Comms.ID ABN
Australian Business Register lookup
Look up an ABN or ACN, or search business names, in the Australian Business Register. Choose the register's weekly snapshot or the live register; each answer says which it came from. Free under fair use.
Try it
Quickstart
- Sign in to the Companion App and register your app. Enable ABN only; one product needs no other.
- Create your app's key pair on your server; Companion registers the public key.
- Call the API with a short-lived token signed by your key:
curl -X POST https://api.comms.id/abn/v1/lookup \
-H "authorization: Bearer $(npx comms-id token abn)" \
-H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"abn":"51 824 753 556"}'Reference: comms.id/docs/abn. For agents: llms.txt.
Operations
POST /abn/v1/lookup— Look up one business by ABN or ACN. The answer says which source gave it: the live register, or the snapshot with its date. Supply exactly one abn or acn, with optional mode; spaces and hyphens are ignored. A lookup reply may carry identifierState: { value, state, since?, successors? }. The value is digits only. The ABR establishes current or retired, or superseded with a recorded successor ABN. Dates are YYYY-MM-DD when supplied by the source. ACN lookups and unknown evidence omit the state.POST /abn/v1/suggest— Suggest registered business names from the snapshot for the start of a name, as the user types.
OpenAPI document: https://api.comms.id/abn/v1/openapi.json. Base URL https://api.comms.id.
Status and measured speed
- State
- checking…
- Measured reply
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- Data
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- Measured at
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Method: this site's server sends one real signed query at most once a minute and times it from request to reply. The figure includes the hop from this site to the service.
How it compares
Each cell below quotes the vendor's own public page, with the date it was read, including where each one sends personal information. Where a page does not say, the cell says so; nothing is inferred.
| Vendor | Australian Business Register coverage | Where personal information goes | Logs what you type | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Australian Business Register ABN Lookup web services | The register's own web services: ABN validation and data for your own applications, after registration for an authentication GUID. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Administered by three Australian government agencies. The ATO's policy says most personal information is kept in Australia, with overseas disclosure under tax treaties, and that its web analytics data is processed and stored in the USA. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | The ATO's policy says web server logs record visits (server address, date and time, pages accessed) and are not used to identify users except under a warrant; it says nothing about web-service queries. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Free of charge, after registration. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 |
CreditorWatch Business credit reports and monitoring | Business credit reports on Australian businesses, compiled by CreditorWatch as a credit reporting agency; not a register lookup on its own. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Servers in Australia; personal information is disclosed to service providers in Australia and overseas, including the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Website log files track actions on the site; personal information is kept for as long as the purpose needs it, or longer when the law requires. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Monthly plans: Basic $99 a month (10 monitors, 2 credit reports), Essentials $249, Premium $449; custom plans by contact. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 |
InfoTrack ASIC Search | ASIC company and business name searches from the ASIC Register as an approved information broker; the ABR itself is not named. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Stored and kept in Australia; disclosed in Australia to multinational organisations located in Australia and overseas (United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand); people overseas may read it to provide development services. Source · read on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Not stated on the vendor's privacy policy for the searches a user runs. Source · not stated on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 | Not stated on the ASIC Search page; it says to start searching or get started. Source · not stated on the vendor's page, read 2026-10-03 |
Coverage and limits
- Coverage: every ABN in the Australian Business Register, with its entity name, type, status, GST registration and main business location.
- The snapshot is the ABR's published bulk extract, refreshed weekly; a live lookup reads the register at the time of the call.
- An ABN lookup confirms registration. It is not proof of identity or of who controls the business.
- On this page, each visitor may make 10 requests per 10 seconds and 40 requests per 60 seconds. Over the limit, the reply is
429 FAIR_USE_CEILINGwithRetry-After. - A registered app starts with 150 requests for each product and each day (an owner's apps share one daily total). Over it, the reply is
429 FAIR_USE_CEILINGwithRetry-Afterand the reset time. A verified owner can ask for a higher ceiling in the Companion App. Every product is free under fair use.
Query privacy. The ABN, ACN or name you send is used only to answer that request. A live answer sends the identifier to the Australian Business Register (abr.business.gov.au); a snapshot answer is read from the copy stored in Australia. Comms.ID keeps no query text: request content is never logged, Worker logs are off, and usage counts record only the app, the product and the day.
ABN data: Australian Business Register, published by the Australian Taxation Office. Each live answer carries the register's attribution text.