Company data sources
GET /v1/companies/sources lists the sources with their countries,
identifier schemes, capabilities, precedence, licence/terms URL, freshness
classes and live health. Sources are open and legitimate: official open
APIs, open data and public register pages within their terms and
robots.txt. Two exceptions, decided by the operator: the SOGC's official
public API and the cantonal commercial-register excerpts (with their canton
lookup on LINDAS) are read although their hosts' robots.txt disallows
everything (see Switzerland).
Precedence#
When sources disagree, the higher class wins and the other values are
kept as conflicts: official register > official gazette > GLEIF >
regulatory filings (SEC) > crosswalks (Wikidata) > commercial sources.
Each field declares its rule: within a class, preferred sources first, then
for most fields the newer observation. The legal name (names.legal) is
the national register's primary entry and never depends on refresh order:
in Switzerland zefix_rest > lindas_zefix > uid_register >
ch_cantonal_excerpt, then sogc, then gleif; remaining ties go by
source name. Other sources' forms of the name are listed in
names.alternates with their source.
Freshness#
Each source declares how long its data counts as fresh per field group
(core, people, ownership, relationships, filings, financials,
events). A request for older data re-fetches it from that source first;
max_age and refresh=true override it per request. Official change feeds
update companies already in the register without your request.
Sources#
| Source | Countries | Gives | Change feed |
|---|---|---|---|
lindas_zefix (Zefix on LINDAS) |
CH | name and translations, UID, CH-ID, EHRA-ID, legal form, seat municipality, address, purpose (active entities) | daily data |
uid_register (UID register, BFS) |
CH | master data of every UID (also outside the commercial register), status, addresses, VAT status and number, LEI | – |
zefix_rest (Zefix Public REST) |
CH | full register record: status and deletion, capital, former names, SOGC references, mergers, branches, audit firms; needs credentials | – |
sogc (Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce) |
CH | events timeline (incl. officer changes, mergers, deletions), latest published state | daily publications |
ch_cantonal_excerpt (cantonal register excerpts) |
CH | officers and signatories with role, signing authority, since/until | – |
gleif (GLEIF, LEI) |
global | legal and other names, ELF legal form, status, jurisdiction and register id, legal and headquarters addresses, creation date, successor; direct and ultimate parents; the LEI ↔ national register id crosswalk; the issuer of an ISIN (ISIN-to-LEI mapping) | daily updates |
Details per country: Switzerland. More sources
follow (SEC EDGAR, UK Companies House, France, Norway, …); the live list is
always GET /v1/companies/sources.
Health#
Every source is measured continuously (success rate, latency, parse failures, fields that suddenly come back empty) and checked every 15 minutes with known companies. The status page shows one line per active source in the group "Company data"; a degraded source only means fresher data from it may be delayed — the register still answers.