MCP

MCP server for U.S. state business registry data

Recordwire runs a remote Model Context Protocol server at https://api.recordwirehq.com/mcp so Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Cursor can call the same registry operations as the REST API with one bearer key. It returns normalized Secretary of State data for about 26 million companies across twelve states (Florida, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut, Oregon, Massachusetts, Idaho, Wyoming, Missouri, and Delaware), including append-only change events for formations and for status, name, address, registered-agent, and officer updates. The data comes from official state bulk and open-data publications, from the state's own public business search where no file exists, and for Delaware from a licensed data partner.

For builders wiring agents to real U.S. company records. Connect first, read the rest when you need it.

Claude Code

claude mcp add registry --transport http https://api.recordwirehq.com/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $KEY"

Why an agent needs a registry tool, not web search

Ask a model who the officers of an LLC are and it will answer. Ask it again and it may answer differently. Neither answer carries a jurisdiction ID or a date. A registry tool returns statutory fields as the state published them, with the entity's own ID (US-VA:11406679) and the file date they came from, so the agent can cite instead of recall. Web search is worse for this job, not better: SOS search pages sit behind bot checks, and their layouts change without notice. Recordwire handles that upstream so the agent never does.

What the server is

A Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint in front of the Recordwire change feed. Eight tools mirror the REST API one to one. Discovery (initialize, tools/list) works without a key so registries and clients can inspect it; tool calls need the same rk_live_... key as REST, with the same state restrictions. There is nothing MCP-specific to provision.

The eight tools

search_businesses: Find companies by state, name prefix, entity type, status, or formation-date range. Paged with next_cursor. “Which LLCs were formed in Virginia last week?”
get_business: Fetch one company's full normalized record by ID (US-VA:11406679), including agent, addresses, and officers where the state publishes them. “Pull the registry record for US-FL:L21000318842.”
get_business_events: Read the change history of a single company, newest first. “Has this company changed its registered agent since 2024?”
search_events: Query the change feed by type, state, and date, including everything observed since a date. “List Florida companies that dissolved in the last month.”
list_sources: Per state: the last file date, the last completed run, and the entity count, so an agent can say how fresh its answer is. “How current is your Connecticut data?”
create_subscription: Point an HTTPS endpoint at a filter (states, event types) and receive signed webhooks as new changes land. The signing secret is shown once. “Tell my endpoint whenever a Colorado agent changes.”
list_subscriptions: See the subscriptions on your key, without the secrets.
delete_subscription: Revoke a subscription. Deliveries stop on the next cron tick.

The six event types an agent can watch

Every difference between two consecutive state files becomes one of these. Payloads and history depth per state are on change events.

business.created: A new formation or foreign registration appeared in the state file. Sales: new LLCs in a state this week.
business.status_changed: Active to inactive, dissolved, revoked, reinstated, with the state's own wording in statusReason. Risk: a vendor stopped being in good standing.
business.name_changed: The legal name changed. KYB: the entity on the contract is the entity in the registry.
business.address_changed: Principal or mailing address changed. Ops: a customer moved.
business.agent_changed: Registered agent changed. Compliance: a common early signal of a sale, a lapse, or a move between states.
business.officers_changed: Officers, directors, or managers changed, where the state publishes them. Diligence: who runs it now.

Connect in about two minutes

Claude Code

Get a key from the dashboard, export it as KEY, and run the command at the top of this page. Then ask Claude to list its tools; you should see the eight above.

Cursor and other HTTP MCP clients

Any client that takes a JSON config for a Streamable HTTP server uses the URL and one header:

mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recordwire": {
      "url": "https://api.recordwirehq.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer rk_live_..." }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop takes the same URL under its connectors. Clients that only speak stdio can bridge withmcp-remote, passing the header the same way.

First prompts that prove it worked

Each of these has exactly one right shape of answer, so a wrong tool choice is obvious:

Try these

How fresh is each state's registry data?          → list_sources
Which LLCs were formed in Virginia in the last 7 days?   → search_businesses
What changed on US-FL:L21000318842 since 2024?            → get_business_events

Coverage: twelve states, one model

Not all 50. Live counts and last file dates are on the coverage pages; cadence and field coverage are fixed by what each state publishes.

States an agent can query
State	Source	Cadence	Officers	History
Florida	Sunbiz bulk SFTP	Daily + quarterly snapshot	Yes, incl. LLC managers	Quarterly event file
New York	Open data (active entities)	Daily	Chairman only	From first observation
Colorado	Open data	Daily	Not published	From first observation
Pennsylvania	Open data (current registrations)	Monthly	Yes	From first observation
Virginia	SCC weekly bulk file	Weekly	Corporations only	State-published amendments, back decades
Connecticut	Open data	Nightly	Yes	Name changes
Oregon	Open data (active entities)	Daily	Authorized reps	From first observation
Massachusetts	Corporations Division public search	Every 3 hours	Yes	New formations since October 2026
Idaho	SOSBiz public search	Every 6 hours	Not collected	New formations since October 2026
Wyoming	WyoBiz public search	Continuously	Yes	New formations since October 2026
Missouri	Business Services public search	Every 3 hours	Not collected	New formations since October 2026
Delaware	Licensed data partner	Several times a day	Not published by Delaware	New formations since October 2026

Official sources, and what that means for an agent

Most covered states publish a bulk file or open-data export on its own schedule. Recordwire downloads it, diffs it against the previous file inside one transaction, and appends the differences as events. Where a state publishes no file, Recordwire reads its public search for new formations. Three things follow. The agent never touches a captcha. A record has exactly one source, and list_sources tells you its date. And every event carries the state's own wording.

