# registercheck.de API vs SEC EDGAR APIs

> registercheck.de scores 52.1 (D) to SEC EDGAR's 40.8 (E) for company data. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/registercheck-vs-sec-edgar
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/registercheck-vs-sec-edgar.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/registercheck-vs-sec-edgar.min.md (~880 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/registercheck-vs-sec-edgar.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-21

registercheck.de API scores 52.1 (D) on agent readiness against SEC EDGAR APIs's 40.8 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SEC EDGAR APIs leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do company data.

- registercheck.de API: grade D, 52.1/100, rank #853 of 1197. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/registercheck.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/registercheck.json
- SEC EDGAR APIs: grade E, 40.8/100, rank #1072 of 1197. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sec-edgar.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sec-edgar.json
- Best data provider APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/data-providers/index.md
- All 34 data comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/data-providers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### registercheck.de API (D)

Good for: German company lookups, managing directors, shareholder chains and change monitoring for KYB, where an agent needs structured register data rather than PDFs.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 23
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 41
- Maintenance & community, 68 against 14

Watch for: A person has to sign in to the app to create an API key

### SEC EDGAR APIs (E)

Good for: Reading a US-listed company's filing history and its reported financial figures from the primary source, with free reuse.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 52 against 40
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Transparency & trust, 57 against 37

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.3 against 2.8 out of 5
- No incidents deducted, where registercheck.de API loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No OpenAPI file, llms.txt, response schema, error reference or official SDK was found. The documentation is one page of prose with example URLs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | registercheck.de API | SEC EDGAR APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 38 | registercheck.de API +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 23 | registercheck.de API +60 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 41 | registercheck.de API +43 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 52 | SEC EDGAR APIs +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | SEC EDGAR APIs +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 14 | registercheck.de API +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 37 | 57 | SEC EDGAR APIs +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **52.1 · D** | **40.8 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | registercheck.de API | SEC EDGAR APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Openlaw GmbH | U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.registercheck.de/v1` | `https://data.sec.gov` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary. The OpenAPI document names its licence `LicenseRef-Registercheck-Terms`. The terms themselves sit on www.registercheck.de, which answered a bot check on 21 October 2026 and was not read | Public information. The SEC says information on sec.gov may be copied or further distributed without its permission, and asks for citation. EDGAR names and logos are registered trademarks |
| Tools exposed | 12 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `de.registercheck/registercheck` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | none |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2023-11-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2023-11-29 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | 4.3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**registercheck.de API.** Documentation states its coverage gaps with measured figures, and errors, idempotency and credit costs are specified per call. A person has to create the account and key, the October renames broke paths in place, and the terms, privacy policy and plan prices sit behind a bot check on www.registercheck.de.

**SEC EDGAR APIs.** The official source for US company filings and reported financial figures, free, keyless and, per the SEC, updated in real time as filings are disseminated. Documentation is one page with no OpenAPI file, error reference or changelog, responses cannot be filtered or sized, and there is no status page, SLA or support for scripted access.

## Before you call either

### registercheck.de API

1. Send the key as `Authorization: Bearer rc_live_…`. Query-string keys and `X-API-Key` are refused
2. Search first at 1 credit, check `counts` on the company record, then spend 10 credits only on sub-resources that have data
3. Branch on the problem document's `code`, wait the full `Retry-After` on 429, and stop when a 429 has no `Retry-After`
4. Send a fresh `Idempotency-Key` UUID on every POST and reuse it on retries
5. Read `last_register_entry_date` and each shareholding's `source.date`. Shareholder lists can be years old

### SEC EDGAR APIs

1. Send a User-Agent naming the operator's organisation and a contact email address on every request. The SEC limits or blocks undeclared automated tools
2. Stay under 10 requests a second in total across all machines. Over the limit, the IP address may be limited until the rate has stayed below the threshold for 10 minutes
3. Pad the CIK to 10 digits with leading zeros in `submissions/CIK##########.json` and the XBRL paths. Find a CIK in `https://www.sec.gov/files/company_tickers.json`
4. Prefer `api/xbrl/companyconcept/` for one figure. `companyfacts` returns every concept a company has reported, and `submissions` returns at least 1,000 filings in column arrays
5. Read older filings from the extra files named in `filings.files`, and check a frame fact's own start and end dates, since frames align company periods to calendar quarters

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, registercheck.de API or SEC EDGAR APIs?

registercheck.de API scores 52.1 (D) on agent readiness against SEC EDGAR APIs's 40.8 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SEC EDGAR APIs leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Do registercheck.de API and SEC EDGAR APIs need an API key?

registercheck.de API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SEC EDGAR APIs needs no key.

### Can an agent call registercheck.de API and SEC EDGAR APIs without installing anything?

Yes. registercheck.de API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.registercheck.de/v1 and SEC EDGAR APIs at https://data.sec.gov.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/registercheck-vs-sec-edgar.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/registercheck-vs-sec-edgar.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "registercheck", "b": "sec-edgar"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare registercheck sec-edgar`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/registercheck.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sec-edgar.json

## Other comparisons with registercheck.de API or SEC EDGAR APIs

- [Alpha Vantage vs registercheck.de API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-registercheck.md)
- [Alpha Vantage vs SEC EDGAR APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-sec-edgar.md)
- [Companies House API vs registercheck.de API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/companies-house-vs-registercheck.md)
- [Companies House API vs SEC EDGAR APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/companies-house-vs-sec-edgar.md)

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