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Table of Contents

API access: US-PA is not yet part of the public countryCode enum. Contact us to enable it on your workspace. Requests sent with countryCode: "US-PA" will otherwise return 400 until the enum is expanded.

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Data Sources

Pennsylvania uses a single integration against the Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations (BCCO). The register covers every entity filed under Title 15 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes (business corporations, nonprofit corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, general partnerships including LLPs, business trusts, professional associations) and four non-Title-15 forms maintained alongside them (credit unions under 17 Pa.C.S., financial institutions under 7 Pa.C.S., municipal authorities under 53 Pa.C.S., and land banks under 68 Pa.C.S.).
  • Department of State Open Data snapshot (fast, primary). A weekly refresh of the BCCO database published at data.pa.gov under “Registered Businesses in PA Current by County Department of State”. Covers 2.3M distinct filing numbers and the associated governor and officer roster (3.9M rows). Used for onboarding checks, company search, and the primary verification baseline.
Mode-based routing. Onboarding requests (mode: "onboarding") and verification requests (mode: "verification") are both served from the open-data snapshot in v1. A live connection to the Business Filing Services portal (file.dos.pa.gov) is on the roadmap to provide up-to-the-minute status reads and the printable Trade Register Extract.
Decennial-to-annual transition. Pennsylvania repealed the decennial report regime and introduced annual reports on 2026-01-06 under Act 122 of 2022. Officer data refreshes as each entity files its first post-2025 annual report. Entities that have not yet filed a post-2025 annual report may carry officer data up to ten years old from their last decennial filing. Administrative dissolution for non-filers begins 2027.

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Company Identifiers

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Query Identifiers

Identifier TypeFormatExampleNotes
PA Filing Number10 digits, zero-padded0004272272BCCO internal file number (15 Pa.C.S. §132). Leading zeros are significant.
The PA filing number is zero-padded to exactly ten digits. Queries with the unpadded form (e.g. 4272272 instead of 0004272272) are rejected. The prefix loosely tracks registration vintage — 000xxxxxxx is pre-1970, 001xxxxxxx is the current (2020s) range — but the prefix does not encode entity type.

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Identifiers in API Response

IdentifierFormatExampleFound In
paFilingNumber10 digits, zero-padded0004272272All entities

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Search Capabilities

Search TypePatternExampleMatch TypeExpected Results
By Name2-100 chars"Sheetz"Starts-with (case-insensitive)Multiple results
By PA Filing Number10 digits0004272272ExactSingle company
Starts-with search. Name search anchors on the beginning of the legal name (case-insensitive). Use fuller query strings to narrow the result set, which is capped at 50 matches.

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Quirks & Gotchas

QuirkDetails
Zero-padding is load-bearingFiling numbers are always 10 digits with leading zeros preserved. Never strip them — the register and our API treat 0004272272 and 4272272 as different keys.
Status is not in the snapshotThe open-data dataset does not carry a current status field. The Commonwealth does not administratively dissolve non-filers before the Act 122 of 2022 penalties begin in 2027, so every row in the snapshot would read “active” and historic dissolutions are invisible.
No shareholder or UBO registerPennsylvania does not publish shareholders or beneficial owners for any entity type.
No activity codesThe BCCO does not collect NAICS, NACE, or ISIC codes. Industry classification is held by the PA Department of Revenue for tax purposes and is not released publicly.
Fictitious names live separatelyFictitious name registrations under 54 Pa.C.S. § 311 are a separate filing track and are not part of the business entity dataset. DBA-style names are therefore not indexed for search.
Officer titles are free-textThe party_type field carries 500+ observed variants (President, Governor, Organizer, Treasurer, Secretary, Vice President, General Partner, Incorporator, Member, plus a long tail of roles such as Pastor, Fire Chief, Chief Revenue Officer). Titles are normalized by AI enrichment.
Paid documents are mailed or picked upThe 40SubsistenceCertificate(domesticgoodstanding),40 Subsistence Certificate (domestic good standing), 15 written record search, and $55+ certified copies are ordered through the BFS portal and delivered electronically or by mail from Harrisburg. These are not yet offered through Topograph.
Annual reports are newThe decennial-report regime was repealed in 2022. Entities now file annually (for-profit corporations by June 30, LLCs by September 30, LPs/LLPs/trusts/professional associations by December 31). First filing cycle closed 2026; officer data will refresh year over year going forward.

