Find CCJs, winding-up petitions, and credit events. Analyse company credit risk, determine credit scores (R-Score).
Search across every company registered in England & Wales, free for the vast majority.
We believe that public data should always be free. In the age of Superior Intelligence the analysis to turn that data into value should also be free for the vast majority.
Black Flag Alert ingests, parses and cross-references the UK public record directly: Companies House iXBRL accounts, HMCTS court judgments, Gazette insolvency notices, HMRC border import declarations and tax tribunal decisions across England & Wales.
Filter by risk domain below. Order: Black Flag Alert (free) → Company Watch (from £10,000/yr) → RedFlag Alert (from £6,480/yr).
| Capability & Live Dataset Size | Black Flag Alert£0 · Free for everyone | Company WatchFrom £10,000/yr + VAT | RedFlag AlertFrom £6,480/yr + VAT |
|---|---|---|---|
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HMRC Border Import Risk Profile 14,013 importers · 111.5K rows
Decodes HMRC Overseas Trade Statistics per company across 23 VAT-fraud commodity classes (vapes, cosmetics, phones, soft drinks, alcohol).
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✓ Included Free Shows exact commodity classes imported plus flags for importing within months of incorporation or while accounts are overdue. | ✕ Not offered No HMRC border or commodity trade feed in any published plan. | ✕ Not offered Absent from their published 90-signal monitoring list. |
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Import vs Declared SIC Mismatch Flag 9,905 HS codes mapped
Flags companies whose border imports contradict their Companies House SIC activity (e.g. an IT or hotel company importing handbags or phones).
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✓ Included Free Automated cross-check between HMRC HS chapters and Companies House SIC codes on the live company page. | ✕ Not offered Not available. | ✕ Not offered Not available. |
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Tax Tribunal Decisions (FTT & Upper Tribunal) 306 matched judgments
Daily feed of First-tier and Upper Tribunal tax decisions matched to company numbers, surfacing unpaid VAT and PAYE rulings while the company still reads “Active”.
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✓ Included Free Surfaces HMRC wins, tax type and neutral citation (e.g. Best Cosmetics Ltd [2026] UKFTT 236) months before a Gazette petition. | ✕ Not offered Not in published input list. | ✕ Not offered No tax-tribunal signal tracked. |
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Published Formula + Data Quality Confidence 20.52M R-Scores
Exact component weights (Profit 42%, Assets 38%, Funding 20%) plus a per-company 0–100 Data Quality confidence indicator.
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✓ Included Free Open methodology, 9 ratios × 5 years explained in plain English, plus usable-metric confidence score. | – Black-box formula H-Score formula is proprietary; no per-company data quality indicator. | ✕ Locked / Opaque Breakdown locked above entry tier; no data confidence indicator. |
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Visual Ownership Map & CS01 Shareholders 7.80M PSCs + 4.19M CS01
Interactive control tree combining People with Significant Control and extracted CS01 confirmation statement shareholdings.
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✓ Included Free Visual control diagram and shareholder breakdown rendered directly on the company dossier. | ✕ Not offered Not listed in current plans. | ✕ Not offered Not listed in current plans. |
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Phoenix Director & Failed-Company Flagging 21,535 flagged cos
Cross-references 20.66M director appointments against 217,304 liquidations and administrations to name directors linked to prior failures.
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✓ Included Free Names the director and lists every failed company on the record so you can verify in one click. | – Gold Tier Only Enhanced directorships locked behind enterprise Gold tier. | ✕ Not offered No phoenix-director network flag on company profiles. |
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SI Agentic Search 5.1M E&W companies
Type a plain-English query to filter the entire England & Wales register by financials, location, sector or distress signals.
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✓ Included Free SI Agentic Search across 5.1M companies with CSV export up to 5,000 rows. | ✕ Not offered Manual form filters only. | ✕ Not offered Manual filter builder only. |
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Native AI Agent Integration (MCP Server) Claude · Cursor · Windsurf
Model Context Protocol server allowing AI coding and financial agents to run live company credit checks and batch enrichment.
