How to Search the FCA Register (And Why Most People Do It Wrong)
If you've ever needed to check whether a company is FCA regulated, you've probably ended up on the FCA Register — the UK regulator's official public database of authorised firms and individuals. It's free, it's official, and for a one-off check on a single firm, it does the job.
But if you're doing this regularly — as part of sales prospecting, compliance monitoring, or due diligence — the official register quickly becomes the wrong tool for the job. Here's what it actually involves, and where it falls short.
What the FCA Register contains
How to search it
The Register holds records for every firm and individual authorised (or previously authorised) by the FCA. For each entry you can typically find:
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Authorisation status (Authorised, Registered, Appointed Representative, etc.)
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Permissions — what the firm is actually allowed to do
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Principal firm relationships, for Appointed Representatives
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Individual approved persons and their roles
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Historical status changes and disciplinary history
Searching the official Register is straightforward for a single lookup:
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Go to register.fca.org.uk
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Search by firm name, FRN (Firm Reference Number), or individual name
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Review the firm's status, permissions, and any linked individuals
For checking one firm you already know the name of, this takes a minute. The friction shows up once you need to do this at scale, or need to know about new activity rather than looking up something you already know exists.
Where the official Register falls short
It's a lookup tool, not a monitoring tool. The Register shows you the current state of a firm when you search it — it doesn't tell you when a new firm gets authorised, when a firm's status changes, or when a Principal's Appointed Representative network grows. If you need that information as it happens, you'd have to search manually, every day, against firms you don't yet know exist.
No bulk or list view. You can't ask the Register "show me every firm authorised this week" or "show me every new Appointed Representative under this Principal." It's built for looking up one firm at a time, not for generating a list.
Minimal business context. The Register tells you a firm's regulatory status and permissions — it won't tell you a phone number, a website, or which companies are actively expanding their AR network. For sales, compliance, or due diligence work, that gap means stitching together data from multiple sources by hand.
Who actually needs more than the free Register
Business development and sales teams targeting newly authorised firms or growing Principal networks, where being first to reach a firm matters
Compliance teams who need to monitor status changes across a watchlist of firms, not just check one at a time
Due diligence and onboarding teams who need permissions, disciplinary history, and Companies House data alongside FCA status in one place
A daily, structured alternative
This is the gap Watchdog Services' New Firms Tracker is built to close. Instead of searching the Register one firm at a time, it gives you:
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A daily, updated list of newly authorised and newly regulated firms
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Appointed Representative and Principal network changes, tracked automatically
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Contact details and Companies House data layered in, so you're not cross-referencing multiple sources by hand
If you're currently checking the FCA Register manually and finding it doesn't scale to what you actually need, that's exactly the problem this was built to solve.