KYB, short for Know Your Business, is the process of verifying that a company is real, legally registered, and in good standing before you transact with it. It is the business-entity counterpart to KYC (Know Your Customer), which verifies individuals. KYB checks a business against government registries, licenses, and watchlists.
A thorough KYB check confirms the legal entity exists in a Secretary of State registry, reads its status (active, dissolved, delinquent), identifies its officers and registered agent, confirms any licenses it needs to operate, and screens it against sanctions and exclusion lists. Stronger checks also resolve the same company across states and match it to the federal identifiers it holds.
Business records live in thousands of separate government systems: fifty Secretary of State registries, county recorders, city license boards, and federal databases like SAM.gov and the SEC. Each publishes in its own format and names companies as free text, so the same business appears differently in every source. The work is not finding one record; it is joining them into one trustworthy picture.
Related on Amalgament: Business records API · Business licenses API · Sanctions and watchlists API
KYC verifies a person; KYB verifies a business entity. KYB relies on public business records (registrations, licenses, filings) rather than personal identity documents, and it is not governed by the FCRA because it concerns businesses, not consumers.
Yes. When business registries, licenses, and watchlists are exposed through one API, a KYB check that once meant visiting a dozen portals becomes a single automated call that returns the entity already resolved across sources.
More terms: UCC filing (UCC-1) · APN (Assessor's Parcel Number) · MCP server · Entity resolution · Business registry (Secretary of State filing) · UEI and SAM.gov · Non-FCRA (business-purpose) data · Context layer (for AI)