Insee's Sirene API: free access, 30 requests per minute and open data

What is Insee's Sirene API?#

The Sirene API is Insee's interface to the Sirene registry, the official database of French companies and business locations. Access is free with an account on the Insee API portal. The data is updated every day, but locations with partial disclosure do not show their exact address there.

An API (application programming interface) lets software query a service without going through a website. You may also see the Sirene API written as "API Siren."

You can query it using two identifiers. The SIREN number (the French company ID) is the company's nine-digit number. The SIRET number (the French ID of a business location) is the fourteen-digit number of each of its places of activity. The registry dates back to 1973 and retains records of companies and locations that have closed.

Want to check a company without coding? Use the Annuaire des entreprises (the French government's free business directory). Download the whole database? Download the files from data.gouv.fr. Have your software pull the changes every day? That is what the Sirene API is for.

Who runs the Sirene API, and how do similarly named services differ?

Insee (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques) maintains Sirene, the inter-agency business registry. Insee makes the registry available for free through three channels: the Sirene API, the Annuaire des entreprises, and downloadable files on data.gouv.fr. The Sirene database is part of the reference data of the public data service (service public de la donnée), created by the Digital Republic Act (loi pour une République numérique).

On data.gouv.fr, the Sirene database is available as open datasets. These are monthly stock files (full snapshots of the registry), in CSV or Parquet (a compressed format for large tables). The API is for tracking what changes between two files.

Three services have similar names. They do not do the same thing.

• Insee's Sirene API: the official service, open with an account.
• Sirene as API (the etalab/sirene_as_api repository): an API built by DINUM (the French interministerial digital directorate). The repository was archived on May 28, 2026 and development has stopped.
• The API Entreprise: another public service, limited to 250 requests per minute. Its protected data is reserved for authorized organizations and government agencies.

Documentation that still relies on Sirene as API therefore describes a tool that is no longer being developed. For a new project, connect to Insee's API.

API key and call limits: how to access the Sirene API#

Access goes through an account on the Insee API portal. There you subscribe to the "Public" plan, the only one available. The portal then issues a personal API key.

The person who connects your software to Sirene will need this key. The key does not expire, according to the guide "Utiliser les API de l'Insee" (Using Insee's APIs). The portal requires you to renew your password every 90 days; this does not affect calls to the open-data API.

Details for your technical team

The software includes the key in the X-INSEE-Api-Key-Integration header of every request to the API.

The limit is 30 requests per minute. Insee considers it "generally suitable" in its Sirene open data newsletter of June 2026. Two API features explain why.

• Multi-criteria search queries a list of SIREN or SIRET numbers in a single request.
• Cursor pagination returns 1,000 results per page; each page continues where the previous one left off.

The limit stays at 30 requests per minute, and each page counts as one request. Since a page holds up to 1,000 records, 30 requests can return up to 30,000 records per minute: that is what the newsletter calls the equivalent of about 30,000 requests per minute.

The same newsletter suggests another way around the limit. Your technical team loads the stock files (the full copy of the database) into your own reference database, then keeps it up to date through the Sirene API.

Enriching a CRM with the Sirene API: matching on SIREN and SIRET numbers#

SIREN and SIRET numbers let you find the same company or the same location in your CRM and in Sirene. A CRM account with a SIRET number can be enriched through the Sirene API with its legal name, address, postal code, creation date, activity, and headcount band. Two accounts that share the same SIREN number belong to the same company.

A SIRET search returns one location; a SIREN search returns the company. The choice matters: in our October 2026 test on 2,420 companies, the correct SIRET number differed from the headquarters' SIRET number for more than one in six companies (finding a company's SIRET number). This result does not measure the risk for a specific line of business, so check that the SIRET number matches the address you want to contact. The dateDernierTraitementEtablissement variable then flags the records modified since your last load.

Example: a company has its headquarters in Paris and a store in Lyon. To call the Lyon store, take the SIRET number whose address is in Lyon. Sirene provides the store's identifying information and address; you will need to find its phone number elsewhere.

The registry says what is declared, not whether a location matches your target. The NAF code (France's activity classification code, also called an APE code) describes a declared activity, not necessarily what the business actually does. Partial disclosure (addresses hidden at the business's request, see below) also leaves addresses empty.

Scalon qualifies these business locations individually. For each business location in your area, Scalon states whether it matches your target and explains why in writing (a score out of 100, a verdict and a reason), then compares the list with your CRM. Before choosing a list, whatever its source, ask to see a few rows for your sector: the address targeted, the reason it was kept or rejected, and the contact details actually provided.

