French company search

Reads the public company search service of the French government. It returns plain JSON over GET and needs no credentials. The data is published under the Licence Ouverte 2.0, which allows reuse if you name the source and the date of the last update.

Author: Don Mangu (GitHub). This skill needs no token and calls only the public endpoint. For lists of hundreds or thousands of companies, the author also runs a paid hosted version on the Apify Store: French Company Search API (disclosure: the author owns it). You never need it for the steps below.

Example prompts

• "What is the legal form, NAF code and size of the French company with SIREN 652014051?"
• "Find the active French company behind the brand Doctolib and tell me its head office city and latest revenue."
• "List three software companies (NAF 62.01Z) with a head office in postal code 75008."

Out of scope: "Who runs this company?" or "Find the owner's name". This skill never collects names of people. "Give me every company in Paris" is out of scope too, because the service returns at most 10,000 results for one search.

Step 1: pick the search

Step 2: send one request

Send one request at a time, at most one per second, with a User-Agent that names the tool.

curl -s -A "french-company-search-skill (+https://github.com/donmangudata-ops)" \
  "https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=652014051&est_entrepreneur_individuel=false&minimal=true&include=siege,finances,complements,tva&per_page=5"

Always keep these parts:

• est_entrepreneur_individuel=false leaves out sole proprietors, whose company name is the name of a person.
• minimal=true&include=siege,finances,complements,tva keeps the answer to company data. Do not add dirigeants: that field lists people.
• per_page is 25 at most, page starts at 1, and results stop at 10,000 per search.

Useful filters, all optional and comma-separated where several values make sense: activite_principale (NAF code such as 62.01Z), departement, code_postal, nature_juridique (legal form, 5710 is SAS), categorie_entreprise (PME, ETI or GE), tranche_effectif_salarie (employee band), ca_min and ca_max (revenue in euros), etat_administratif (A for active, C for ceased).

A 400 answer carries a French erreur message. Read it and fix the request; do not retry unchanged. A 429 or repeated 5xx means stop and tell the user.

Step 3: read the answer

Real run for SIREN 652014051, reduced with jq:

jq '.results[0] | {siren, name: .nom_complet, legal_form: .nature_juridique, naf: .activite_principale, size: .categorie_entreprise, postal_code: .siege.code_postal, city: .siege.libelle_commune, vat: .tva[0], revenue: (.finances | to_entries | max_by(.key) | {year: .key, ca: .value.ca, net: .value.resultat_net})}'

{
  "siren": "652014051",
  "name": "CARREFOUR",
  "legal_form": "5599",
  "naf": "64.20Z",
  "size": "GE",
  "postal_code": "91300",
  "city": "MASSY",
  "vat": "FR14652014051",
  "revenue": { "year": "2025", "ca": 81149000000, "net": 0 }
}

Real run for three software companies with a postal code filter of 75008 (activite_principale=62.01Z&code_postal=75008&etat_administratif=A&per_page=3), printed with jq -r:

total_results: 4672
394026934	EXPERIS FRANCE (EXPERIS)	GE	44300
849239587	SNAPDESK (SNAPDESK)	PME	75010
851035329	CHAPSVISION	ETI	92150

Look at the last column. The service applies place filters to every establishment of a company, so the head office postal code can be elsewhere. Say so, or check siege.code_postal and keep only the rows the user meant. total_results is capped at 10,000, so a large number means "at least that many".

ca is revenue and resultat_net is net income, in euros, for the latest year the company filed accounts. Many small companies publish none: say "no accounts published", never estimate. Report the date you read the data.

Rules

• Public endpoint only. No login, no cookies, no CAPTCHA handling, no proxies, no attempts around blocks.
• One request per second, one at a time. The service allows up to 7 per second; stay far below that.
• Company-level information only. Do not request or report officers, directors, birth dates or any person's name, even if a field offers them.
• Skip sole proprietors. If a result has legal form 1000 or any code starting with 1, leave it out.
• Name the source (the French government company search service, SIRENE data) and the licence when you pass results on.
• Say what you could not check: an empty answer, a company that asked not to be listed (it is not in the service), or a request that returned an error.

Limits

This skill covers one search at a time and the first 10,000 results of it. It does not read company accounts documents, shareholders, trademarks or court notices, and it covers French companies only. A name search ranks by relevance and can return related entities, so confirm the SIREN before you rely on a match.