Several firmographic attributes of a company can be verified against public registries and filings: its legal name, addresses, status, industry code, identifiers, subsidiaries and stated number of employees. This guide sets out what SEC filings, the UK register and the LEI system each state about those attributes, how current each record is, and a procedure for testing a sample of a vendor's records against them.
Which firmographic attributes can be verified against public registries and filings?
Seven firmographic attributes appear in public registries and filings: the legal name, the registered and headquarters addresses, the legal status, an industry code, the company's identifiers, its parent and subsidiaries, and a stated number of employees. Revenue joins them for a company that files financial statements. Attributes observed on a company's website have no register behind them.
An official value is set down by the company in a filing or recorded by the register, and it carries a date. A vendor's value matches it, matches an earlier value, describes a different attribute or entity, or is wrong. Every check here is a check of the company's own attributes, the core of firmographic data, and it starts with entity resolution: deciding which official record describes the vendor's company.
Attributes with no register behind them, such as the technologies a website runs or the roles a company advertises, are checked against the company's own page as it stood when the record says it was observed.
What each official record states, attribute by attribute
This guide uses three records: SEC EDGAR for US registrants, Companies House for UK companies, and the LEI system run by GLEIF for any legal entity that holds a Legal Entity Identifier.
| Attribute | SEC filings (EDGAR) | UK register (Companies House) | LEI register (GLEIF) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal name | Current name and former names | Company name and previous names | Legal name |
| Address | Business address and mailing address | Registered office address | Legal address as registered, and headquarters address |
| Status | We found no status field; the dated list of recent filings shows whether it still files | Company status (active, dissolved, liquidation and others), dates of creation and cessation | Entity status (active, inactive or not applicable), and a registration status for the record |
| Industry code | SIC code and description, from the SEC's list | SIC codes, from a condensed ONS list | Legal form and entity category; we found no industry element |
| Identifiers | CIK, tickers and exchanges, fields for an EIN and an LEI | Company number | The LEI, the business register holding the entity, and its ID there |
| Parent and subsidiaries | Exhibit 21 to Form 10-K: subsidiaries, jurisdictions, trading names | Large and medium-sized companies: each subsidiary undertaking and its registered office, in the notes | Direct and ultimate accounting consolidating parent |
| Employees | Persons employed, in the description of business | Average number employed in the year, in the notes to the accounts | We found no employee element |
| Revenue | Financial statement data, served as XBRL | Profit and loss account, which a small company may choose not to send | We found no financial element |
Read across before you compare. A registered office, an LEI legal address and an SEC mailing address can each differ from a headquarters, so check a vendor's headquarters against the LEI headquarters address or the SEC business address.
Industry codes differ too. The SEC states that the SIC codes in EDGAR filings indicate a company's type of business and are used to assign the review of its filings. Companies House uses a condensed version of the ONS list, and a company profile can hold several codes. Compare a vendor's industry with either list through a mapping you keep, and score it consistent or not.
Employee figures differ by definition. Item 101 of Regulation S-K names, among the topics of a registrant's description of its business, its human capital resources, including the number of persons employed; a smaller reporting company may instead give total and full-time employees. Section 411 of the Companies Act 2006 requires the notes to a UK company's accounts to disclose the average number employed in the financial year. A count on one day and an average over a year are different measures.
How current each record is, and how it is reached
| Register | How current | How it is reached |
|---|---|---|
| SEC EDGAR | Submissions record updated in real time as filings are disseminated, typically within a second; XBRL data typically within a minute; a bulk file republished nightly at about 3:00 a.m. ET (EDGAR APIs) | The EDGAR APIs, with no authentication or key; declare a user agent and stay within 10 requests a second (fair access) |
| Companies House | A confirmation statement at least once a year; for a private limited company, first accounts within 21 months of registering and later accounts within 9 months of the year end (deadlines); a free snapshot of live companies within 5 working days of each month end | Free search, the company profile in the public data API, and the monthly snapshot |
| GLEIF | Golden Copy files three times a day, at 02:00, 10:00 and 18:00 UTC; reference data revalidated no later than one year after the previous check | LEI Search, the GLEIF API, and the Golden Copy and delta files; GLEIF describes the LEI as a public good, free of charge to all users |
Two dates matter more than any refresh rate: the date an official value refers to, and the date of the vendor's value. A UK private company's later accounts can reach the register nine months after the year they describe, so compare only values for the same period, the discipline behind point-in-time data.
Status needs the same care. GLEIF states that an LEI stays valid while lapsed: the status means the record is behind schedule on renewal. Compare a vendor's active flag with the entity status, never with the registration status.
