GLEIF LEI Lookup API: Resolve Legal Entity Identifiers Without an API Key

Every regulated financial transaction, cross-border contract, and counterparty verification eventually hits the same question: who, legally, is this company? The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) answers it. The GLEIF LEI Lookup actor gives you programmatic access to the entire GLEIF registry — no API key, no account setup, no rate-limit negotiations.

What is a Legal Entity Identifier?

An LEI is a 20-character alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies a legal entity participating in financial transactions. Mandated by regulators across the EU (MiFID II, EMIR), the UK, and beyond, LEIs are the closest thing financial markets have to a universal company ID.

The GLEIF (Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation) maintains the authoritative global registry of all issued LEIs — over 2.4 million entities as of 2026.

What the actor returns

For each entity, the actor returns:

• LEI code — the 20-character identifier
• Legal name — the registered legal name, not the trading name
• Entity form — SOLE_PROPRIETOR, PARTNERSHIP, LIMITED_LIABILITY_COMPANY, etc.
• Jurisdiction — the country or subdivision of incorporation
• Legal and headquarters addresses — full structured address
• Operational status — ACTIVE, INACTIVE, ANNULLED
• BIC codes — SWIFT/BIC codes where available (useful for banking entities)
• Registration authority — which local registry issued the LEI
• Entity category — BRANCH, FUND, SOLE_PROPRIETOR, or GENERAL

Two search modes

Search by company name — pass any company name and the actor searches the GLEIF registry, returning the closest matches. Useful when you have a name from a contract or invoice and need to resolve it to a verified legal entity.

Search by LEI code — pass a known LEI to retrieve the full entity record. Useful for enrichment pipelines where upstream systems already carry LEI codes.

Use cases

KYB and counterparty verification — before onboarding a business partner, resolve their LEI to confirm legal name, jurisdiction, and active status. Combine with the Company KYB Resolver to cross-check LEI against EU VAT and SEC EDGAR in one call.

Financial compliance pipelines — MiFID II and EMIR require LEI codes on transaction reports. Use the actor to validate or enrich LEI fields before submission.

Fund administration — identify investment vehicles, sub-funds, and umbrella structures. GLEIF includes fund entities with full hierarchy data.

Procurement and supplier onboarding — verify that a supplier’s registered legal name matches their invoice name before releasing payment.

Data enrichment — bulk-resolve company names from CRM or contract databases to their LEIs, then use those LEIs as stable foreign keys across datasets.

Running it via MCP in Claude

search by name: "Deutsche Bank"
search by LEI: "7LTWFZYICNSX8D621K86"
maxResults: 10

No credentials needed. The actor calls the GLEIF public REST API directly.

Pricing

Free to run — you pay only for Apify compute time. The GLEIF registry is publicly accessible and the actor makes no paid API calls.

Run GLEIF LEI Lookup on Apify →