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Mappings

Legal form is sourced from the typeofbusinessregistration column of the Department of State open-data dataset. The vocabulary is a closed enum of 18 values backed by Title 15 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes (plus four forms governed by 17, 7, 53, and 68 Pa.C.S.).
DOS Entity TypeStandardizedISO 20275
Domestic Limited Liability CompanyLimitedLiabilityCompany2HBR
Foreign Limited Liability CompanyLimitedLiabilityCompany
Domestic Business CorporationCorporationECSB
Foreign Business CorporationCorporation
Domestic Nonprofit CorporationNonprofitOrganization
Foreign Nonprofit CorporationNonprofitOrganization
Domestic Limited Partnership (LP/LLLP)PartnershipLPNL
Foreign Limited PartnershipPartnership
Domestic General Partnership (GP/LLP)PartnershipLLP
Foreign Limited Liability General PartnershipPartnership
Domestic Business TrustTrustXTIQ
Foreign Business TrustTrust
Domestic Professional AssociationCorporation
Foreign Professional AssociationCorporation
AuthorityOtherXJHM
Domestic Credit UnionCreditUnionCUSO
Domestic Financial InstitutionOther
Domestic Land BankOther

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Officer Roles

The party_type field on the dataset is free-text with over 500 casing and punctuation variants. Topograph routes each raw value through AI role enrichment, producing a standardized role label, English translation, and (when available) an ISO 5009 Official Organizational Role code.
Common Raw ValueStandardizedNotes
PresidentPresident15 Pa.C.S. § 1732 statutory corporation officer
Vice PresidentVicePresident
SecretarySecretary
TreasurerTreasurer
GovernorDirectorLLC governor under 15 Pa.C.S. § 8847
OrganizerIncorporatorLLC / corporation organizer
MemberMemberLLC member (member-managed LLCs)
Managing MemberMemberLLC managing-member variant
General PartnerGeneralPartnerLimited partnerships
IncorporatorIncorporator
Governors, Organizers, Members, and General Partners are classified as Legal Representatives. Registered Agent is an Other Key Person — it only receives service of process and has no statutory authority to bind the entity.

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Data Availability

Data PointAvailableNotes
Company nameYesCurrent legal name
Company statusRoadmapRead from the live Business Filing Services portal in a future release. The open-data snapshot does not carry a status field.
Registration dateYesBCCO initial filing date
Legal addressYesStreet address, city, state, ZIP, county (67 Pennsylvania counties)
Legal formYesClosed 18-value Title 15 vocabulary with ISO 20275 mapping where GLEIF publishes one
Legal representativesYesOfficers and governors with free-text titles, normalized by AI enrichment
Registered agentRoadmapSurfaced on the BFS portal detail page — not in the open-data snapshot
Activity codesNoNot collected by the BCCO
ShareholdersNoNot published
UBOsNoNot published (federal CTA / FinCEN is a separate system)
DocumentsRoadmapThe printable Trade Register Extract and the $40 Subsistence Certificate will ship alongside the live portal integration
Financial dataNoNot collected
Fictitious names (DBAs)NoRegistered separately under 54 Pa.C.S. § 311, not part of the business entity dataset

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Example API Responses

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Search by Name

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

[
  {
    "id": "0002911132",
    "legalName": "SHEETZ AVIATION, INC.",
    "countryCode": "US-PA",
    "matchReason": {
      "matchType": "default"
    },
    "address": {
      "region": "PA",
      "countryCode": "US"
    }
  }
]

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Search by Filing Number

curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-PA&query=0002911132" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

[
  {
    "id": "0002911132",
    "legalName": "SHEETZ AVIATION, INC.",
    "countryCode": "US-PA",
    "matchReason": {
      "matchType": "id"
    }
  }
]

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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-PA", "id": "0002911132", "dataPoints": ["company", "legalRepresentatives"], "mode": "onboarding"}'

{
  "company": {
    "id": "0002911132",
    "countryCode": "US-PA",
    "identifiers": { "paFilingNumber": "0002911132" },
    "legalName": "SHEETZ AVIATION, INC.",
    "registrationDate": "1999-05-20",
    "legalForm": {
      "localName": "Foreign Business Corporation",
      "standardized": "Corporation"
    },
    "legalAddress": {
      "city": "Harrisburg",
      "region": "PA",
      "postalCode": "17101",
      "countryCode": "US"
    }
  },
  "legalRepresentatives": []
}