Are the company numbers real?

No. They are correctly formatted but randomly generated, and will not match any company registered at Companies House.

Are the VAT numbers valid?

They follow the GB plus nine digits format but are not registered with HMRC and will fail a VIES or HMRC check.

UK Company Name Generator

A UK company name generator produces fictional business names using the entity suffixes recognised by Companies House, with correctly formatted company and VAT numbers.

Names combine a British place-inspired prefix, a sector word and an entity suffix such as Ltd, PLC or LLP. Company numbers are eight digits and VAT numbers follow the GB plus nine digits pattern, so they exercise validation logic — but both are randomly generated and match no registered entity.

Options

Name	Type	Default	Description
`count`	integer	`10`	How many records to return, from 1 to 1000.
`seed`	integer	`—`	Optional. Any integer. The same seed with the same options always returns the same records.

Use cases

B2B form testing: Test company name fields, company number validation and VAT number formatting.
Invoice and document mock-ups: Fill invoice templates and demo dashboards with plausible British company details.

REST API

GET /api/v1/companies/random

curl "https://ukaddressgenerator.org/api/v1/companies/random?count=10"

{
  "status": "success",
  "count": 1,
  "data": [
    { "name": "Pennine Logistics Ltd", "industry": "Logistics & distribution", "companyNumber": "10482913", "vatNumber": "GB284917355" }
  ]
}

Frequently asked questions

Are the company numbers real?: No. They are correctly formatted but randomly generated, and will not match any company registered at Companies House.
Are the VAT numbers valid?: They follow the GB plus nine digits format but are not registered with HMRC and will fail a VIES or HMRC check.

UK company identifiers in test data

Company numbers, VAT numbers and entity suffixes · 200 words

1. Entity suffixes carry legal meaning

Ltd and Limited denote a private limited company; PLC a public limited company; LLP a limited liability partnership. Companies House regulates which suffix a name may use, so a form that accepts arbitrary suffixes should still store the entity type separately if it matters.

2. Company numbers

A Companies House number is eight characters. English and Welsh companies use eight digits; Scottish companies are prefixed SC and Northern Irish companies NI. Generated numbers here are eight digits, formatted correctly but not registered — they will not resolve against the Companies House API.

3. VAT numbers

A UK VAT registration number is GB followed by nine digits, sometimes with a three-digit branch suffix. Real numbers carry a check digit calculated with the "modulus 97" rule, so a generated number will fail a genuine HMRC or VIES check. That is the correct behaviour for test data: if you need to test successful verification, mock the verification service rather than using a real trader's number.

curl "/api/v1/companies/random?count=5"