The Business Census dataset contains information on companies registered in the UK. The data are provided by Fusion Data Science, producing a database since May 2012 to provide a history of company formations, dissolutions and other events that are hidden in normal monthly snapshots. Some pre-2012 data are also included, but it may be missing some fields, values, and may not be in an annual snapshot format.

The database contains all 10+ million companies, and other corporate entities, which have existed since that time rather than the ~5 million contained in the Companies House data snapshots. More details can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ companies-house

This is the Version 11 release- mid-2024.

Content and Size of the Data

This data are available at address level.

• Columns: 33 (yearly snapshots)
• Rows: 10362117 (company source file) 5327489 (2023 snapshot)

These data are provided in a series of annual snapshots and in the original format. Annual snapshots of the data record, the companies present as of 31 March of a particular year in a flattened CSV file (except their SIC codes which are as of 1 April of the year). The original data are organised in 12 tables, with the company table as the central table and the rest linked to the company table via companyID.

The variables include: Company Number, Country Of Origin, Dissolution Date, Incorporation Date, Accounting Ref Day, Accounting Ref Month, Account Next Due Date, Account Last Made Update, Account Category, Careof, Po Box, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Post Town, County, Country, Postcode, Company Category, Company Name, Num General Partners, Num Limited Partners, Company Status, Num Mortgage Charges, Num Mortgage Outstanding, Num Mortgage Part Satisfied, Num Mortgage Satisfied, SIC Code, SIC Description, Return Next Due Date, Return Last Made Update, Confirmation Next Due Date, Confirmation Last Made Update.

For detailed description of the columns contained within the data, see the Variable Dictionary; and for an overview of the characteristics of the data, see the Data Summary. These files can be downloaded from the bottom of this page. For Excel files and main non-year data files see the Metadata ZIP file. For details on the Companies House data by Fusion Data Science, see the links below in the related sources.

Quality, Representation and Bias

The data should contain a complete listing of the UK’s companies, and therefore should be fully representative with no bias. Some data are self-supplied by the companies lists and quality can vary.