Public Company Registries — 11 Countries

Look up official company data from European public registries via Python scripts (direct REST API) or Apify actor fallback (scraping when no API exists).

Workflow checklist

Copy this and tick boxes as you progress:

Task Progress:
- [ ] Step 0: Verify prerequisites — run `python3 --version` (required); for Apify-dependent registries: try `apify --version && apify info`, or check for `call-actor` MCP tool; if neither, tell user to install apify CLI or Apify MCP connector
- [ ] Step 1: Identify country + identifier type (IČO/KRS/CUI/LEI/company name)
- [ ] Step 2: Run the lookup command per country table
- [ ] Step 3: Interpret results (key fields vary by source)
- [ ] Optional: Apify fallback for scraping-based registries
- [ ] Optional: Cross-reference with EU-level sources (GLEIF LEI, ESMA bonds, EBA)

Quick Reference — Lookup by Country

All paths relative to ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/apify-public-registries/.

By Data Type

Step 1: Identify country + identifier

• Check ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/data/companies.json -> identifiers.registry_ids for existing IDs.
• If identifier unknown, start with EU GLEIF by name — returns LEI + registered-as numbers usable in country-specific lookups.

Identifier types by country:

• CZ/SK: IČO (8-digit)
• PL: KRS (10-digit zero-padded) or NIP (10-digit)
• DE: Company name keyword
• UK: Company name
• NL: KVK number (8-digit)
• RO: CUI (numeric)
• HR: OIB (11-digit) or MBS
• SE: Organisationsnummer (10-digit, e.g. 559124-6847)
• EU: LEI (20-char alphanumeric) or company name

Step 2: Run lookup

Execute the command from the country table. Scripts are at: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/apify-public-registries/reference/scripts/<CC>/fetch_all.py

Example — look up a company in Czech ARES:

python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/apify-public-registries/reference/scripts/CZ/fetch_all.py lookup 25099345

Example — find ownership chain via GLEIF:

python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/apify-public-registries/reference/scripts/EU/fetch_all.py lookup_lei 31570048XH84U51GGT05

Example — look up InPost in KRS:

python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/apify-public-registries/reference/scripts/PL/fetch_all.py lookup 0000536554

Batch fetch (all companies in a country):

python3 reference/scripts/CZ/fetch_all.py          # all CZ sources (ares, dph, cnb_banks, cnb_oam, justice)
python3 reference/scripts/PL/fetch_all.py          # all PL sources (krs, biala_lista, gus, financials)
python3 reference/scripts/EU/fetch_all.py          # all EU sources except EBA (gleif, ted, esma, eurostat)

Step 3: Interpret results

Key fields vary by source:

Apify fallback

When no direct API exists, use Apify CLI with a specific actor or apify/website-content-crawler:

apify call apify/website-content-crawler \
  --input '{"startUrls":[{"url":"https://or.justice.cz/ias/ui/rejstrik-$firma?ico=25099345"}],"maxCrawlPages":1}' \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-public-registries

Apify-dependent registries:

Note: DE, UK, and RO scripts use mcpc CLI internally (not apify CLI).

Dependencies

Python stdlib only (no pip)

CZ (ares, dph, cnb_banks, cnb_oam, justice), SK (orsr, finstat), PL (krs, biala_lista, gus), EU (gleif, esma, ted, eurostat), ESG (ets, climate_trace), RO (anaf)

Requires Apify + APIFY_TOKEN

DE (handelsregister), UK (companies_house), PL (financials via eKRS), CZ (justice.cz sbírka listin via scraping), RO (listafirme.ro)

Requires API key registration

• NL: KVK_API_KEY — register at developers.kvk.nl (REGISTRATION/NL.md)
• PL GUS: GUS_API_KEY — email regon_bir@stat.gov.pl (test key abcde12345abcde12345 exists but has no real data)
• SE: Bolagsverket — register at portal.api.bolagsverket.se (REGISTRATION/SE.md)
• HR: Sudski registar — register at sudreg-data.gov.hr, OAuth2 flow (REGISTRATION/HR.md)

Critical gotchas

• CZ ARES is the best single starting point for Czech companies — aggregates data from multiple source registers.
• EU GLEIF is the best cross-country starting point — maps LEI to registered-as numbers usable in country lookups.
• RO ANAF API is offline since March 2026 — lookup returns errors. Use listafirme.ro (Apify) as fallback.
• SK ORSR uses HTML scraping with windows-1250 encoding and regex parsing — fragile, may break if page layout changes.
• SK FinStat is also HTML scraping — may block automated access.
• PL Biała Lista has a hard rate limit: 100 queries/day (search method) or 5,000/day (check method).
• PL GUS silently returns fake data when GUS_API_KEY is unset — test server returns plausible-looking records (ul. Test-Krucza, Kraków-Podgórze) for any valid NIP. Production key required: email regon_bir@stat.gov.pl. Always inspect first GUS record to confirm prod vs test.
• DE + UK scripts use mcpc CLI (not apify CLI) — require authenticated @apify session.
• UK Companies House has a free API at api.company-information.service.gov.uk, but the script uses Apify scraping instead.
• CZ Justice.cz bulk datasets are 13GB+ XML/CSV. The CKAN API returns a dataset list, not per-company data.
• CZ ČNB OAM is only relevant for emitents (listed companies, banks) — uses Oracle BI XML export.
• ESG data is country-level, not company-level — useful only as contextual benchmark.
• ESAP (centralized EU ESG/financial database with API) launches CSRD data January 2028.
• EBA Transparency CSVs are 100MB+ each — run EU/fetch_all.py eba separately, not as part of normal batch.
• TED has low value — most portfolio companies are private. Winner-name only in eForms notices (2024+).
• Batch mode (fetch_all.py without arguments) reads lookup_targets.json from the script's directory — these are per-country ID→name mappings, NOT copies of data/companies.json. For single-company lookups, pass the identifier directly.

Reference

• data/registries.json — machine-readable: 11 countries, 27 registry entries
• REGISTRATION/HR.md, REGISTRATION/NL.md, REGISTRATION/SE.md — per-country API access guides
• reference/european-company-data-institutions.md — full narrative catalog (413 lines, CZ + PL + EU institutions)
• reference/scripts/{CZ,DE,ESG,EU,NL,PL,RO,SK,UK}/fetch_all.py — per-country lookup scripts

Prerequisites

• Python 3 (scripts use stdlib — no pip dependencies for most countries)
• Apify access (only for DE, UK, PL financials, CZ justice.cz, RO fallback) — preferred: apify CLI (npm install -g apify-cli && apify login); fallback: Apify MCP connector (call-actor tool). CLI is faster and preferred when both are available.
• NL: KVK_API_KEY env var (register at developers.kvk.nl — see REGISTRATION/NL.md)
• PL GUS: GUS_API_KEY env var (email regon_bir@stat.gov.pl)
• SE: Bolagsverket requires registration (see REGISTRATION/SE.md)
• HR: Sudski registar requires OAuth registration (see REGISTRATION/HR.md)

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} is the plugin's root directory (where .claude-plugin/ lives). It is resolved automatically by Claude Code when the plugin is installed, or set to the --plugin-dir path during development.