See how Scalon qualifies locations and completes your CRM.

Sirene database: what data does the API give on business locations?#

The Sirene API gives access to two levels of the registry, which our guide to Insee's Sirene database also describes for the downloadable files. The company (the "legal unit") has a SIREN number. Each business location has a SIRET number, whether it is the headquarters, a branch, or a workshop.

Here is the main information available in Sirene, according to the official list of variables (format 3.11, the API's current version):

• identity: legal name, storefront name (enseigne), legal category (the legal form: SAS, SARL…), creation date;
• the address of the location: street, postal code, municipality;
• the main activity, expressed as a NAF code (the French activity classification code, also called APE code, assigned by Insee);
• the employee headcount band and the company category;
• administrative status: active or closed for a location, active or no longer operating for a legal unit;
• succession links between locations, through a dedicated service.

The API can return data in JSON (a text format that software reads directly), among other formats. V4, the next version of the API, will offer only that format.

Two limits matter if you are building a prospect list. This list contains no phone numbers, email addresses, or names of company executives. Headcount bands come from another Insee database, the Sirus statistical register, and describe the situation as of December 31, 2024: they do not give the location's current headcount.

Administrative status also needs careful reading. A legal unit remains active until Insee receives formal notice that it has ceased operating. A company can thus still be marked active while all its locations are closed (a dormant company, for example). So check the status of the location you want to contact.

Partially disclosed locations: what the API does not show#

A person listed in the registry can request partial disclosure status. A dedicated variable records the disclosure status and is set to "P" in that case. Part of the data then disappears from the response.

The effect depends on the nature of the business:

• Legal entity (a company): only detailed location information is protected. The municipality remains visible.
• Natural person (a sole proprietor): last name, first name, pseudonym and address are hidden, except the municipality.

The "non-diffusible" (non-disclosable) status was discontinued on March 21, 2023. The affected registry entries switched to partial disclosure.

This data comes with a usage rule. According to the API page on data.gouv.fr, their personal information must be "neither redistributed in full nor used for prospecting purposes." For a natural person, it is up to you to take the most recent disclosure status into account.

Data updates: daily, not real time#

The Sirene API is updated every day. It picks up the changes recorded in the registry the day before, according to the Sirene open data newsletter of September 2026. A change recorded today therefore appears only tomorrow.

For the person who connects your software

The newsletter advises reading the dateDerniereMiseADisposition variable every day at 10 a.m., through the API's information service. It indicates the time at which the day's data is ready. If you start retrieving paginated results before then, the same location may appear on two pages.

Stock files are published monthly. The file posted on the 1st of the month is a snapshot of the registry as of the last day of the previous month. The API covers the interval.

2027 brings a new version of the API (V4) and a new activity classification (NAF 2025). With V4, the person who connected your software will need to adapt that connection. With NAF 2025, activity codes change.

Changes to expect in 2027

• API V4: the beta has been open to all users since October 13, 2026, according to Insee. Production release is planned for the first half of 2027. Version 3.11 remains supported until mid-2028.
• NAF 2025: the new classification takes effect on January 1, 2027. It will be incorporated into the API between January 5 and 6. According to Insee, all active legal units and their locations will have a modified APE code (see APE codes in 2027).

V4 changes how the software queries the API: multi-criteria searches will go exclusively through POST, with criteria sent in the body of the request, and applications connected to V3.11 will need to adapt.

To follow these changes, Insee publishes the Sirene open data actualités newsletter, which you can subscribe to.

Method#

Scalon's test, published on October 14, 2026, used the names shown on Google to look up 2,420 companies in the Annuaire des entreprises; we already knew the correct SIRET number for each company. The details of the protocol and its limits are in the article finding a company's SIRET number.

Sources#

• Sirene open data actualités, juin 2026, Insee
• Sirene open data actualités, septembre 2026, Insee
• API Sirene, portail des API, Insee
• Utiliser les API de l'Insee : modalités de connexion, Insee
• Consulter et télécharger la base Sirene, Insee
• API Sirene open data, data.gouv.fr
• Base Sirene des entreprises et de leurs établissements (fichiers stock et dessins de fichiers 3.11), data.gouv.fr
• etalab/sirene_as_api, GitHub
• API Entreprise, DINUM
• Find a company's SIRET number by its name, for free, Scalon (October 14, 2026)