California business lookup API

Who it is for

It is for developers whose AI agents pay invoices, onboard vendors or customers, or sign contracts with companies that say they are formed in California or registered to do business there. The agent sends the company name, pays for the call from its own x402 wallet, and gets back the California companies to check before it acts.

What one call returns

One call returns up to five candidate California companies for the name you send, closest name first. Each one carries:

• the entity number, which anyone can look up in California's business search;
• the name and California's status in its own words, with a sentence on what it means and, for a suspension, which agency acted and when;
• whether the status is plain Active, and California's standing flags for the Secretary of State, the Franchise Tax Board and the agent;
• the entity type, the first filing date and the home state, with the company's name there when it was formed elsewhere;
• the principal, mailing and California office addresses and the agent for service of process;
• up to 25 officers, managers and members from the latest Statement of Information, and that statement's date;
• which name matched, its California name or its name in its home state, and the date of the California file its record came from.

What a California answer does not carry, as its not_covered block says:

• California's file gives today's status and a suspension date, not the dates of earlier status changes.
• California's file has no former names, so a company is not found by a name it used before.
• California's file lists no filings beyond the first filing date and the latest Statement of Information.
• Reserved names and out of state name registrations are not companies and are not listed.
• Counts of companies that share an address, agent or officer cover Florida only.
• Florida's warning flags are not computed for California. California's own standing flags are in standing.
• EIN, ZIP, address and person checks cover Florida only; California publishes no EIN.

Where the data comes from and how current it is

The data comes from the California Secretary of State, from its bizfile Online bulk data (source files). About 9.4 million companies, active and inactive. Two files. A monthly file lists every company with its status on the file's last day, and it is the only source of status changes. A weekly file adds the companies first filed that week. A company suspended or revived after the monthly file's last day keeps its earlier status here until the next monthly file.

Every answer carries both dates: dataset.status_data_through, the last day of the newest monthly file, and dataset.new_companies_through, the last day of the newest weekly file. dataset.stale is true when the weekly data is more than 9 days old or the monthly data more than 35 days old. California's data status page shows both dates as they stand now, with the record count.

How to call it

Send one GET request to California's charge URL with the business name in name, URL encoded.

GET https://myproceeds.xyz/api/pay/cmupojkok000bjz043ecdfmec/verify-california-business?name=Apple%20Inc&limit=1

1. The first request returns HTTP 402 Payment Required with the price, the network and the recipient.
2. Your x402 client pays 0.10 USDC on Base and sends the same request again with the payment attached.
3. Proceeds, the payment service that runs our paywall, settles the payment and returns our JSON answer.

Send name, and optionally limit (1 to 5). Florida's other parameters are accepted, change nothing, and are listed under inputs_not_used.

With the AgentCash command line wallet, one paid call is a single command:

npx agentcash@latest fetch "https://myproceeds.xyz/api/pay/cmupojkok000bjz043ecdfmec/verify-california-business?name=Apple%20Inc"

The machine readable description of the call is the /verify-california-business operation in /openapi.json, and agents that use skills can read /skill.md. Our MCP server at https://registryverify.com/mcp has a free tool for this state, verify_california_business: it checks the name, gives the data dates, lists up to three candidate names while the hourly free preview lasts, and returns this charge URL for that name, which the agent pays with its own x402 wallet.

Sample answer

This is the California example answer in our OpenAPI description, a real paid answer of 12 November 2026 for Apple Inc sent without limit, so it found five candidates. It is shortened to the first of them, its main fields and one of its officers. The full answer also carries not_covered, result_interpretation and the whole dataset block.

Sample answer, shortened

{
  "query": "Apple Inc",
  "match_count": 5,
  "matches": [
    {
      "entity_number": "0806592",
      "name": "APPLE INC.",
      "status": "Active",
      "is_active": true,
      "status_meaning": "California lists the company as active: its powers have not been suspended or forfeited and it has not been terminated.",
      "standing": {
        "sentence": "California marks every standing as good."
      },
      "formed_on": "1977-01-03",
      "home_state": {
        "sentence": "Formed in California."
      },
      "principal_office": {
        "address1": "ONE APPLE PARK WAY",
        "address2": null,
        "city": "CUPERTINO",
        "state": "CA",
        "zip": "95014",
        "country": "United States"
      },
      "agent_for_service": {
        "name": "C T CORPORATION SYSTEM",
        "type": "Registered 1505 Agent"
      },
      "officers": {
        "count": 25,
        "listed": [
          {
            "name": "John Ternus",
            "position": "Chief Executive Officer"
          }
        ]
      },
      "statement_of_information": {
        "latest_filed_on": "2026-09-16",
        "sentence": "The latest Statement of Information on file was filed on 16 September 2026."
      },
      "found_by": "current_name",
      "record_dates": {
        "sentence": "Status as of 2026-10-31, the last day of California's newest monthly file."
      }
    }
  ],
  "dataset": {
    "status_data_through": "2026-10-31",
    "new_companies_through": "2026-11-09",
    "stale": false
  }
}

How often the right company comes first

On 12 November 2026 we sent 346 test names to the production California search. Each was rewritten from one company's own name the way a buyer might write it, and the set was frozen before the search ran on it. The right company came first for 342 of 346 (98.8%, 95% interval 97.0% to 99.6%) and was among the five answers for 344 of 346.

To repeat it, take the test names and what the search answered for each, at https://registryverify.com/california-name-match-set.csv and https://registryverify.com/california-name-match-results.json. The test does not measure names real buyers typed, misspelled names, or companies with no California record.

What a result means

A result is a candidate name match, not proof of identity. Check a second fact, such as the address, the agent or an officer, before you rely on it.

A lookup that finds nothing means we found no candidate in the California files we hold. It does not prove that the business is absent from California's records.

No status history and no former names, because California's file has neither. No warning flags, shared record counts or fact checks, and California publishes no EIN. California publishes this data without a promise of accuracy. For proof of status, ask the Secretary of State for a certificate of status, or check California's business search.

Florida companies have a lookup of their own, described on the Florida business lookup API page, and pricing shows how payment works.