Business verification

Business verification lets you confirm that a customer’s business details match official Canadian registry records. Submit the data you have and get back field-level match results with an AI analyst summary.

How it works

You submit business details (legal name, jurisdiction, registration number, and optionally address and people)
The API fetches fresh data from the relevant provincial or federal business registry
Each field is compared against the registry data with configurable similarity thresholds
An AI analyst summary is generated for compliance review

Synchronous vs asynchronous

When a fresh registry lookup is required, POST /verify responds with 202 Accepted and a reportFetchId instead of the full result:

{
  "pending": true,
  "reportFetchId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "status": "pending",
  "statusUrl": "/v1/verify/a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890"
}

Poll GET /verify/{id} (using the reportFetchId) until it returns the completed result. The poll endpoint always returns 200; branch on the body:

Pending — { "pending": true, "status": "pending" | "processing" | "waiting_for_registry" } — keep polling.
Failed — { "status": "failed", "error": "<reason>" }.
Completed — the full verification response (the shape shown under Response).

When a recent cached registry report is available, POST /verify returns the completed result synchronously with 200. Always branch on the HTTP status (or the presence of pending: true) rather than assuming 200.

import requests, time

API_KEY = "cur_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"}

resp = requests.post(
    "https://api.getcurrent.ca/v1/verify",
    headers=HEADERS,
    json={"legalName": "Shopify Inc.", "jurisdiction": "ON", "registrationNumber": "2033076"},
)

result = resp.json()
if resp.status_code == 202:  # async — poll until complete
    poll_url = f"https://api.getcurrent.ca{result['statusUrl']}"
    while True:
        result = requests.get(poll_url, headers=HEADERS).json()
        if result.get("status") == "failed":
            raise RuntimeError(result["error"])
        if not result.get("pending"):
            break  # completed
        time.sleep(3)

print(result["results"]["status"])

Request

curl -X POST https://api.getcurrent.ca/v1/verify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer cur_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "legalName": "Shopify Inc.",
    "jurisdiction": "ON",
    "registrationNumber": "2033076"
  }'

Required fields

Field	Type	Description
`legalName`	string	Legal name of the business to verify
`jurisdiction`	string	Canadian jurisdiction code or full name
`registrationNumber`	string	Registration number from the provincial/federal registry

These three become optional when you reference a stored business record with businessId or businessExternalId (see below) — they’re hydrated from the record.

Optional fields

Field	Type	Description
`businessId`	string	Verify one of your stored business records by our id. Hydrates the identity fields (and address/people) from the record, so those become optional. Unknown/foreign id → `404`.
`businessExternalId`	string	Same as `businessId`, but reference the record by your own id on it (its `external_id`). Unknown id → `404` (never creates). If both ids are given they must point at the same record, else `400`.
`address`	object	Address to verify (`street`, `city`, `province`, `postalCode`, `country`)
`people`	array	People to verify (each with `name` and `role`). People matching is on by default and affects the result `status`; control it via `matching.people` (`enabled: false` to skip, `impactsVerification: false` to keep it informational).
`externalId`	string	Your own reference id for this verification (e.g. a CRM record id). Recorded as metadata on the verification result so you can find verifications by your own identifiers — it is not a business lookup and never modifies the business record. To reference a stored business by your own id, use `businessExternalId`.
`matching`	object	Per-field threshold overrides (see below)

Jurisdictions

Accepts codes or full names: AB, BC, MB, NB, NL, NS, NT, NU, ON, PE, QC, SK, YT, FED (or “Ontario”, “British Columbia”, “Federal”, etc.)

Matching thresholds

Matching is governed by your account’s verification settings; a per-request matching object overrides them for that call. If you haven’t customized your settings, the defaults are:

Field	Default threshold	Behavior
`legalName`	`0.95`	Fuzzy match (normalization applied)
`registrationNumber`	`1.0`	Exact match
`address`	`0.95`	Fuzzy match
`people`	`0.95`	Enabled by default, and affects the result `status`

A threshold of 1.0 requires an exact (normalized) match; lower values allow proportionally fuzzier matches. Override any subset per request:

{
  "matching": {
    "legalName": { "threshold": 0.85 },
    "registrationNumber": { "threshold": 1.0 },
    "address": { "threshold": 0.85 },
    "people": {
      "enabled": true,
      "threshold": 0.85,
      "impactsVerification": false,
      "requiredMatchLevel": "all_matched"
    },
    "normalization": { "enabled": true }
  }
}

When normalization.enabled is true (the default), values are normalized before comparison — corporate suffixes are stripped, abbreviations expanded, postal codes standardized, etc. Set to false for strict character-for-character comparison.

