Observed Signal · May 17, 2026 · Product Launch · Source: DEV Community · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
OpenRegistry free passthrough to UK/EU company registries
OpenRegistry (by Sophymarine) published a free passthrough API that queries 16 UK/EU/EEA government company registries in real time. Its anonymous tier allows 20 requests per minute per IP (signed-in free tier 30 req/min/user) and preserves the upstream registry JSON under a unified envelope field called jurisdiction_data. The service positions itself as a low-cost alternative to OpenCorporates’ free key (50 calls/day) and supports three access modes: HTTP REST (/api/v1), HTTP RPC (/api/v1/rpc/{tool_name}) and an MCP transport (/mcp) for AI agents. The post includes example curl and Python calls, a trimmed sample response (Monzo Bank profile from Companies House), a published registry coverage list, and pricing tiers for OpenRegistry (anonymous/free/pro/max). Publication date: 2026-05-17.
Introduces a low-cost, high-throughput alternative to OpenCorporates for programmatic access to official company registries across 16 jurisdictions, which can materially reduce data-access costs and friction for developers and data consumers but is niche compared with platform-level policy changes.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- OpenRegistry (a platform by Sophymarine) offers an anonymous tier with a 20 requests/minute per IP rate limit and a signed-in free tier of 30 req/min/user.
- OpenCorporates' free key permits 50 calls a day (200/month free tier as published), whereas OpenRegistry's anonymous tier equates to roughly 28,800 calls/day sustained.
- OpenRegistry proxies live, per-request queries to upstream government registries and returns a unified response envelope that preserves the original registry JSON under jurisdiction_data (no ingested snapshot).
- OpenRegistry supports three API transports: HTTP REST (/api/v1), HTTP RPC (/api/v1/rpc/{tool_name}), and MCP transport (/mcp) designed for AI agents and agent platforms.
- The service currently wires 16 registries across the UK, EU and EEA (examples: Companies House GB, France Sirene FR, Ireland CRO IE, Belgium CBE BE, Italy InfoCamere IT, Spain BORME ES, Poland KRS PL, Norway Brreg NO, Switzerland Zefix CH).
Connected Companies & Entities
2 Entities mappedOntology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Developer Turns Austrian Firmenbuch Into REST API
A developer built 'firmafind', a REST API wrapper around Austria's public company register (Firmenbuch) to provide programmatic access to company data (addresses, directors, shareholders, legal form, financial statements). The project required extensive XML parsing because financial statements use cryptographic field codes decoded via an official Excel 'decode key'. The author launched free endpoints with caching to improve performance over the slow government SOAP service, later introduced paid monthly subscriptions after initial scaling and billing complexity. The first paying customer was an international company, prompting an English translation and a shift toward serving international compliance, legal, and fintech customers. Roadmap items include expanding to other European registers, credit scoring from financial statements, and a modular KYC API covering insolvency and beneficial ownership registries. The free search tool remains available at firmafind.at.
MCP Server Built on Romania's Open Company Registry
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MCP Registry: App‑Store Style Discovery for AI Agents
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