# Look up a company

You can look a UK company up by its registration number if you know it, or
search the register by name if you do not.

## Look up by registration number

1. Choose the search icon, enter **Companies House Lookup**, and choose the
   related link.
2. Enter the company registration number.
3. Choose **OK**.

The company snapshot opens, showing the registered name, status, incorporation
date, registered office address and SIC codes.

### What counts as a registration number

A UK company registration number is eight characters. The app accepts what
people actually type and tidies it up:

- **Spaces are ignored**, so `04 20 63 92` works.
- **Short numbers are padded**, so `445790` becomes `00445790`. This matters
  because Companies House numbers keep their leading zeros and spreadsheets
  routinely strip them.
- **Prefixed numbers are accepted** and upper-cased - `SC` for Scotland, `NI`
  for Northern Ireland, `OC` and `SO` for LLPs, and the rest.

Anything that cannot be a registration number is rejected with a message
rather than sent to the register.

## Search by name

1. Choose the search icon, enter **Companies House Search**, and choose the
   related link.
2. Type the company name, or the start of it, and press Enter.

Up to 20 matches come back, each showing its registration number, registered
name, status, type, incorporation date and registered office. Search results
are never stored - only a company you actually choose is cached.

From a match you can:

- **Look up and cache** - fetch the full profile and open the snapshot.
- **Create customer**, **Create vendor** or **Create contact** - see
  [Create a customer, vendor or contact from a company number](https://docs.d2k.uk/companies-house-lookup/create-from-companies-house).
- **Use for this record** - fill the customer, vendor or contact you came from.
  This appears only when you arrive from a record's **Fill from Companies
  House** action.

![The Companies House Search page with greggs typed into Company name. The results list shows each company's registration number, registered name, status, type, incorporation date and address, and the Home tab offers Look up and cache.](https://docs.d2k.uk/assets/img/companies-house-lookup/search-by-name.jpg)

*A name search. Each row is a company on the register, with its status and registered address.*

### Searching from a record you are already on

On a Customer, Vendor or Contact card, **Search Companies House** opens the
search already filled in with that record's name, which saves retyping it. See
[Customers, vendors and contacts](https://docs.d2k.uk/companies-house-lookup/customers-vendors-and-contacts).

## Why a name search may not find the company

The register holds **registered** names, not trading names. "Greggs" does not
match; `GREGGS PLC` does. If a customer is recorded under a brand rather than
its legal name, search for the legal name, or look the number up at
<https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/> and enter it
directly.

## How often the data is fetched

A company you have looked up before is served from the local snapshot until it
passes the age set in **Cache TTL (Profile)** on [Companies House Setup](https://docs.d2k.uk/companies-house-lookup/companies-house-setup), and then re-fetched. To force a fresh fetch,
use **Refresh from Companies House** on the snapshot - see [Company snapshots](https://docs.d2k.uk/companies-house-lookup/company-snapshots).

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Source: https://docs.d2k.uk/companies-house-lookup/look-up-a-company
Last updated: 2026-09-29