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✓ Included Free Plug-and-play MCP server + 14-day self-serve Open API key with no card required. | ✕ Not offered Legacy REST/BigQuery only; no MCP server. | ✕ Not offered Paid GraphQL API only; no MCP server. |
Sources & verification: Database counts verified directly against the live Black Flag Alert PostgreSQL production engine (October 2026). Competitor capabilities audited against Company Watch published plan tiers (August 2026) and RedFlag Alert platform/API audit (March & September 2026).
Search any company registered in England & Wales by name or company number, free, with no card and no time limit. You get the credit risk rating (R-Score) built from County Court Judgments, winding-up petitions, secured charges, filing history and five years of filed accounts directly from Companies House, HMCTS and The Gazette. 5.1 million companies are searchable; 3.4 million carry an R-Score.
The R-Score is a 0–100 credit risk gauge, paired with a 1–10 risk rating where 1 is the lowest risk. It weighs profitability (42%), asset quality (38%) and funding (20%) from filed accounts. It also uses signals outside the accounts: overdue filings, secured charges, CCJs from HMCTS court records and winding-up petitions from The Gazette. An active winding-up petition forces a rating of 10 (Critical), whatever the accounts say. Read the full methodology.
Yes. Company pages, R-Scores, alerts and PDF reports are 100% free with no card and no time limit. The Open API is available for developers. The product uses a freemium pricing model.
The R-Score is a 0-100 credit risk gauge built from filed accounts, filing behaviour, charges, County Court Judgments and winding-up petitions. It is paired with a 1-10 risk rating where 1 is the lowest risk. Full calculation details are on the methodology page.
Primary public sources only: Companies House filings, HMCTS court records for County Court Judgments, The Gazette for insolvency and winding-up activity, and the charges register. It is not resold credit bureau data.
No. Searching for a company on Black Flag Alert leaves no footprint and does not affect its credit rating or score in any way.
Companies House filings, court records and Gazette notices are monitored continuously, and CCJ and winding-up petition alerts are checked daily, so risk profiles reflect the latest public record.
Around 5.1 million companies registered in England & Wales are searchable and about 3.4 million carry a R-Score. Scottish, Northern Irish and overseas companies are not covered.
Anyone can search and view company risk profiles for free. Creating a free account adds alerts when a risk profile changes, watchlists and downloadable PDF reports.
Credit bureaus resell data and charge per report. Black Flag Alert computes its R-Score directly from primary public records (Companies House, HMCTS, The Gazette and the charges register) and provides the core product free.
We put Black Flag Alert next to RedFlag Alert and Company Watch on the data that decides a credit check. This is how the three stack up.
How to read this grid: tick = included. amber dash = partial or paid tier only. cross = not offered. Details under each mark come from the providers' own published material and our own audits, with dates at the foot of the page.
