Autocomplete business names and addresses

The Business Identities Autocomplete API returns real-time, structured autocomplete suggestions based on partial business names. Use it to help users quickly find and select their business during onboarding.

End-to-end flow

1. A user types a partial business name in your application (for example, “dunder”).
2. Your frontend sends a request to Middesk’s POST /v1/identities/autocomplete endpoint using a Publishable API key.
3. Middesk returns a list of structured business identity suggestions, each with a unique id, along with names, addresses, people, and entity type.
4. Your frontend renders the results in the user’s UI.
5. Once a user selects the correct business, pass the id from the selected result to the Smart populate endpoint (as autocomplete_result_id). Using the id ensures consistent business resolution between Autocomplete and Smart populate. You can also create a Business enrichment Order request to retrieve additional business attributes.

Security requirements

To ensure the integrity and appropriate use of this API:

• Publishable API key authentication: Each request must include a Middesk Publishable API key via the Authorization: Bearer header.
• KYC enforcement: Perform KYC checks prior to querying Middesk when possible.
• Abuse prevention: Prevent automated abuse or excessive velocity and volume (for example, bots or scraping).

Integrate the Autocomplete API

Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>

$
curl -X POST "https://api.middesk.com/v1/identities/autocomplete" \
>
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <PUBLISHABLE API KEY>" \
>
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>
  -d '{
>
    "name": "Dunder Mif",
>
    "entity_type": "CORPORATION",
>
    "addresses": [
>
      {
>
        "address_line1": "1725 Slough Avenue",
>
        "city": "Scranton",
>
        "state": "PA",
>
        "postal_code": "18501"
>
      }
>
    ]
>
  }'

1
{
2
  "data": [
3
    {
4
      "id": "35a0fe9a-6586-4d27-a980-c4c09511e273",
5
      "names": [
6
        { "name": "Dunder Mifflin", "type": "legal" },
7
        { "name": "Dunder Mifflinfinity", "type": "dba" }
8
      ],
9
      "addresses": [
10
        {
11
          "full_address": "1725 Slough Avenue, Suite 200, Scranton, PA 18505",
12
          "labels": ["office"]
13
        }
14
      ],
15
      "people": [
16
        { "name": "David Wallace" },
17
        { "name": "Robert Kazamakis" },
18
        { "name": "Jolene Bennett" }
19
      ],
20
      "entity_type": "CORPORATION"
21
    }
22
  ]
23
}

Latency benchmarks

Performance is monitored, and alerts trigger if p95 latency exceeds 300ms over sustained periods.

API reference

Method: POST

URL: https://api.middesk.com/v1/identities/autocomplete

Headers: Include the API key in the Authorization header using Bearer authorization

Request body

Address object

Person object

Response statuses

Response schema

BusinessIdentity object

Name object

Address object (response)

Person object