Companies House is the official UK register and a perfectly good place to look up a name or check a recent filing. It is not a place to build credit decisions, supplier risk processes, KYB workflows or predictive risk models. It’s verified identities, unverified filings; only around 40% of filed accounts are structured, SIC codes have not been updated since 2003, and the API is rate-limited with no SLA.
For UK credit, supplier, and risk workflows that need explainable scoring, real-time monitoring and queryable financial filtering, Company Watch is the strongest single platform. For high-growth and VC work, Beauhurst leads. For a lightweight UK-only API replacement, Endole is solid.
What Companies House gives you, and where it falls short
The free Companies House API delivers company profiles, officer and PSC data, filing history and a streaming change feed. For verifying that a company exists and who runs it, the API does the job at zero cost. But the gaps appear quickly:
Self-declared, unaudited filings. Companies House verifies the filer and from 2028 will validate the format, but never the figures.
Only ~40% of accounts are structured. The rest are scanned PDFs.
Up to 21 months stale. Companies have nine months after their financial year-end to file annual accounts, so the most recent filed data can already be 21 months behind.
SIC codes from 2003. Modern sectors are crammed into broad legacy categories.
No financial enrichment. No revenue estimates, employee counts, contact data or group structures.
No risk or credit scoring. It is a register, not a risk platform.
API rate limits and no SLA. 600 requests per 5-minute window, no guaranteed uptime.
What to look for in an alternative
Predictive scoring. Forward-looking, not just historic.
Score explainability. Can a credit committee see why a score moved?
Real-time monitoring. Director, PSC, CCJ and insolvency events as alerts.
Queryable database. Filter the entire UK population by financial criteria.
Structured financials. Parsed accounts data with ratios, not PDF links. Company Watch’s Financial Statement Explorer adds instant keyword search across Companies House filings.
API depth. Real SLA, sensible rate limits, parsed responses.
The best alternatives to Companies House in 2026
1. Company Watch: best for explainable credit risk and predictive monitoring
Company Watch is the UK credit reference agency built around prediction. The H-Score® is a fully transparent 0 to 100 financial-health rating where every input is visible, and it has caught around 92% of public-company insolvencies up to a year ahead of failure for almost 30 years.
Data Builder gives direct queryable access to all 6 million UK Companies House entities with proprietary financial filters, the closest tool on the market to a true Companies House replacement for risk work.
✦ Strengths: H-Score® predictive scoring with full input transparency; Data Builder for filtering all 6M UK companies by financial criteria; Vigilance™ for fraud anomaly detection on filings; Forecast View™ for counterparty stress testing; real-time alerts on director, PSC, CCJ and insolvency events; Financial Statement Explorer for searchable reconstructed PDF accounts.
✦ Limitations: coverage strongest in UK and Ireland; not designed for global B2B sales prospecting.
Bottom line:
Best for UK and Irish lenders, finance teams, accountants, public sector, procurement and risk teams.
2. Beauhurst: best for high-growth and private-market intelligence
Tracks UK private and high-growth companies in depth: funding rounds, university spinouts, accelerator history.
✦ Strengths: deep coverage of UK startups and scaleups; funding rounds (announced and unannounced); patent data; granular search by region, industry and stage.
✦ Limitations: no predictive distress scoring comparable to H-Score®; less suited to credit or supplier monitoring.
Bottom line:
Best for investors, universities, councils, growth hubs and corporate development teams.
3. Endole: best for a lightweight UK-focused API replacement
A direct Companies House API alternative. Enriches the registry with 10 years of accounts, basic credit scores, CCJ history and shareholder data, on pay-per-call pricing.
✦ Strengths: direct Companies House API replacement; 10 years of historic accounts; pay-per-call pricing.
Best for developers and smaller teams that want basic enriched UK data via API.
4. Creditsafe: best for international credit checks with workable UK coverage
The largest commercial credit data network by volume, with broad international reach.
✦ Strengths: 200+ country coverage; established trade credit scoring used by credit insurers; workflows tailored to AR teams.
✦ Limitations: black-box scoring; less UK-specialist depth than Company Watch; no Data Builder equivalent.
Bottom line:
Best for AR and trade credit teams needing one global supplier with workable UK coverage.
4. DataGardener: best for B2B sales and marketing on UK companies
UK B2B data with enriched contact information and firmographic filters.
✦ Strengths: strong UK firmographic data and contact enrichment; documented API; search tuned for prospecting.
✦ Limitations: primarily a B2B sales and marketing data platform; credit risk is a secondary feature rather than the core specialism, with less depth than dedicated credit reference agencies on predictive scoring and real-time risk monitoring.
Bottom line:
Best for UK B2B sales, marketing and prospecting teams.
Which one should you pick?
Credit, lending or supplier risk on UK companies → Company Watch
UK procurement monitoring British suppliers → Company Watch (Data Builder + Vigilance™ + daily alerts)
Internal UK risk model or analytics dashboard → Company Watch
VC, growth hub or public-sector partnerships work → Beauhurst
Lightweight developer API for UK company lookups → Endole
Multi-jurisdictional credit checks → Creditsafe (often paired with Company Watch for UK depth)
B2B sales and marketing prospecting → DataGardener
FAQs
It is the official register, not a risk platform. Filings aren’t entirely verified, only around 40% of accounts are structured, and there’s no forward-looking risk scoring.
Company Watch’s H-Score® has a near 30-year published record of identifying around 92% of public-company insolvencies up to 12 months ahead of failure. None of the other providers in this list publish a comparable UK accuracy figure.
Yes, with Company Watch’s Data Builder. It covers all 6 million UK Companies House entities and supports proprietary financial filters that Companies House search itself does not offer.
Yes, as one of the inputs. The difference is what each adds on top: predictive scoring (Company Watch), high-growth signals (Beauhurst), light enrichment (Endole), global credit data (Creditsafe), or sales firmographics (DataGardener).
Rimsha Imran Tahir
SEO & Content Marketing Executive
Rimsha is Marketing Executive at Company Watch, responsible for producing research-led content and insights that help organisations navigate risk and regulatory change.
