> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.topograph.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Pennsylvania (US)
> Country-specific identifiers, data sources, and integration details
## Start here
This guide contains public integration notes for Pennsylvania. 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.
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.
## Table of Contents
* [Data Sources](#data-sources)
* [Company Identifiers](#company-identifiers)
* [Search Capabilities](#search-capabilities)
* [Quirks & Gotchas](#quirks--gotchas)
* [Mappings](#mappings)
* [Legal Forms](#legal-forms)
* [Officer Roles](#officer-roles)
* [Data Availability](#data-availability)
**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.
## 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.
## Company Identifiers
### Query Identifiers
| Identifier Type | Format | Example | Notes |
| -------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **PA Filing Number** | 10 digits, zero-padded | `0004272272` | BCCO 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.
### Identifiers in API Response
| Identifier | Format | Example | Found In |
| ---------------- | ---------------------- | ------------ | ------------ |
| `paFilingNumber` | 10 digits, zero-padded | `0004272272` | All entities |
## Search Capabilities
| Search Type | Pattern | Example | Match Type | Expected Results |
| ------------------- | ----------- | ------------ | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| By Name | 2-100 chars | `"Sheetz"` | Starts-with (case-insensitive) | Multiple results |
| By PA Filing Number | 10 digits | `0004272272` | Exact | Exact match returned first (matchType: id); other results may follow |
**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.
## Quirks & Gotchas
| Quirk | Details |
| ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Zero-padding is load-bearing** | Filing 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 snapshot** | The 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 register** | Pennsylvania does not publish shareholders or beneficial owners for any entity type. |
| **No activity codes** | The 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 separately** | Fictitious 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-text** | The `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 up** | The Subsistence Certificate (domestic good standing), written record search, and certified copies are paid (see [pricing](https://www.topograph.co/pricing)), ordered through the BFS portal, and delivered electronically or by mail from Harrisburg. These are not yet offered through Topograph. |
| **Annual reports are new** | The 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. |
## Mappings
### Legal Forms
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 Type | Standardized | ISO 20275 |
| --------------------------------------------- | ----------------------- | --------- |
| Domestic Limited Liability Company | LimitedLiabilityCompany | `2HBR` |
| Foreign Limited Liability Company | LimitedLiabilityCompany | |
| Domestic Business Corporation | Corporation | `ECSB` |
| Foreign Business Corporation | Corporation | |
| Domestic Nonprofit Corporation | NonprofitOrganization | |
| Foreign Nonprofit Corporation | NonprofitOrganization | |
| Domestic Limited Partnership (LP/LLLP) | Partnership | `LPNL` |
| Foreign Limited Partnership | Partnership | |
| Domestic General Partnership (GP/LLP) | Partnership | `LLP` |
| Foreign Limited Liability General Partnership | Partnership | |
| Domestic Business Trust | Trust | `XTIQ` |
| Foreign Business Trust | Trust | |
| Domestic Professional Association | Corporation | |
| Foreign Professional Association | Corporation | |
| Authority | Other | `XJHM` |
| Domestic Credit Union | CreditUnion | `CUSO` |
| Domestic Financial Institution | Other | |
| Domestic Land Bank | Other | |
### 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 Value | Standardized | Notes |
| ---------------- | -------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| President | President | 15 Pa.C.S. § 1732 statutory corporation officer |
| Vice President | VicePresident | |
| Secretary | Secretary | |
| Treasurer | Treasurer | |
| Governor | Director | LLC governor under 15 Pa.C.S. § 8847 |
| Organizer | Incorporator | LLC / corporation organizer |
| Member | Member | LLC member (member-managed LLCs) |
| Managing Member | Member | LLC managing-member variant |
| General Partner | GeneralPartner | Limited partnerships |
| Incorporator | Incorporator | |
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.
## Data Availability
| Data Point | Available | Notes |
| ----------------------- | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Company name | Yes | Current legal name |
| Company status | Roadmap | Read from the live Business Filing Services portal in a future release. The open-data snapshot does not carry a status field. |
| Registration date | Yes | BCCO initial filing date |
| Legal address | Yes | Street address, city, state, ZIP, county (67 Pennsylvania counties) |
| Legal form | Yes | Closed 18-value Title 15 vocabulary with ISO 20275 mapping where GLEIF publishes one |
| Legal representatives | Yes | Officers and governors with free-text titles, normalized by AI enrichment |
| Registered agent | Roadmap | Surfaced on the BFS portal detail page — not in the open-data snapshot |
| Activity codes | No | Not collected by the BCCO |
| Shareholders | No | Not published |
| UBOs | No | Not published (federal CTA / FinCEN is a separate system) |
| Documents | Roadmap | The printable Trade Register Extract and the Subsistence Certificate will ship alongside the live portal integration |
| Financial data | No | Not collected |
| Fictitious names (DBAs) | No | Registered separately under 54 Pa.C.S. § 311, not part of the business entity dataset |
## Example API Responses
### Search by Name
```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-PA&query=Sheetz" \
-H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"
```
```json theme={null}
[
{
"id": "0002911132",
"legalName": "SHEETZ AVIATION, INC.",
"countryCode": "US-PA",
"matchReason": {
"matchType": "default"
},
"address": {
"region": "PA",
"countryCode": "US"
}
}
]
```
### Search by Filing Number
```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-PA&query=0002911132" \
-H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"
```
```json theme={null}
[
{
"id": "0002911132",
"legalName": "SHEETZ AVIATION, INC.",
"countryCode": "US-PA",
"matchReason": {
"matchType": "id"
}
}
]
```
### Company Profile
```bash theme={null}
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"}'
```
```json theme={null}
{
"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": []
}
```