# /dc/companies

`POST /api/dc/companies`

Price: 1 credit

Get a Washington DC business entity from the DLCP corporate registry by its Initial File No.: legal name, file number, legal form, Domestic or Foreign registration, entity status, effective date, foreign date of organization, next biennial report due date, date and timestamp of the last report filed, business address and registered agent with the agent's address.

## How to use it

Get one Washington DC business entity by its Initial File No. (e.g. '963942', 'L00008493685', 'P03632', 'US-DC-LL022601161'). Returns id and entity_number (both the Initial File No.), name, legal_form (e.g. 'Domestic Limited Liability Company'), region (Domestic/Foreign), status (e.g. 'Active - In Good Standing', 'Revoked'), effective_date, foreign_organization_date, annual_report_due_date, last_annual_report_filed_date, last_annual_report_filed_at, address and registered_agent. Dates are ISO YYYY-MM-DD; last_annual_report_filed_at is the same filing as an ISO-8601 timestamp in US Eastern time, which usually carries the time of day the report was filed. foreign_organization_date is the registry's date of organization and is carried by most Foreign entities and by well over half of Domestic ones, so its presence does not mean the entity is foreign — read region for that. A handful of file numbers are shared by two registry records and then return both. Use dc/companies/search to find the Initial File No. by name.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `company` (string, required) — Initial File No. of the entity (examples: "963942", "L00008493685", "US-DC-LL022601161"; minLength: 1)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "DcCompany")
- `id` (string, required)
- `entity_number` (string, nullable)
- `name` (string, required)
- `legal_form` (string, nullable)
- `region` (string, nullable)
- `status` (string, nullable)
- `effective_date` (string, nullable)
- `foreign_organization_date` (string, nullable)
- `annual_report_due_date` (string, nullable)
- `last_annual_report_filed_date` (string, nullable)
- `last_annual_report_filed_at` (string, nullable)
- `address` (object, nullable)
  - `@type` (string) (default: "DcAddress")
  - `street` (string, nullable)
  - `street2` (string, nullable)
  - `city` (string, nullable)
  - `state` (string, nullable)
  - `province` (string, nullable)
  - `zip` (string, nullable)
  - `postal_code` (string, nullable)
  - `country` (string, nullable)
  - `county` (string, nullable)
  - `full` (string, nullable)
- `registered_agent` (object, nullable)
  - `@type` (string) (default: "DcRegisteredAgent")
  - `name` (string, nullable)
  - `address` (object, nullable)
    - `@type` (string) (default: "DcAddress")
    - `street` (string, nullable)
    - `street2` (string, nullable)
    - `city` (string, nullable)
    - `state` (string, nullable)
    - `province` (string, nullable)
    - `zip` (string, nullable)
    - `postal_code` (string, nullable)
    - `country` (string, nullable)
    - `county` (string, nullable)
    - `full` (string, nullable)

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

The request body did not validate

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

Entity not found (well-formed but unknown Initial File No.)

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.