# Identifying a company's beneficial owners

This is the topic where the honest answer depends entirely on the country, and where many services keep things vague. In Europe, the public availability of beneficial-ownership registers was profoundly challenged by the 2022 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. As a result, what is available varies from state to state, and must be stated state by state.

## Country by country, without rounding

| Country | What is available | What Sirenic serves |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **United Kingdom** | Open PSC register (Companies House), Open Government Licence v3.0 | Live: individual and corporate controllers, natures of control (ownership and voting bands), notification dates, official statements. Month and year of birth only, no addresses. |
| **Latvia** | Open national register, CC0 open data, refreshed daily | 198,476 registered beneficial owners: name, nationality, country of residence, registration date. Never the Latvian personal identity number; birth month and year only where published. |
| **France** | Register **closed to the public** since the 2022 ruling | No register. Instead: ownership as it appears in **publicly filed articles of association**, extracted from the latest available deed, with a confidence level and the document reference. |
| **Belgium** | Register **behind authorisation** | None. The Belgian register is closed to unauthorised access — including for our competitors, as can be checked in their own responses, where the field comes back empty. |

> ⚠️ For **France**, Sirenic exposes **no beneficial-ownership register**: it has not been publicly accessible since the 2022 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. What we serve is ownership as it appears in **publicly filed deeds** (articles of association), with a confidence level and the source document reference. That is not a beneficial-ownership register and does not replace one.

## The French route: filed deeds, with their limits

`/v1/entreprise/{siren}/capital` reads the **latest publicly filed deed** and extracts share capital, legal form, shareholders (name, role, birth year, ownership percentage) and notable clauses, with a confidence level and the source document reference.

A proof guard frames that extraction: a clause is served only if its keyword actually appears in the document's text. That guard is not theoretical — it was added after a non-existent pre-emption clause was produced for a real company.

> ⚠️ Filed articles can be **old** and reflect only what was published: an unpublished share transfer does not appear. The document is immutable, so it is extracted once and cached. Read it as a dated exhibit, never as the current shareholding.

## How we handle individuals

- Never a full date of birth: **year only**, or month and year where the source publishes them.
- Never a home address, never a national identity number.
- When in doubt between an individual and a legal entity: **we omit**. Resolving that doubt at random publishes personal data by mistake.

## How you pay

Every route is paid **per call**, in USDC or EURC on the Base network, over the x402 protocol: no account to create, no API key, no subscription. The first call returns a `402` quote your client settles, then replays the call. A failed call is never billed.

Would you rather have a euro invoice and prepaid credits? That is **in preparation**, and we will not announce a date until it is open. Write to [contact@sirenic.eu](mailto:contact@sirenic.eu?subject=Euro%20credit%20packs) and we will let you know when it opens.

Paid responses are **Ed25519-signed**: you can later prove what was served to you, and when. The whole catalogue is free to read in the [OpenAPI document](https://api.sirenic.eu/openapi.json) and in [llms.txt](https://api.sirenic.eu/llms.txt).

**One call, end to end**

```
# Client x402 (npm) — le devis 402 est réglé et l'appel rejoué automatiquement
npx x402-fetch https://api.sirenic.eu/v1/entreprise/552032534

# Ou en MCP, dans Claude Code / Cursor
claude mcp add --transport http sirenic https://api.sirenic.eu/mcp
```

## Routes used and pricing

| Route | Price | What it returns |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `/v1/eu/entreprise/GB/{company_number}/beneficiaires-effectifs` | $0.02 | UK beneficial owners (PSC, persons with significant control) live from Companies House for AML, KYB and compliance: individual and corporate-entity PSCs with natures of control (ownership/voting bands), notification dates, plus official PSC statements. Ceased PSCs excluded by default (inclure_cesses=true adds them with their ceased date). Beyond French-registry parity — France exposes no open UBO register. Month+year of birth only, no addresses. Open Government Licence v3.0 (Companies House). |
| `/v1/eu/entreprise/LV/{regnr}/beneficiaires-effectifs` | $0.02 | Latvian beneficial owners (patiesie labuma guvēji) from the official Uzņēmumu reģistrs open data (CC0, refreshed daily), for AML, KYB and compliance ownership checks: registered UBOs in Latvia with name, nationality, country of residence and registration date — an open national UBO register, depth France does not expose. GDPR minimisation: never the Latvian personal identity number, birth month+year only when published. 11-digit registration number. |
| `/v1/entreprise/{siren}/capital` | $0.35 | Ownership and share capital structure of a French company from the official INPI registry: AI extraction of the latest PUBLIC articles of association filed at INPI — share capital amount, legal form, shareholders (name, role, birth YEAR, ownership %), notable clauses, with a confidence level and the source document reference. Due diligence from public filed deeds — NOT a beneficial-ownership register (RBE) and not a beneficial-owner identification. Immutable document: extracted once, cached. |

> ⚠️ The ownership data served for France is not a beneficial-ownership register and does not replace one: the French register has not been publicly accessible since the 2022 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. What is served comes from publicly filed deeds.

## Frequently asked questions

### Why not expose a French register like others do?

Because it is no longer public. Serving it would require an authorisation we do not hold, or a source of doubtful legality. We prefer a stated absence to a field filled without a basis.

### Are ceased UK controllers included?

Not by default. Add inclure_cesses=true to get them, with their cessation date — useful to reconstruct a past ownership chain.

## Take it further

- [See a real response (free)](https://api.sirenic.eu/exemples/eu-entreprise-GB-company_number-beneficiaires-effectifs.json)
- [Get the quote for /v1/eu/entreprise/GB/{company_number}/beneficiaires-effectifs](https://api.sirenic.eu/v1/eu/entreprise/GB/{company_number}/beneficiaires-effectifs)
- [Read the route reference](https://api.sirenic.eu/en/api)
- [Get notified about euro packs](mailto:contact@sirenic.eu?subject=Euro%20credit%20packs)

## Read next

- [Automating business verification (KYB)](https://api.sirenic.eu/en/use-cases/kyb-automated-business-verification-with-per-block)
- [Querying European company registers](https://api.sirenic.eu/en/use-cases/european-company-data-thirteen-official-registers-one-schema)

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Volume figures on this page were measured in our database on 2026-08-19. They are dated snapshots, not live counters.

Full catalogue : https://api.sirenic.eu/