Company Distress Signals
1 credit / callIs this customer or supplier in trouble? What the Companies House register shows, in one call.
Status (liquidation, administration, dissolved), strike-off proposals, insolvency cases with dates, overdue accounts or confirmation statement, recent charges and directors leaving, each graded serious / watch / information, with a one-line summary. Up to 50 companies per call.
Before you extend credit, sign a supplier or chase a debt, the warning signs are usually already public: an insolvency case, a proposal to strike the company off, accounts months overdue, new charges against its assets, directors leaving. They sit across four different Companies House pages. This endpoint reads them all for a company number and returns each signal with its date and a clear level (serious, watch or information), plus one plain summary. If part of the register couldn't be read just now, the overall level says "unread" and lists which part, never a false all-clear. Matching is by company number only, so a company with a similar name is never caught up in someone else's trouble.
what you’d build with it
Credit control
Check every debtor weekly; the ones that move to watch or serious go to the top of the chase list.
Supplier onboarding
Screen a new supplier before the first order, and again before the big one.
Trade credit and invoice finance
A register read with dates, next to every application, in the format your rules already use.
example response
{
"company": { "name": "SUNDERLAND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED", "number": "00016432", "status": "dissolved", "incorporatedOn": "1882-02-17" },
"level": "serious",
"signals": [
{ "code": "status:dissolved", "level": "serious", "says": "The company has been dissolved: it no longer exists.", "date": "2023-05-02" }
],
"summary": "Serious signals on the register: The company has been dissolved: it no longer exists.",
…Abbreviated. The full example, every endpoint and runnable code are in the implementation guide above; the integration pack downloads beside it. No account needed to read any of it.
Why developers pick it
Four register pages, one answer
Profile, insolvency, charges and officers read together, graded, dated and summarised.
By number, never by name
No fuzzy name matching into someone else's insolvency: the reply always names the company it read.
Worded as the record shows it
"An insolvency case is recorded", never "this company is going bust": facts with dates, not verdicts about people.
Bulk for credit teams
50 companies per call, with counts of serious and watch, ready for a weekly debtor check.
Terms & disclaimer. Provided “as is” with no warranty. Results are derived from public sources and, in places, generated by AI — they may be inaccurate or out of date and are not legal, professional or credit advice. Company data contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0; the Registers API contains Environment Agency information © Environment Agency and/or database right, used under the Environment Agency Conditional Licence. Any logos returned remain the trademarks of their owners (nominative/identification use only, no endorsement implied). Any scores or ratings are an indicative opinion, not a statement of fact about a company. You are responsible for your own use. See the full API Terms of Use or get in touch.