Additional Identifiers
A list of additional identification numbers or codes assigned to the company by other official bodies or registries, separate from the primary company number.
These may include tax identification numbers, VAT numbers, LEIs (Legal Entity Identifiers), etc.
Agent
An agent is a person or entity designated to send and receive legal correspondence on behalf of a business entity.
Alternative Names
Other names by which the company is or has been known, as recorded by the registry, such as trading names. These names are provided by the registry and may differ from the company’s legal name.
Alternate Registration
In some jurisdictions, the same company may be represented multiple times in the official register(s), with different registration identifiers. For example, where more than one headquarters is registered. These are shown as “alternate registrations” where they can be linked together.
Branch
A branch registration is required when a company seeks to have a place of business or branch in a jurisdiction other than the jurisdiction in which that company is incorporated. For example a business incorporated in Michigan which has a presence in California would be required to register with the California company register as a branch.
Company
OpenCorporates has taken a pragmatic and (we think) sensible approach to this, as it changes from country to country and culture to culture: a company is something registered as a company by a company registry.
Company Number
An identifier given by the Company register to the entity. If the identifier is not unique within the register, it is amended to ensure uniqueness within that register as per the policy documents
Company Type
The legal classification or category of the company, as defined by the corporate register. Examples may include terms like “Limited Liability Company,” “Public Limited Company,” or “Non-Profit.”
Control Statement
A ControlStatement is a declaration by a company or entity about how it is controlled. A company may have multiple entities controlling it (entites may be companies, people or organisations), in which case there will be multiple statements of control, or may have no entity controlling it in which case the statement can detail this fact together with the reasons. The controlling entities will be ‘ultimate beneficial owners’ if the company is stating that the controlling entities are natural persons who ultimately control the company in some way.
Corporate Grouping
A corporate grouping is a loose collection of different companies that humans (as opposed to corporate lawyers) consider part of the same group. They are a way of linking hard legal entities to fuzzy entities like wikipedia entries, and allow this information to be collected in a distributed and open way. Please remember, corporate groupings are user-contributed.
Corporate Network
A corporate network is a set of companies that are linked by tangible control relationships, usually consisting of a network of parent-child ownership relationships, as opposed to corporate groupings which are an informal grouping of companies that our users believe to be related to each other. Corporate networks are as complex as they are important – we have gone into much greater detail about what a corporate network is and why they are important on this page.
Current Status
Status of entity at retrieved_at date as reported by company registry, e.g, “Active – In Good Standing”
Dissolution Date
The date on which the entity ceased to exist as a legal entity, as recorded by the company register
Inactive
OpenCorporates marks a company as “Inactive” based on a mapping of a variety of company statuses, such as “Dissolved”, “Inactive”, “Revoked”. In jurisdictions that do not provide company status information this is also sometimes inferred from dissolution dates that are in the past, where they exist.
The flag is only set to true where there is a high degree of confidence that the entity is no longer operational. Entities for which the inactive flag is false or not set (null) are not necessarily active; rather, it means there is not enough evidence to definitively classify them as inactive.
Incorporation Date
Date the company was incorporated
Industry Codes
Standardised classification codes that indicate the primary and secondary industries in which a company operates. These codes are typically assigned based on systems such as NAICS (North America), SIC (UK/US), or NACE (EU), and are used for regulatory reporting, statistical analysis, and industry benchmarking.
Jurisdiction Code
The jurisdiction code (Lowercase, underscore version of ISO 3166-2 code) of the registry where the entity is registered or incorporated.
The list of jurisdiction codes and the names of the jurisdictions is available in our Coverage Heatmap
Native Company Number
The native company number is the basic identifier used by the company register in situations where Opencorporates has had to use identifiers for company numbers that are not identical to those used by the register, for example in instances where the basic identifiers used by a register are not unique. Opencorporates handles these problems according to a policy paper.
No Longer On Register
We occasionally come across companies that have disappeared from the company register. There can be many reasons for this, including the register record being ‘bad data’ (for example a duplicate entry, or entered into the register in error). They could also – in rare circumstances – be deliberately deleted to obscure the existence of a company, or because the company identifier has changed, and there’s no clear match to the new one (see our policy paper). Because the registers are rarely clear about the reason for the record’s disappearance, in absence of any other evidence we leave the record in OpenCorporates, and flag as ‘no longer on register’
Nonprofit
A Non-Profit company is a company where any profits are utilised to further the company’s goals, rather than being distributed to shareholders or directors. These companies can be charities, however not all non-profit companies are charities. OpenCorporates marks as “Non-Profit” many not-for-profit jurisdiction-specific company types such as, in the US state of Louisiana, “Non-Profit Corporation” and “Non-Profit Religious Corporation”.
Officer
A list of individuals or entities who hold formal roles of responsibility or authority within the company, such as directors, secretaries, or executive officers.
OpenCorporates describes an officer as a person that has official standing within a company, inclusive of registered agents but excluding shareholders. In the United Kingdom, this would include roles such as “Secretary” and “Director”.
Previous Names
A list of former legal names for the company as recorded by the registry. This reflects the name history as reported by the registry and may not include all historical name changes, especially if not captured or disclosed by the registry itself.
Registered Address
The official correspondence address that is legally required to be provided during the incorporation process and maintained throughout a company’s existence.
In most jurisdictions, this address must be located within the jurisdiction where the entity is incorporated. However, the exact legal requirements and permissible formats for the registered address may vary depending on the jurisdiction.
Registry URL
URL of the page for the company on the official corporate register. Where possible this is a direct link to the company page, if not the link will be the registry search page.
Related Registration
In some jurisdictions, the same company may be represented multiple times in the official register(s), with different registration identifiers. There are three types of related registrations: “alternate registration”, and (as a pair) “subsequent registration” and “superseded registration”.
Share Parcel
Share Parcels show the company shareholders and corresponding shareholding in the company.
Subsequent Registration
Over a period of time, the same company may be represented multiple times in the official register(s) for a jurisdiction, with different registration identifiers, and with one registration replacing or superseding the other. The registration which came later is a “subsequent registration”, and its display will link to at least one “previous”/”superseded” registration.
Subsidiary
A Subsidiary is anything defined as a subsidiary according to the laws and regulations of the reporting jurisdiction. You can read more about how OpenCorporates defines this here.
Superseded Registration
Over a period of time, the same company may be represented multiple times in the official register(s) for a jurisdiction, with different registration identifiers, and with one registration replacing or superseding the other. The registration which came earlier is a “superseded” or previous registration, and its display will link to at least one “subsequent” registration.