What do SEC company filings state as business information: subsidiaries, revenue and employees?
SEC filings hold a registrant's business information in several places. The submissions record states its name, former names, SIC code, addresses, state of incorporation and tickers. Its description of business includes the number of persons employed. Exhibit 21 to its annual report on Form 10-K lists its subsidiaries, and its financial statements report revenue.
The submissions record is one JSON document per filer, addressed by its ten-digit Central Index Key, with its recent filings listed by form and date. It changes as soon as a filing is disseminated, and its former names turn a name mismatch into a finding that the vendor's value is stale.
curl -H "User-Agent: Your Company data-team@example.com" \
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK##########.jsonItem 601(b)(21) asks for every subsidiary, the jurisdiction where each was incorporated or organised and the names under which each does business, as an exhibit to Form 10-K and not to Form 10-Q. Subsidiaries that together would not make a significant subsidiary may be left out, so a vendor's subsidiary missing from Exhibit 21 is unconfirmed, not wrong. The trading names bridge a brand to its legal entity, as the entry on corporate hierarchy describes.
Revenue comes through the XBRL APIs, which extract data from financial statements in forms such as 10-K, 10-Q and 20-F. Compare a vendor's revenue with the value for the same fiscal period and concept, and record the concept you used.
What public company information does UK Companies House hold: registered office, SIC codes, accounts?
Companies House gives free access to each UK company's profile: its name and previous names, company number, status, date of creation, registered office address and SIC codes, with the dates its next accounts and confirmation statement are due. The notes to its accounts state the average number employed and, for a large or medium-sized company, name its subsidiaries.
The company profile in the public data API holds that record in structured form. Its status is one of a fixed set, among them active, dissolved, liquidation, receivership and administration, with a date of cessation once a company is dissolved, closed, converted or removed. The accounts and confirmation statement entries give the last made-up date, the next due date and an overdue flag, which is a fact about filing, not status.
Two attributes change only when the company files. A company must tell Companies House to change its registered office address, and it records a change of SIC code on its confirmation statement, so a change of business may reach the register's codes only with the next statement.
Section 411 puts the average number employed in the notes, and for a large or medium-sized company the accounts regulations require the notes to name each subsidiary undertaking with its registered office address. A small company may choose not to send its profit and loss account, and a micro-entity may send only its balance sheet, so where the filed copy carries no figure, record no official value, not a mismatch. Every field read here is an attribute of the company.
What the LEI record adds: two addresses and the parents
Level 1 data, which GLEIF calls who is who, holds the legal name, the legal address as recorded in the entity's registration, the headquarters address, the legal form and the entity status, as the LEI-CDF format sets out. Level 2 data, who owns whom, holds the direct and ultimate accounting consolidating parents, with each parent's LEI where it has one.
The registration authority and the entity's ID in that register lead from an LEI to the national record. At renewal the issuer checks the reference data with the entity and against third-party sources such as a national business register, at least once a year. The entry on the LEI covers the standard itself.
How to check a sample of a vendor's records
This procedure fits beside the ten questions for a company data vendor and runs on sample data for the companies you track.
- Draw the sample. Take 30 to 50 records across the registers you will use, with each record's identifiers and the date each value was observed.
- Resolve each record. Match on the CIK, the LEI or the company number first, then on the exact legal name with the country, and record the basis. A record you cannot resolve is a coverage finding, not an attribute error.
- Pair like with like. Headquarters with headquarters, a registered address with a registered office, a count on one day with a count on one day.
- Align the dates. Use the filing that covers the date of the vendor's employee count, and for status a vendor value observed in the last month.
- Score three outcomes. Match, mismatch, or no official value. Compute each rate over the records with an official value, and report the rest beside it.
- Classify every mismatch. Stale (a former name or previous value), different entity (a brand scored against its parent), different definition (an average against a count), or wrong. Only the last is an error in the data.
| Attribute | Official field | Match rule |
|---|---|---|
| Legal name | SEC, Companies House or LEI legal name | Equal once case, punctuation and legal-form suffixes are normalised; a former name is stale |
| Headquarters | LEI headquarters address, SEC business address | Same country, city and postcode |
| Registered address | Companies House registered office, LEI legal address | Same premises and postcode |
| Status | Companies House status, LEI entity status | Same, once the register's values are mapped to the vendor's terms |
| Industry | SEC or Companies House SIC codes | Consistent through your mapping |
| Identifiers | CIK, company number, LEI | Exact |
| Subsidiaries | Exhibit 21, notes to UK accounts, LEI parents | Each link confirmed, unconfirmed or contradicted |
| Employees | Persons employed; average number employed | Within a tolerance you set, for the same date or year |
Worked example: an illustrative sample with Acme Robotics
Assumptions:
- Acme Robotics is an invented SEC registrant with a fiscal year ending 31 December. The example is illustrative and every figure in it is invented.