Response

{
  "meta": {
    "verificationId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
    "verifiedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    "duration": 24318,
    "submitted": { ... },
    "matching": { ... }
  },
  "results": {
    "status": "verified",
    "fields": {
      "legalName": {
        "status": "matched",
        "score": 1.0,
        "provided": "Shopify Inc.",
        "registry": "SHOPIFY INC."
      },
      "registrationNumber": {
        "status": "matched",
        "score": 1.0,
        "provided": "2033076",
        "registry": "2033076"
      },
      "status": {
        "status": "not_submitted",
        "score": 0,
        "provided": null,
        "registry": "Active"
      },
      "businessNumber": {
        "status": "not_submitted",
        "score": 0,
        "provided": null,
        "registry": null
      },
      "entityType": {
        "status": "not_submitted",
        "score": 0,
        "provided": null,
        "registry": "Corporation"
      },
      "address": {
        "status": "not_submitted",
        "score": 0,
        "fields": {
          "street": null,
          "city": null,
          "province": null,
          "postalCode": null,
          "country": null
        }
      },
      "people": {
        "status": "not_submitted",
        "impactsVerification": true,
        "matches": []
      }
    },
    "analystSummary": "The business name and registration number match..."
  },
  "registryData": {
    "legalName": "SHOPIFY INC.",
    "registrationNumber": "2033076",
    "jurisdiction": "Ontario",
    "status": "Active",
    "addresses": [ ... ],
    "people": [ ... ]
  }
}

results.fields always includes legalName, registrationNumber, status, businessNumber, entityType, and address; a field you didn’t submit comes back with status: "not_submitted" (its registry value is still populated when the registry has one). address is always an object (with a nested fields breakdown), never null. people is present whenever people matching is enabled (the default) — even with no people submitted, where it reports not_submitted with an empty matches array — and is omitted entirely only when you disable it (matching.people.enabled: false).

Result status

Status	Meaning
`verified`	All checked fields meet their thresholds
`not_verified`	One or more fields failed their threshold check

Field match status

Scalar identity fields (legalName, registrationNumber, status, businessNumber, entityType):

Status	Meaning
`matched`	Score meets or exceeds the threshold
`not_matched`	Score is below the threshold
`not_submitted`	The field was not provided in the request

People matching

People matching is on by default — you don’t need to set enabled: true. When you submit people, they’re compared against the registry and, by default, the result affects the overall status. Control it via matching.people: set enabled: false to skip it entirely (the people field is then omitted), or impactsVerification: false to keep it informational (reported but not affecting status). Each submitted person is compared against registry directors/officers. The people result includes a unified matches array containing both submitted and registry-only people:

Submitted people not found in the registry have registry: null
Registry people not in your submitted list have provided: null

Common patterns

Verify a stored business record

Reference a business you’ve already stored — its legal name, jurisdiction, registration number (and address/people) are hydrated from the record. Use our id (businessId) or your own id on the record (businessExternalId).

{
  "businessId": "11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111111"
}

{
  "businessExternalId": "acct_1Nxxx"
}

Supply any field alongside the reference to override it for this verification only (the stored record is never modified).

Verify with address

{
  "legalName": "Shopify Inc.",
  "jurisdiction": "ON",
  "registrationNumber": "2033076",
  "address": {
    "street": "150 Elgin St",
    "city": "Ottawa",
    "province": "Ontario",
    "postalCode": "K2P 1L4"
  },
  "matching": {
    "legalName": { "threshold": 0.85 },
    "address": { "threshold": 0.80 }
  }
}

Verify with people

{
  "legalName": "Shopify Inc.",
  "jurisdiction": "ON",
  "registrationNumber": "2033076",
  "people": [
    { "name": "Tobias Lutke", "role": "Director" }
  ],
  "matching": {
    "people": {
      "enabled": true,
      "threshold": 0.85,
      "impactsVerification": true
    }
  }
}

Overview

Guides

Concepts

API Reference

Changelog

Releases

How it works

Synchronous vs asynchronous

Request

Required fields

Optional fields

Jurisdictions

Matching thresholds

Response

Result status

Field match status

People matching

Common patterns

Verify a stored business record

Verify with address

Verify with people

​How it works

​Synchronous vs asynchronous

​Request

​Required fields

​Optional fields

​Jurisdictions

​Matching thresholds

​Response

​Result status

​Field match status

​People matching

​Common patterns

​Verify a stored business record

​Verify with address

​Verify with people

How it works

Synchronous vs asynchronous

Request

Required fields

Optional fields

Jurisdictions

Matching thresholds

Response

Result status

Field match status

People matching

Common patterns

Verify a stored business record

Verify with address

Verify with people