Handelsregister API - German company register
Look up a German company by HRB and registering court, or by name, and get the Handelsregister entry back as JSON - registered office, legal form, officers and their representation powers. The Insolvenzbekanntmachungen announcements are queryable the same way, which is what makes continuous counterparty monitoring practical.
2 registers covered: Handelsregister, Insolvenzbekanntmachungen
Company data and officers from the German commercial register.
Insolvency proceedings from the German insolvency announcements register.
Handelsregister, Insolvenzbekanntmachungen
The Handelsregister is the German commercial register, maintained by the local courts (Amtsgerichte) and published through a shared federal portal. It carries the legal identity of a company, its registered office, its officers and their representation powers, plus the documents filed at each change.
German insolvency proceedings are published separately, in the Insolvenzbekanntmachungen announcements, within a set window of the court order. The two sources answer different questions: the Handelsregister tells you who a company is, the insolvency announcements tell you whether it is still safe to trade with.
Both are public and neither offers a general-purpose API for automated access, which is the gap our lookups fill.
Does the Handelsregister have an official API?
No general-purpose API is offered for automated company lookups. The portal is designed for interactive use, and document retrieval in particular is session-based. We handle that and return the register entry as structured JSON.
What is an HRB number?
HRB identifies an entry in section B of the Handelsregister, used for corporations such as the GmbH and AG. HRA is section A, used for sole traders and partnerships. The number is only unique within its registering court, so an HRB is properly written together with the court name.
Where are German insolvencies published?
In the Insolvenzbekanntmachungen, the official insolvency announcements published by the insolvency courts. Entries appear after the court order and remain publicly retrievable for a limited period, which is why continuous monitoring beats spot checks.