- The vendor states 2,460 employees for Acme Robotics, dated 31 December 2025, and lists five subsidiaries.
- Acme Robotics' description of business states 2,400 persons employed at 31 December 2025, and its Exhibit 21 lists seven subsidiaries.
- An employee figure matches within 5% of the official count for the same date, or within 10% of a UK average for the same financial year.
- The sample holds 40 records: 25 SEC registrants, each holding an LEI, and 15 UK private companies, 6 of which hold an LEI.
For Acme Robotics, 2,460 less 2,400 is 60, and 60 divided by 2,400 is 2.5%, inside 5%: a match. Four of the vendor's five subsidiaries appear on Exhibit 21 and are confirmed; the fifth is unconfirmed. The vendor holds four of the seven listed, or 57.1%.
Across the sample, the 9 UK companies without an LEI have no official headquarters, and 4 UK companies filed accounts with no employee figure.
| Attribute | With an official value | Match | Mismatch | No official value | Match rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal name | 40 | 38 | 2 | 0 | 95.0% |
| Status | 40 | 39 | 1 | 0 | 97.5% |
| Headquarters | 31 | 28 | 3 | 9 | 90.3% |
| Industry | 40 | 36 | 4 | 0 | 90.0% |
| Employees | 36 | 32 | 4 | 4 | 88.9% |
Headquarters counts 25 SEC business addresses and 6 LEI headquarters addresses, 31 in all, and 28 of 31 is 90.3%. Employees counts 25 SEC figures and 11 UK averages, 36 in all, and 32 of 36 is 88.9%. Of the 14 mismatches, both names are former names, so stale, and two headquarters hold a registered office, a different definition. That leaves 10 for the vendor to explain record by record.
What a Fokals record brings to the check
A Fokals record carries the keys and dates this procedure starts from. Every company has one stable company ID, and a listed company carries its ticker, MIC, ISIN, LEI and share-class FIGI, and its SEC CIK where it has one, so step two starts from an identifier. A brand or subsidiary carries the identifiers of its listed parent, the link a subsidiary check follows. Employee Headcount delivers stated headcount over time, each count as stated and dated to the day it refers to, and every record carries the time it was observed, so steps three and four pair like with like.
What each key names is set out in the identifiers that make company data joinable. The data dictionary defines every field, and coverage shows the companies held this week.
Frequently asked questions
Can firmographic data on a private company be verified against a public register?
Yes, where the company's country keeps a public register or the company holds an LEI. Companies House gives free access to the profile of a UK company: its name, status, registered office address, SIC codes and filing dates, with its filed accounts. Any legal entity with an LEI has a GLEIF record holding its legal and headquarters addresses, its entity status and, where reported, its direct and ultimate parents.
What does a lapsed LEI mean?
A lapsed registration status means the LEI's reference data is behind schedule for renewal: it has not been revalidated within the planned interval. GLEIF states that the identifier stays valid while lapsed. The status says nothing about whether the entity trades. For that, read the record's entity status, which is active, inactive or not applicable, and the company's status in its national register.
Are SEC SIC codes the same as UK SIC codes?
They come from different lists. The SIC code in a company's EDGAR filings is from the list the SEC publishes, which the SEC uses to indicate a company's type of business and to assign the review of its filings. Companies House works from a shortened form of the Office for National Statistics list, and a UK company can carry several codes. Compare a vendor's industry with each through a mapping you keep.
How current is Companies House data?
The register is as current as the company's filings. Every company files a confirmation statement at least once a year, which is where a change of SIC code is recorded, and a private limited company files its later accounts within nine months of its financial year end. The free snapshot of live companies is updated within five working days of each month end. A figure from the accounts can describe a year that closed months before you read it.
Why does a vendor's employee count differ from the official one?
Usually because the two figures measure different things or refer to different dates. An SEC registrant states the number of persons employed, and a smaller reporting company may give its total and full-time employees; a UK company's accounts give the average number employed over the financial year. A vendor figure from another date or definition will differ even when both are right, so compare figures for the same date and definition before you call either one wrong.
The queries and code on this page are examples to adapt. Test them in your own environment before you rely on them.
What this page says about the products it names was checked against their public documentation on 7 October 2026. Product and company names are trademarks of their owners. Fokals is not affiliated with them or endorsed by them.