Every UK company has exactly one registered company number. It is assigned at incorporation, it never changes — not through rebrands, name changes or ownership changes — and no two companies share one. The name on the letterhead can change three times in a decade; the number on the register is the same on the day the company dissolves as the day it was formed.
Which is why any process that screens companies at scale — credit onboarding, KYC refresh, supplier due diligence, conflict checks — should run on numbers, not names. This guide covers why, and how to do it against the UK insolvency notice record.
The trouble with names
Searching by name fails in two directions at once.
False positives. Common trading words — construction, logistics, consulting, property — produce near-identical registered names. "AB Construction Ltd", "A B Construction Ltd" and "AB Construction (Midlands) Ltd" are three different companies, and an insolvency notice against one of them is not a fact about the other two. A name-based screen that flags the wrong entity does not just waste time; acted on, it wrongly stops credit or a payment to a solvent business.
False negatives. The company you know as a brand may be registered under a different name entirely. Punctuation, "&" versus "and", abbreviations and typos all move a name search away from the entity you meant. The notice you needed to see is there — filed under the registered name you did not search.
Insolvency notices are indexed against the registered entity. The registered number is the one input that lands on that entity every time.
Finding the number costs nothing
If you have a company's name and need its number, the Companies House register is free: search the name, open the record, and the 8-character registered number is at the top, alongside the registered name, status and filing history. For any counterparty you are onboarding, capturing the company number at the start is the single cheapest data-quality decision you can make — every later check, insolvency included, becomes exact instead of fuzzy.
Searching the insolvency record by number
The Gazette's public search accepts company numbers as well as names — one query at a time. For a single company, that is the precise way to ask the question, and better than a name search for all the reasons above.
The limit is the same one we cover in How to Search The Gazette for Insolvency Notices — Without Doing It One Name at a Time: one query per number. A compliance refresh across a thousand counterparties, or a monthly screen of a lending book, does not fit through a one-at-a-time interface — whatever the input format.
Running a whole list of numbers at once
Gazette Search accepts company numbers in bulk. Upload a CSV or Excel — a column of numbers, or numbers alongside names — and every entry is searched against the UK insolvency notice record in one pass. Results come back in seconds, split into matched, with the notices found against each entry, and not found.
Because the input is the registered number, the output inherits its precision: a match is a match against that entity, not against something with a similar name. For a bank, a lender or a compliance function, that distinction is the difference between a screening result you can act on and one you have to manually verify before you dare act on it.
Pricing is pay-as-you-go credits — no subscription, and a search that finds nothing costs nothing. Rates are on the pricing page.
What a numbers-first screen looks like in practice
Onboarding. Capture the company number as a required field. Screen it against the insolvency record before the account opens — the check takes seconds and the result is entity-exact.
Periodic refresh. Export the numbers column from your book — customers, borrowers, suppliers — and re-run it monthly. Over the twelve months to July 2026, roughly one in 199 companies on the UK register entered insolvency; on a book of a few thousand counterparties, the monthly re-run is not paranoia, it is arithmetic. The collections version of this case is in Screening Your Debtor Book for Insolvency.
Event-driven checks. Before releasing a large payment, extending a facility or renewing a contract, run the number. Winding-up petitions publish in The Gazette before any order exists — the earliest public warning, and one a status check alone can miss.
Try it with numbers you know
The demo panel on the Gazette Search homepage takes a pasted list — no account, no card. Paste a handful of company numbers you already know the position on and check the results against what you expected.
Frequently asked questions
Can I search The Gazette by company number?
Yes. The Gazette's own search accepts company numbers one query at a time, and Gazette Search accepts them in bulk — a CSV or Excel upload searched in one pass.
Why is searching by company number better than by name?
A registered number identifies exactly one company, permanently. Names are duplicated, abbreviated, punctuated inconsistently and changed over time — which produces both false matches and missed matches.
Where do I find a company's registered number?
On the Companies House register, free: search the company name and the 8-character number is shown at the top of its record.
Can I mix names and numbers in one bulk search?
Yes. An uploaded spreadsheet can carry names or company numbers — every entry is searched in the same pass.
How often should a counterparty book be re-screened?
Monthly is the common cadence for live exposure. A screen is a snapshot; positions change, and petitions publish ahead of orders.