| Data function | Black Flag Alertfree for everyone | Company Watchpaid plans | RedFlag Alertpaid subscription |
|---|---|---|---|
| Risk scoring | |||
| Headline risk scoreThe number you act on | YesR-Score 0 to 100, plus a Risk Rating of 1 to 10 with plain band labels. | YesH-Score 0 to 100, plus a colour-coded risk rating. | YesCategories, not numbers: Gold, Silver, Bronze, then one to three red flags. |
| Score breakdownSee why the score is what it is | YesThree components with published weights: Profit 42%, Assets 38%, Funding 20%. Every ratio explained in plain English. | PartialH-Score factors shown, but the formula is proprietary. | NoSingle composite score. The breakdown field exists but is locked behind premium tiers. |
| Event overrideA winding-up petition beats healthy accounts | YesAn active winding-up petition forces Risk Rating 10, whatever the accounts say. | NoH-Score is purely financial. Petition data sits in separate Gold-tier feeds. | YesDetrimental events force the three-red-flag rating. |
| 5-year score trend | YesCharted per company with a warning threshold. | PartialHistorical H-Score available in reports. | NoCurrent rating only. |
| Recommended credit limit | YesFigure plus a plain-English credit recommendation. | YesCredit and contract limits, from Bronze tier. | YesCredit limit and a separate credit score. |
| Company financials | |||
| Filed accounts depth | 5 yearsTurnover, operating profit, PBT, net assets and staff per year, direct from Companies House iXBRL. | YesFull financial statement explorer as a paid add-on. | PartialRatios surfaced, not the full filed figures. |
| Ratio breadth | 9 ratios × 5 yearsROCE, RONW, margins, leverage, interest cover, current ratio, cash coverage, each with an explanation. | YesRatio analytics around the H-Score. | 27 ratiosWide set, including per-employee measures. |
| Sector benchmarking | YesCash vs sector peers: percentile against thousands of same-sector companies. | YesIndustry percentile positioning. | No |
| Data quality indicator | YesPer company: how many metrics were usable, scored out of 100. We show our confidence, not just the result. | No | No |
| Fraud and supply-chain risk | |||
| Import risk profile (HMRC border data) | YesEvery profiled company shows what it imports, decoded from HMRC commodity codes. Flags for importing young, importing while overdue, or goods that do not match the declared business. | NoNot listed in any plan or their published data sources. | NoNot listed in any plan or their published data sources. |
| VAT supply-chain fraud exposure | 23 classesVapes, cosmetics, OTC medicines, phones, soft drinks, alcohol and 17 more commodity classes associated with missing-trader and postponed-VAT fraud. | No | No |
| Court and insolvency events | |||
| County Court Judgements | DailyChecked daily from HMCTS records, shown on the company page. | NoNot listed in current plans. | Yes |
| Winding-up petitions | DailyFrom The Gazette, checked daily, overrides the score. | Gold tierIncludes unadvertised petitions and applications. | Yes |
| Strike-off and Gazette notices | YesFirst Gazette notices and proposals to strike off, dated, in the credit events table. | NoNot listed in current plans. | YesTracked as detrimental events. |
| Directors, ownership and identity | |||
| Phoenix director detection | YesNames directors who previously served on companies that later failed, with the companies listed and verifiable. | Gold tierEnhanced directorships data, Gold only. | No |
| Ownership structure | YesPSC data with a visual ownership map and control breakdown. | No | No |
| VAT number | VerifiedChecked against HMRC, with the verification date shown. | YesFrom Bronze tier. | No |
| Registered charges and mortgages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Monitoring and workflow | |||
| Email alerts on risk changes | FreeWith a free account. | YesFrom Bronze tier. | YesMonitoring is their core product. |
| PDF reports | Free | YesSnapshot reports plus Excel export. | Yes |
| SI Agentic Search | YesAsk in plain English, get matching companies across the whole register. | No | No |
| Data access and integration | |||
| API | Free trialSelf-serve, no card. 100 calls and 20 contact lookups per rolling 24 hours. | YesAPI, scoring gateway and BigQuery access. | YesGraphQL API with paid access. |
| AI agent integration (MCP) | YesWorks inside Claude, Cursor and Windsurf. | No | No |
| Warehouse access (BigQuery) | No | YesDirect dataset access for enterprise users. | No |
| Coverage | 5.1m searchableEvery England and Wales company, around 3.4m scored. Scotland and Northern Ireland not covered. | UK-wideCount not published. | ~3.5m ratedTheir claimed figure. |
Prices as published or audited on the dates shown below.
Sources. Black Flag Alert: live product, August 2026. RedFlag Alert: our own audit of their platform and API, March 2026; their website blocks automated access, so current-page verification was not possible. Company Watch: their public plans page, 18 August 2026. Where a cell says a feature sits in a paid tier, that comes from the provider's own plan list. Import risk feature: Black Flag Alert live product, October 2026, built on HMRC's published Overseas Trade Statistics (Open Government Licence); competitor cells state each provider's own published plans and data-source lists as at the dates above.