California

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This guide contains public integration notes for California. Use it for identifier formats, search behavior, and country-specific caveats. The live source of truth for coverage, pricing, data sources, documents, legal forms, roles, and status values is the pricing page.

California coverage, pricing, and sources

Open the current catalog for supported datapoints, documents, sources, identifiers, and availability.

This jurisdiction may be in preview or limited availability. Check the live pricing page or contact support before relying on it in production.

Country details below are preserved as integration notes. If a table or example conflicts with the live pricing page, use the pricing page as the source of truth and contact support.

Data Sources
Company Identifiers
Search Capabilities
Quirks & Gotchas
Mappings
- Legal Forms
- Officer Roles
Data Availability

Data Sources

California data comes from the California Secretary of State bizfileOnline register (bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov). The register covers domestic and foreign corporations (stock, non-profit, professional, statutory close, cooperative), limited liability companies, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, and registered general partnerships. The free public portal exposes: legal name, entity number, entity type, status, formation date, jurisdiction, registered agent (name, type, and address), principal office address, and mailing address.

Officer and manager rosters. Onboarding mode returns the officer, director, manager, and member roster filed on the entity’s Statements of Information, followed by the registered agent. Verification mode reads the live portal detail page, which exposes the registered agent only.

LLC manager visibility. California required LLC Statements of Information to be filed through bizfileOnline starting 2022. LLC entities that have not refiled since then carry only their formation cover sheet with no manager or member data. Corporations are not affected.

Onboarding and verification modes. Onboarding mode returns within about a second from a periodic snapshot of the full California register. Very recent filings may not yet be reflected, and an entity missing from the snapshot is read live instead. Verification mode reads the live bizfileOnline portal for an authoritative result.

Company Identifiers

Query Identifiers

Identifier Type	Format	Example	Notes
California Entity Number	4–12 alphanumeric characters, optional letter prefix	`C0806592`	Primary identifier assigned by the California Secretary of State. Corporations use a 7-digit number often prefixed `C`; LLCs use a 12-digit number starting with the formation year.

The entity number is accepted with or without the C prefix and leading zeros, in both /v2/search and /v2/company. Responses always return it without the prefix or leading zeros (C0806592 is returned as 806592).

Identifiers in API Response

Identifier	Format	Example	Found In
`entityNumber`	4–12 digits, no prefix or leading zeros	`806592`	All entities

Search Capabilities

Search Type	Pattern	Example	Match Type	Expected Results
By Name	2–250 chars	`"Acme Corporation"`	Contains (case-insensitive)	Multiple results
By Entity Number	4–12 digits, optional `C` prefix	`C0806592`	Exact (`matchType: id`)	Single result when found

Entity number search. A bare entity number resolves directly to the matching entity and returns its legal name, whether or not you include the C prefix or leading zeros.

Best-match picker. When multiple entities share the same legal name (for example an older merged-out entity and the current active one), the API prefers the entity with an exact name match and an Active status. If no Active match exists, it falls back to any exact name match, then to the first result.

Quirks & Gotchas

Quirk	Details
Duplicate entity numbers under different internal records	A bare numeric entity number (stripped of the `C` prefix and leading zeros) may collide with an unrelated internal record on the portal. The API always matches on the public entity number to avoid returning the wrong entity.
No state-wide open-data feed	California publishes no free statewide register extract equivalent to the open-data feeds available for New York or Pennsylvania.
LLC managers are dark for pre-2022 entities	Entities that have not filed a Statement of Information through bizfileOnline since 2022 carry no manager or member data on the portal. The API returns an empty `legalRepresentatives` array for these entities rather than an error.
No shareholder or UBO register	California does not publish shareholders or beneficial owners for any entity type. Federal FinCEN beneficial ownership records under the Corporate Transparency Act are access-restricted to authorized recipients.
No activity codes	Industry classification codes (NAICS, NACE, ISIC) are not collected by the California Secretary of State.
Paid documents not yet available	Certified Certificates of Status and certified copies of filed documents are available from the Secretary of State at a fee. These are not yet offered through Topograph. The Trade Register Extract (printed portal detail page) is included at no extra charge with the company-data block.

Mappings

Legal Forms

Legal form is read from the Entity Type field on the bizfileOnline detail page. bizfile renders the label in <Type> - <Jurisdiction> - <Sub> form (for example Stock Corporation - CA - General). The full label is preserved in legalForm.localName. Standardization and the ISO 20275 code match on the full label; a label outside the known vocabulary is standardized on its leading category, without an ISO 20275 code.

