If you need French company data in your application, you may not need to pay anyone. The French State publishes its company data as open data, and two official APIs give free access to it. They're good, and many products should simply use them. This guide describes both honestly: what each one gives, how to call it, its limits, and the point at which teams usually look for something else.
Every limit and condition below comes from the APIs' own documentation, read on 9 October 2026.
What you'll learn
- The two official free APIs and the difference between them
- How to call each one, with a working example
- Their rate limits and access conditions
- What they deliberately leave out
- When a free API is enough, and when it isn't
Two official APIs, two jobs
France has one reference directory of companies and establishments, Sirene, kept by INSEE. Every company gets a SIREN (nine digits) and each of its establishments a SIRET (fourteen digits). Two public APIs expose it:
- API Recherche d'entreprises, run by the State's digital services, which powers the Annuaire des Entreprises website. It's designed to find a company by name, address, officer or number.
- INSEE's Sirene API, which serves the Sirene directory itself, with its full set of variables and history, for both companies and establishments.
If you only remember one thing: Recherche d'entreprises is the search engine, the Sirene API is the directory.
API Recherche d'entreprises
Access. No key and no account: the documentation calls it "totally open". You add your query to the address https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr and get JSON back.
Example. A search by number or name uses the /search endpoint:
curl "https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=441639465"There's also a /near_point endpoint for searching around a location.
Limits. According to the documentation, the API accepts at most 7 requests per second per IP address, with a limit of 30 requests per second per network (ASN), so teams on public clouds may hit it sooner. Beyond the limit, the server answers HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header. The documentation also says the 7 requests per second is a maximum, not a guaranteed rate, that access may be restricted during heavy use (with priority to internal systems and public services), and recommends sending an explicit User-Agent.
What's left out. By design, the API doesn't return non-diffusible companies (those whose owners have opposed the publication of their data) or companies whose registration in the trade register was refused. The documentation is also explicit that it doesn't give access to the complete Sirene data: it's a search tool. See why some companies don't appear in public searches.
INSEE's Sirene API
Access. Free, but you need an account on INSEE's API portal (portail-api.insee.fr) and a subscription to the API, which gives you an API key. According to INSEE, the use of the service is free and optional, and the key has no expiry date.
What you get. The Sirene directory's variables for legal units and establishments: identifiers, name, legal category, activity code (APE), address, status and its dates, and the history of these values.
Limits. INSEE's documentation sets the limit at 30 requests per minute for open-data use. That's plenty for checking a counterparty from time to time, and tight for bulk work. For bulk work, the whole Sirene base is also published as downloadable files on data.gouv.fr. According to INSEE, the API serves Sirene data updated daily, on nearly 25 million companies and 36 million establishments.
What's left out. Under INSEE's diffusion rules, the fields an individual entrepreneur has asked to protect (such as their name and exact address) aren't published in open data.
Side by side
| Recherche d'entreprises | Sirene API (INSEE) | |
|---|---|---|
| Account or key | Not needed | Free account and key |
| Main use | Find a company | Read the directory |
| Rate limit (documented) | 7 per second per IP | 30 per minute |
| Non-diffusible units | Not returned | Protected fields not published |
| Cost | Free | Free |
Both are free. Both are official. Both answer from the same reference directory, with different shapes and different limits.
What you still have to build
A free API gives you the data. Your product usually needs a bit more:
- Validation before the call. Check the SIREN's Luhn check digit locally and save a call on every typo. The code is in our guide to SIREN, SIRET and VAT formats.
- Rate-limit handling. Queue requests, respect
Retry-After, and back off. On a shared cloud IP, budget for less than the documented limit. - Normalisation. Status codes (A, C, F), legal category codes and activity codes are INSEE codes. Your users want "active", "SAS" and a readable activity label.
- A source and a date. If your product shows a status, it should show when it was checked. Store the time of each call next to its answer.
- Other countries. If you also work with Spanish companies, the data comes from a different system entirely: see the Spanish BORME explained.
When is a free API enough?
Often. If you check a few counterparties a day, look up a SIREN when a customer signs up, or prototype a feature, the official APIs are the right answer: they're free, official and well documented.
Teams usually look further when they need one or more of these: France and Spain in the same shape, higher or steadier volume than a public shared limit allows, a fixed contract for what a call returns, normalised fields across countries, or the source and check date attached to every field. For the questions to ask any data provider, see what to check in a company data API.
Fuentio builds on these official sources and will return French and Spanish companies in one format, with the source, its licence and the check date on every answer. It isn't open yet: join the waitlist below to hear the day it opens.
See what we cover in France and Spain.
Limits. Rate limits and access conditions come from the documentation of API Recherche d'entreprises and from INSEE, read on 9 October 2026; they can change, so check the documentation before you build. This guide describes official public services; it isn't affiliated with them.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free SIREN API?
Yes, two official ones: API Recherche d'entreprises, with no key, and INSEE's Sirene API, with a free key.
What is the rate limit of API Recherche d'entreprises?
At most 7 requests per second per IP address, and 30 per second per network, according to its documentation. Over the limit, it answers HTTP 429.
Why can't I find a company in the API?
It may be non-diffusible: the API doesn't return non-diffusible companies. Check the number with the company itself.
Can I download the whole Sirene base?
Yes. The Sirene base is published as files on data.gouv.fr.
Sources
- API Recherche d'entreprises, documentation (read on 9 October 2026): recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr
- INSEE API portal: portail-api.insee.fr
- INSEE, consulting and downloading the Sirene base: insee.fr
- Sirene base on data.gouv.fr: data.gouv.fr