What's the difference between an ABN and an ACN?

An ABN (Australian Business Number) is the 11-digit identifier for any business, including sole traders and trusts. An ACN (Australian Company Number) is the 9-digit identifier ASIC assigns specifically to companies. Companies have both.

Are trading names current?

No. The ABR stopped collecting and updating trading names in May 2012, so trading names are historical and carry no legal status. Use the registered business names and entity name for current identity.

Can I get all Australian businesses in a state or industry?

You can browse by entity type (company, sole trader, trust, etc.), state/territory and GST registration. The ABR public data does not include industry/ANZSIC codes.

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How to look up Australian company data: ABN, ACN & the Business Register

Q: Is ABN Lookup / ABR data free?

Yes. The Australian Business Register publishes the ABN Lookup data under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence — free to use, including commercially, with attribution.

Every Australian business has an 11-digit ABN registered in the Australian Business Register (ABR). Here's how to pull a business's entity type, status, GST registration, registered business names and location as clean JSON — for KYC, due diligence and supplier verification.

ABN vs ACN

The ABN (Australian Business Number) is the 11-digit identifier for any business — including sole traders and trusts. The ACN (Australian Company Number) is the 9-digit identifier ASIC assigns to companies specifically; companies have both. The ABN is the reliable lookup key.

What data can you get?

Identity — ABN, ACN, entity name, registered business names, trading names (historical).
Status — ABN status (active / cancelled) and the date it took effect.
Type — entity type (e.g. private/public company, individual/sole trader, trust, super fund).
Tax — GST registration status and date.
Location — state/territory and postcode of the main business location.

The easy way (by name, ABN/ACN or category)

The ABR offers an official weekly bulk extract (~12 GB of XML), but loading it yourself is heavy. Instead, the Australia Company Data scraper on Apify streams the current week's official data and returns matching businesses — no API key, no GUID, exportable to JSON / CSV / Excel.

Type names (e.g. Qantas, Bunnings) — matched across entity, business & trading names; or
Paste exact ABNs / ACNs for guaranteed matches; or
Browse by category — list businesses by entity type, state/territory and GST registration.

Use cases: KYC & supplier verification, GST-registration checks, due diligence on Australian vendors, and building targeted lists of Australian businesses by type & state.

Open the Australia Company Data scraper →

Is it legal?

It reads the public ABN Lookup data published by the Australian Business Register under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. Verify your use complies with that licence and Australian privacy law.