Use cases · for developers who need MCA company data

MCA company data: an API vs scraping the MCA portal

Last updated 11 November 2026 · by Venu Gopal Reddy Muvva, founder

Scraping the MCA portal is fragile: its company lookups are built for people, with CAPTCHAs and sign-in steps, its pages change, and automated access can break its terms. There are three cleaner routes. Use the open MCA master data that the government publishes on data.gov.in; use a company data API such as IndianFirmData that already joins open MCA data with NSE, GLEIF and Wikidata and labels every field's source; or, for filings, charges and director data, buy from a vendor that is licensed for that data.

Steps in IndianFirmData

1. Decide which MCA data you need
Master data (CIN, name, status, class, category, capital, incorporation date, state, ROC) is very different from filings, financial statements, charges and director records. Most onboarding and lead-list jobs need only master data.
2. Start from open data
MCA master data is published as open data on data.gov.in. It is the legal, bulk way to get master data; you then have to load, clean and refresh it yourself.
3. Use an API for lookups
If you would rather not run that pipeline, call GET /api/v1/companies/enrich?cin=<CIN> or search by state, class, capital or NIC code. Each field says which source it came from and when; today CINs come from GLEIF records, not the MCA master. The first 3 months are free.
4. Buy licensed data for filings and directors
For filings, charges and director (DIN) data, use a vendor licensed for it, such as Probe42, Surepass or Perfios Karza. IndianFirmData does not offer these.

Why scrapers of government portals break

CAPTCHAs are there to stop programs, and solving them automatically is against the spirit and often the letter of the site's terms. Layouts change without notice, so a scraper that worked last month returns blanks today. Rate limits and IP blocks hit you at the worst moment, in the middle of an onboarding queue. And you end up with data you cannot cite: no licence, no date, no record of how it was collected.

We made the opposite choice: IndianFirmData does not scrape the MCA portal or the GST portal, and does not get around any site's CAPTCHA or terms. Every field carries its source and licence.

What the open MCA master can and cannot answer

It can answer whether a CIN exists, the company's registered name, status, class and category, authorised and paid-up capital, date of incorporation, state and ROC. It cannot tell you financial statements, charges, shareholders or directors' details. In IndianFirmData those master fields are search filters (for example roc, company_class, paid_up_capital, mca_category and incorporation_year), which stay empty until the MCA master is loaded; the Data sources page shows which sources are loaded today and how many records each has.

When IndianFirmData is not the right tool

IndianFirmData does not hold MCA master data yet (its CINs come from GLEIF records), and has no filings, charges or director data. If you need complete MCA coverage this week, load the open master yourself or buy from a licensed vendor.

Questions

Is it legal to scrape the MCA website?

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Read the portal's terms of use; automating around CAPTCHAs is the kind of access sites usually forbid. We chose not to do it.

Does IndianFirmData have every company registered with MCA?

No. The full MCA master is not loaded yet. Today the index is built from NSE, Nifty index lists, GLEIF and Wikidata; the Data sources page shows live counts.

Can I decode a CIN without any lookup?

Yes. A CIN contains listing status, industry code, state, year and company class. GET /api/v1/identifiers/decode reads all of them for free.

How fresh is the data?

Each field carries the date we last observed it and a stale flag against its freshness limit, so you can see the age instead of guessing.

Try it on a company you know.

Start free — 3 months on us