California entity types and standardized forms

bizfile Entity Type	Standardized	ISO 20275
Stock Corporation - CA - General	Corporation	`H1UM`
Stock Corporation - CA - Professional	Corporation	`PZR6`
Stock Corporation - CA - Close	Corporation	`7CDL`
Other stock corporations (CA Benefit, Social Purpose, Insurer; Out of State)	Corporation
Limited Liability Company - CA	Limited Liability Company	`EI4J`
Limited Liability Company - Out of State	Limited Liability Company
Limited Partnership - CA	Partnership	`5HQ4`
Limited Partnership - Out of State	Partnership
Nonprofit Corporation - CA - Public Benefit	Nonprofit Organization	`K7YU`
Nonprofit Corporation - CA - Mutual Benefit	Nonprofit Organization	`G1P6`
Nonprofit Corporation - CA - Religious	Nonprofit Organization	`CVXK`
Nonprofit Corporation - CA - Mutual Benefit - Credit Union	Nonprofit Organization	`O6AU`
Other nonprofit corporations (CA General, Out of State, Corporation Sole)	Nonprofit Organization
General, Agricultural, and Cannabis Cooperatives	Cooperative
Limited Liability Partnership	Partnership
General Partnership	Partnership
Other / unrecognized label	Other

bizfile occasionally surfaces niche entity types (Land Trust, Massachusetts Trust). These fall through with standardized: Other and the full local label preserved. For the complete and current list of legal forms, see the pricing page.

Officer Roles

Officer roles are returned in onboarding mode. Each title comes from the closed position vocabulary of the California Statement of Information form and is mapped deterministically to a standardized role; the register label is preserved in role.localName. The full list of roles is on the pricing page.

Common Title	Standardized	Notes
Chief Executive Officer	Chief Executive Officer	CA corporations
President	President
Secretary	Secretary	Statutory corp officer
Chief Financial Officer	Chief Financial Officer
Manager	Manager	LLC manager-managed
Member	Owner	LLC member-managed
General Partner	General Partner	Limited partnerships
Registered Agent	Other	Receives service of process; no authority to bind the entity

Data Availability

Data Point	Available	Notes
Company name	Yes	Current legal name
Company status	Yes	Active, Suspended (FTB), Dissolved, Cancelled, etc.
Registration date	Yes	Initial filing date
Legal address	Yes	Principal office address
Legal form	Yes	bizfile entity-type label, standardized to Topograph category
Registered agent	Yes	Name, type (Individual or Corporation), and address
Legal representatives	Yes	Onboarding mode: officer, director, manager, and member roster plus the registered agent. Verification mode: registered agent only.
Trade Register Extract	Yes	Printed bizfileOnline detail page, included at no extra charge with the company-data block
Certified Certificate of Status	No	Available from the Secretary of State at a fee; not yet offered through Topograph
Activity codes	No	Not collected by the California Secretary of State
Shareholders	No	Not published
UBOs	No	No public state-level beneficial ownership register
Financial data	No	Not collected

Example API Responses

Search by Name

curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-CA&query=Acme+Innovations" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

[
  {
    "id": "1234567",
    "legalName": "ACME INNOVATIONS, INC.",
    "countryCode": "US-CA",
    "matchReason": {
      "matchType": "default"
    },
    "address": {
      "region": "CA",
      "countryCode": "US"
    }
  }
]

Search by Entity Number

curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-CA&query=C1234567" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

[
  {
    "id": "1234567",
    "legalName": "ACME INNOVATIONS, INC.",
    "countryCode": "US-CA",
    "matchReason": {
      "matchType": "id"
    }
  }
]

Company Profile

curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/company" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"countryCode": "US-CA", "id": "1234567", "dataPoints": ["company", "legalRepresentatives"], "mode": "verification"}'

{
  "company": {
    "id": "1234567",
    "countryCode": "US-CA",
    "identifiers": { "entityNumber": "1234567" },
    "legalName": "ACME INNOVATIONS, INC.",
    "registrationDate": "2005-03-14",
    "status": {
      "localName": "Active",
      "active": true
    },
    "legalForm": {
      "localName": "Stock Corporation - CA - General",
      "englishTranslation": "Stock Corporation (General)",
      "standardized": "Corporation",
      "iso20275Code": "H1UM"
    },
    "legalAddress": {
      "addressLine1": "123 MARKET STREET SUITE 400",
      "city": "SAN FRANCISCO",
      "postalCode": "94105",
      "region": "CA",
      "countryCode": "US"
    }
  },
  "legalRepresentatives": [
    {
      "type": "company",
      "role": {
        "localName": "Registered Agent"
      },
      "company": {
        "legalName": "CALIFORNIA AGENT SERVICES LLC",
        "legalAddress": {
          "addressLine1": "500 CORPORATE DR",
          "city": "SACRAMENTO",
          "postalCode": "95814",
          "region": "CA",
          "countryCode": "US"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Europe

North America

Asia

Offshore Centers

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California coverage, pricing, and sources

Table of Contents

Data Sources

Company Identifiers

Query Identifiers

Identifiers in API Response

Search Capabilities

Quirks & Gotchas

Mappings

Legal Forms

Officer Roles

Data Availability

Example API Responses

Search by Name

Search by Entity Number

Company Profile

​Start here

California coverage, pricing, and sources

​Table of Contents

​Data Sources

​Company Identifiers

​Query Identifiers

​Identifiers in API Response

​Search Capabilities

​Quirks & Gotchas

​Mappings

​Legal Forms

​Officer Roles

​Data Availability

​Example API Responses

​Search by Name

​Search by Entity Number

​Company Profile

Start here

Table of Contents

Data Sources

Company Identifiers

Query Identifiers

Identifiers in API Response

Search Capabilities

Quirks & Gotchas

Mappings

Legal Forms

Officer Roles

Data Availability

Example API Responses

Search by Name

Search by Entity Number

Company Profile