one significant gap. It does not provide email addresses or phone numbers for the business. You get director names and a registered address, but not the direct contact details you need for outreach.
This is where enrichment comes in. Once you have the company name, director name, and website URL (often discoverable from the company name), you can use email discovery services to find the right contact. Director names from Companies House combined with the company domain give you a high-confidence email lookup.
KithFlow combines Companies House data with other data sources to build complete prospect profiles. You get the legal entity data, the director names, the industry classification, and the enriched contact details in one view.
Targeting new incorporations. Every week, thousands of new companies are registered. These businesses need everything: websites, accounting software, insurance, banking, office supplies. If you sell to new businesses, Companies House is your lead source.
Filtering by industry precision. Need all active IT consultancies in Birmingham with fewer than 50 employees? SIC codes plus registered address plus company size (estimated from filing data) give you exactly that list.
Director network mapping. Directors who sit on multiple boards are often decision-makers with budgets. Identifying well-connected directors can surface high-value prospects that no other tool would flag.
Monitoring filing activity. A company that just filed new annual accounts showing revenue growth is a better prospect than one that has been dormant for two years. Filing patterns are buy signals.
If you are prospecting in the UK market, Companies House is a competitive edge hiding in plain sight. It is legally verified, always current, and free to access.
Combined with Google Maps verification and B2B contact enrichment, it creates a prospecting stack that most US-focused tools simply cannot replicate.
Stop ignoring the best free business database in the UK. Start using it to find your next customers.