California Business Entity & UCC Lien Search

🏛️ California Business Entity & UCC Lien Search

Search the official California Secretary of State bizfileOnline registers and get clean, structured records in seconds. One search term returns both business entities (status, standing, entity type, registered agent, addresses) and UCC liens (financing statements, judgment liens, state and federal tax liens), with no login and no state API key.

✨ Why use California Business Entity & UCC Lien Search?

• ⚡ Fast: a one-company lookup across both registers finished in 11–24 seconds in our tests, and search-only runs save about 10,000 records a minute.
• 🔓 No login, no API key: reads the public bizfileOnline search that anyone can open.
• 🧾 Two registers in one run: see what a company is and who has a claim on it.
• 🔎 The registry's own filters: entity type, status, filing dates, lien type, lien status and lapse dates.
• 📇 Deep detail on demand: addresses, the registered agent's address, all four standings, filing history and filing PDFs.
• 💸 Fair pricing: searches that find nothing are free, and detail is charged only when the registry returns it.

🎯 Use cases

• 🏦 Lending and credit risk: check existing UCC financing statements and see which lender already holds a security interest.
• 🚨 Distress signals: find state and federal tax liens, judgment liens and attachments filed against a business.
• ✅ KYB and onboarding: confirm that an entity exists, is active and is in good standing with the SOS and the FTB.
• 📬 Lead generation: list newly formed LLCs or corporations by type and filing month, with principal and mailing addresses.
• ⚖️ Legal and service of process: get the registered agent and the agent's address for any California entity.
• 📊 Market research: track entity statuses (suspended, forfeited, terminated) for a keyword or an industry name.

🚀 How to use

1. Enter one or more Search terms: company names, California entity numbers (such as 3814816) or debtor names.
2. Keep both Registers selected, or pick only business entities or only UCC liens.
3. Set Max results per search term and register (20 by default, 0 keeps every match).
4. Optional: open Business entity filters or UCC lien filters, and choose a Detail per record level.
5. Click Start and export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read it through the API.

📥 Input

Every California LLC with "California" in its name filed in January 2024:

{
  "searchQueries": ["California"],
  "registers": ["business"],
  "entityType": "3",
  "filedFrom": "2024-01-01",
  "filedTo": "2024-01-31",
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 0
}

Federal tax liens on a debtor name, with full debtor addresses:

{
  "searchQueries": ["Acme Plumbing"],
  "registers": ["ucc"],
  "uccType": "2174",
  "detailLevel": "full"
}

📤 Output

One row per business entity or UCC filing. Main fields:

Business entity (search results only):

{
  "register": "business",
  "name": "DEL REAL TACOS MEXICO INC.",
  "entityNumber": "2915777",
  "status": "Suspended - FTB",
  "standing": "Good Standing",
  "entityType": "Stock Corporation - CA - General",
  "formedIn": "CALIFORNIA",
  "initialFilingDate": "03/30/2007",
  "registeredAgent": "JANE EXAMPLE",
  "jurisdiction": "California, USA",
  "searchQuery": "DEL TACO",
  "source_url": "https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/search/business",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T09:22:24Z"
}

UCC lien with the full profile:

{
  "register": "ucc",
  "fileNumber": "197691045527",
  "uccType": "Notice of State Tax Lien",
  "status": "Active",
  "filingDate": "01/08/2019",
  "lapseDate": "01/08/2029",
  "debtorName": "LA CASA DEL TACO",
  "debtorLocation": "RIALTO, CA",
  "securedPartyName": "EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT",
  "securedPartyLocation": "SACRAMENTO, CA",
  "debtorsDetailed": [
    {"name": "EXAMPLE, JOHN", "address": "100 MAIN ST STE P, RIALTO, CA 92376"},
    {"name": "LA CASA DEL TACO", "address": "100 MAIN ST STE P, RIALTO, CA 92376"}
  ],
  "securedPartiesDetailed": [
    {"name": "EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT", "address": "722 CAPITOL MALL, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814"}
  ],
  "detailFetched": true
}

With Download filing PDFs, each row lists its saved files, and each key is a record in the run's key-value store:

{
  "documentCount": 1,
  "documents": [
    {"type": "Initial Filing", "number": "202462516791", "date": "6/4/2024", "key": "document-business-202462516791", "contentType": "application/pdf", "bytes": 125551}
  ]
}

💰 Pricing

Pay per event, with no monthly fee:

Searches that return nothing are free. Worked examples:

• One company in both registers with 20 records each: 2 × $0.02 + 40 × $0.0025 = $0.14.
• 1,000 business records from a few searches: about $2.50 plus $0.02 per search.

Platform usage (compute and the hosted browser that opens the registry) is billed separately. A search-only run used about one cent in our tests (for example $0.0096 for the 40-record job above). Profile and history levels open more browser sessions: about $0.05 per 100 full profiles and $0.07 per 100 records with filing history. Set a maximum charge per run and the run stops cleanly when it is reached.

❓ FAQ

Is it legal to scrape California business records? California business entity and UCC records are public records published by the Secretary of State. This tool reads the same public search pages a visitor can open, with no login and no paywall. Use the data lawfully, for example for KYB, due diligence and B2B purposes.

Do I need a login, an API key or a proxy? No. The registry sits behind a bot check, so each run opens it in a hosted browser automatically. There is nothing to configure.

How many results can I get? The business register returns up to 500 matches per term. The UCC register refuses terms that match more than 1,000 filings, and the run's status says so. Split broad searches into more specific terms or add filters. One run can hold many terms: a 23-term test saved 11,494 records in one minute.

Why is a field empty? The registry leaves many fields blank, especially for old or inactive entities (for example no agent, no address, or no PDF for filings from before the images were digitized). Addresses, standings and filing history need the Full profile or Filing history detail level.

Can I search by entity number? Yes. Put the California entity number (such as 3814816 or 202462516791) in Search terms.

Can I schedule it or use the API? Yes. Save an input as a task, schedule it daily or weekly to watch a list of companies, or start runs and read datasets through the API.

⚠️ Limits

• Covers California only (the bizfileOnline business and UCC registers).
• The business register returns at most 500 matches per term; the UCC register refuses terms that match too many filings (over 1,000) and asks for a more specific term.
• Full profile and filing history fetch each record separately, and the registry limits how many it serves per connection, so these levels run at about one record per second.
• Filing PDFs exist only for filings the registry has digitized; older filings often have no image.
• Statements of Information (officers and directors lists) are not parsed beyond what the profile shows.
• Results reflect the registry at the time of the run.