Recordwire MCP vs other registry MCPs

There are good registry MCPs. They do different jobs. Pick by the job, not the label. For lookup APIs and formation lists outside MCP, see change feed vs lookup APIs.

Registry MCPs by job
Server	U.S. SOS depth	Change events	Source style	Best when
Recordwire MCP	12 states, ~26M companies	Yes: six event types, append-only	Official bulk files and open data, diffed; state search sites for new formations where no file exists	Agents that need U.S. change events plus lookup from one key
Florida scrape actors (Apify Sunbiz and similar)	Florida, sometimes a few more	No: point-in-time page scrapes	HTML search pages	One-off research where a Sunbiz-only field matters
Global registry MCPs (Zephira, Registry Lookup, CompanyLens, OpenRegistry)	U.S. as one of many jurisdictions	Some offer watch or refresh; not a U.S. state file diff	Aggregators and national registries	International KYB, VAT, ownership
U.S. lookup MCPs (Filed, FreshFilings, Whetstone)	Varies, 3 to 25 states	New filings, mostly; no status/agent/officer history	Mixed: files, APIs, scrapes	Entity search and new-formation lists

vs Florida scrape actors

Sunbiz scrapers on Apify and similar platforms reach fields the bulk file does not carry, and they are the right tool for a one-off deep read of one Florida record. They are point-in-time: no history, no diff, and a production agent inherits every captcha and layout change. Recordwire covers Florida from the official SFTP bulk and quarterly event files, and six other states the same way.

vs global registry MCPs

Zephira, Registry Lookup, CompanyLens, and OpenRegistry are strong for international KYB: VAT numbers, ownership, officers abroad. The U.S. appears there as one jurisdiction among hundreds, as lookup rather than as a normalized state-file change feed. If your agent works outside the U.S., use one of them alongside Recordwire.

vs U.S. lookup MCPs

Filed, FreshFilings, and Whetstone expose real U.S. entity search and new-filing lists, some across more states than Recordwire covers today. The difference is the feed: Recordwire records status, name, address, agent, and officer changes as events with the state's wording, ingests only official files, and reports freshness per state through list_sources. If you only need a name search, any of them will do.

Example agent workflows

New formation sales signals

“Find LLCs formed in Colorado since Monday with a principal address in Denver, and draft a one-line note for each.” The agent calls search_businesses with a jurisdiction and aformed_after date, pages through next_cursor, and cites each entity ID. Yesterday's formations are in today's file for daily states.

KYB and portfolio monitoring

“For these twelve vendor IDs, has anything changed since our last review?” The agent callsget_business_events per ID and reads statusReason, which carries the state's own phrase for a lapse or revocation. For an ongoing watch, create_subscription turns the same filter into signed webhooks so nothing has to poll.

“Is this company still active?” in Cursor

“Is Acme Holdings LLC in Virginia still active, and who is the agent?” Search, then get, then answer with the ID and the file date from list_sources. The date is the point: an answer without one is a guess.

Limits, stated plainly

12 states, not fifty. A key that covers three states gets 403 on the others.
Fields are what the state publishes. Colorado publishes no officers; New York publishes a chairman only.
No enrichment: no phone numbers, emails, revenue, or employee counts.
Rate limited per key and per IP; a 429 carries Retry-After.
Read-only. The server cannot file, amend, or change anything at a state.
Not a KYB orchestration product. It is the registry layer such a product would sit on.

REST when you outgrow chat

Same key, same data, same shapes. MCP fits an agent that asks questions; REST fits a pipeline that polls/v1/events?observed_since= or receives webhooks. Every parameter is in the docs.

Questions

How do I give Claude or Cursor access to U.S. business registry data?

Add Recordwire as a remote MCP server: URL https://api.recordwirehq.com/mcp with an Authorization: Bearer header carrying your rk_live_ key. Claude Code takes it in one command (claude mcp add registry --transport http https://api.recordwirehq.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer $KEY"); Cursor and other clients take the same URL and header in their MCP JSON config. No OAuth, no consent screen.

Are the MCP tools the same as the REST API?

Yes. The eight tools map one to one onto the REST endpoints: search_businesses, get_business, get_business_events, search_events, list_sources, and create_, list_, and delete_subscription. Same key, same state restrictions, same JSON shapes. Use MCP for interactive agents and REST for pipelines.

Which states are covered, and is it all 50?

Florida, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut, Oregon, Massachusetts, Idaho, Wyoming, Missouri, and Delaware: twelve states, about 26 million companies. It is not all 50. A key restricted to certain states returns 403 for the others, so an agent cannot silently answer outside its subscription.

Where does the data come from?

From official state sources. Seven states publish bulk files or open-data exports; each new file is diffed against the last, and every difference becomes an append-only event. Massachusetts, Idaho, Wyoming, and Missouri publish no file, so Recordwire reads their public business search on a schedule and records each new formation. Delaware records come from a licensed data partner, new formations only. Either way the agent calls one API: it never touches a captcha or a search page itself.

What can change events do that a lookup cannot?

A lookup tells you what a company is today. Change events tell you what happened and when: it was formed, it changed its registered agent, it stopped being in good standing. That is what a sales agent needs to find new formations and what a KYB agent needs to notice a vendor drifting, without re-checking every record.

Does the MCP server need OAuth?

No. Authentication is a bearer key in the Authorization header, the same rk_live_ key the REST API uses. Discovery (initialize and tools/list) works without a key; tool calls require one.

Can the server write anything to a state registry?

No. Every tool is read-only against Recordwire’s copy of the registries. The only thing an agent can create is a webhook subscription on your own account.

Get a key, paste the command, ask the first prompt. Pricing is on thehome page.