CH Range of data products

Information
#1

Hello,

I am quite confused by the information regarding the bulk data that can be provided by you. This page documents a list of data products that can be downloaded but while going through the streaming API documentation it was mentioned that a snapshot can be provided to apply the updates on.

In general, I couldn’t find any documentation about what kind of bulk data you can provide upon request. Do you by any chance have a list of all the available data that can be requested?

Best Regards,
P.M.

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#2

There are about 20 different products available by FTP. This is where they give you an SSH account to access their servers. These includes daily, weekly and monthly produced files for data such as liquidations, new company registrations, charges and mortgages.

There are a few files that are available for download from their website without using FTP. These are in CSV/JSON/XML format depending on the file. These include basic company information (CSV), persons with significant control (JSON), and accounts iXBRL.

The streaming API snapshots are not available.

Hope that helps.

#3

Thank you for the response! It’s much appreciated.

I am working on a graph based data analysis platform so I believe that I can make use of most of the data provided by FTP.

Who should I reach out to in order to access the 20 different by FTP?

Does the streaming API snapshot not being available mean that the API itself cannot be used? (Because it only returns incremental updates right?)

#4

The streaming API can still be very useful, even without the snapshots. For example it can be used to get updates when a company of interest makes a new filing. Also, you can use the basic company data CSV as a starting point, and update it with the streaming API.

As for the FTP products, you can contact customer care at Companies House and they can set you up with SSH which will give you access to all of the free data products on their server. I’ve made a little list of them here on a website I started: List of bulk data products | CH Guide . Sorry the website is not finished yet, but you might find that list useful to know whats possible to obtain.

Let me know if you find that useful, or if there’s anything missing that I can add.

You should also be aware that the data format used is proprietary, and not a common one like CSV or JSON. You will probably have to write a custom parser to read any of the files. More details about this on chguide. I can provide assistance if you need any advice on writing a parser.

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#5

This is super helpful! Thank you so much!