What are the best free tools to research private companies in 2026?

The best free tools are official public records. SEC EDGAR full-text search covers every electronic filing since 2001 (SEC, 2026), UK Companies House and US state registries show who a company is and who runs it, and CourtListener, USPTO, GLEIF and the Wayback Machine fill in lawsuits, patents, ownership and history.

Can you research a private company for free?

Yes, though you need to accept 2 limits. Private companies rarely publish full accounts, so most financial figures you find are estimates or ranges, and the records sit in many separate places. Public records are strongest on identity, ownership, fundraising, litigation and intellectual property. Our guide on how to research a private company sets out the full method and how long it takes.

How did we choose these tools?

Every tool on this list is free to search, run by a government, a regulator or a non-profit, or offers a free tier that is useful on its own. We ranked them by how often they answer the questions buyers and analysts ask first: does the company exist, who controls it, has it raised money, is it in court, what does it own. For each we note the main limit, and where a figure appears we give its source and date.

Which free tools are worth using?

1. SEC EDGAR

EDGAR is the SEC's filing database for US public companies, funds and private issuers.

• Price: free.
• Best for: Form D notices of private fundraising, filings of public acquirers that bought a private company, and Form ADV for fund managers. Full-text search covers filings since 2001 (SEC, 2026).
• Main gap: a Form D gives no valuation and no investor names. Our guide on how to read a Form D explains what it does show.

2. US state business registries

Every state runs a register of companies formed or registered there; Delaware matters most for venture-backed companies.

• Price: Delaware's basic entity search is free; a status check costs $10 and detailed information $20 (Delaware Division of Corporations, 2026).
• Best for: confirming the legal name, formation date and registered agent.
• Main gap: no financials, and officer details vary by state.

3. UK Companies House

Companies House is the UK register of companies, with filed accounts, officers and people with significant control.

• Price: free on the website; the public API is free with a key, limited to 600 requests every 5 minutes (Scoris, 2026).
• Best for: UK ownership, directors, filing history and accounts; a free follow service emails you when a company files (GOV.UK).
• Main gap: small companies often file accounts without revenue figures.

4. OpenCorporates

OpenCorporates collects company register data from many countries into one search.

• Price: free to search the website; API and bulk use for commercial purposes need a paid licence.
• Best for: finding a company across jurisdictions. It reports about 200 million or more records from 140 or more jurisdictions, figures a comparison describes as self-reported (InfobelPRO, August 2026).
• Main gap: freshness depends on each register's feed.

5. GLEIF

GLEIF publishes the global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) register, with each entity's legal name, address and, where reported, its parents.

• Price: free.
• Best for: confirming a legal entity and its direct and ultimate parent. The active LEI population passed 3.1 million on 30 June 2026 (GLEIF, July 2026).
• Main gap: only entities that need an LEI, usually for financial transactions, have one. Our guide on how to find a company's LEI shows the steps.

6. CourtListener

CourtListener is the Free Law Project's free search of court opinions and federal dockets, including its RECAP archive of PACER documents.

• Price: free.
• Best for: lawsuits, bankruptcies and judgments involving a company or its founders. By 2017 it held about 3.4 million free PACER orders and opinions (Free Law Project, 2017).
• Main gap: not every federal docket is in RECAP, and state court coverage is partial.

7. USPTO Patent Public Search

The US Patent and Trademark Office's free search tool replaced PatFT and AppFT in 2022 (USPTO, 2022).

• Price: free.
• Best for: what a technology company has patented or applied for, and who the inventors are.
• Main gap: assignee names are not standardised, so search name variants.

8. Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine stores past versions of web pages.

• Price: free.
• Best for: tracking how a company described its products, team, customers and pricing over time. It passed 1 trillion archived pages in October 2025 (Wikipedia, 2026).
• Main gap: coverage of a small company's site can be sparse, and some news publishers began blocking it by February 2026.

9. Tamarly Intelligence, Free plan

Tamarly Intelligence is Tamarly's research platform on companies, funds, countries and markets, built from official filings and open data.

• Price: Free plan at $0, with section homes, 10 fully verified pages and 10 Brain questions a month; Level 3 free for 7 days, no card.
• Best for: seeing several of the records above joined on one company page, with every figure linked to the filing or record it came from.
• Main gap: the Free plan's monthly limits; no investor names on private rounds and no market prices on any plan.

How do the free tools compare?

Prices above are reported by third parties, several of which sell competing tools. Check current terms with each vendor.

When should you keep a paid private company database?

Keep a paid database such as PitchBook or Preqin if you need investor names on private rounds, valuations, fund performance benchmarks or LP commitment data, none of which free public records reliably provide. Free tools win when your questions are about identity, ownership, fundraising notices, litigation and patents, and when you research a few companies a week rather than screening thousands. For a ranked list of paid options, see our PitchBook alternatives.

Where does Tamarly Intelligence fit?

Tamarly Intelligence reads the same free and open sources: SEC EDGAR (including Form D, 13F and Form ADV), European ESEF filings, GLEIF, UK Companies House, the Federal Register, FRED, CourtListener, GDELT and the official OFAC, UK, EU and UN sanctions lists. It covers 19,910 company pages, 2,888 funds and 15,359 fund managers, and when it does not cover a company it says so. The Free plan gives 10 fully verified pages and 10 Brain questions a month. Level 2, at $145 a month, opens every company, fund, country, commodity, sector and deal page, and lets you have Tamarly research a company from your portfolio and build a sourced profile of it.

Start on the Free plan, or try Level 3 free for 7 days

Frequently asked questions

How can I find a private company's revenue for free?

Usually you cannot find an exact figure. UK companies file accounts at Companies House, though small ones often omit revenue; US private companies publish none, and a Form D shows revenue only as an optional range. Acquirers' SEC filings sometimes disclose a target's revenue after a deal.

Is there a free alternative to PitchBook?

No free tool matches PitchBook's fund and deal data. SEC EDGAR, state registries and Companies House cover fundraising notices and ownership for free, and Tamarly Intelligence's Free plan joins those records on company pages at $0.

Is OpenCorporates free to use?

Searching the OpenCorporates website is free. Commercial use of its API or bulk data requires a paid licence, and free API access is offered to journalists, NGOs and academics (Mohn Westlake Foundation).

About the author. Melvine Manchau is the founder of Tamarly and author of the Tamarly Newsletter. He previously worked at PwC, Salesforce, BlackRock/eFront and Lazard.

About Tamarly Research. Tamarly Research is part of Tamarly Media, which holds no investment positions. Tamarly is a New York research house that studies how AI is changing regulated institutions.