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.

Autocomplete has separate rate limits for each credential and IP address.

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"
      }
    ]
  }'

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "35a0fe9a-6586-4d27-a980-c4c09511e273",
      "names": [
        { "name": "Dunder Mifflin", "type": "legal" },
        { "name": "Dunder Mifflinfinity", "type": "dba" }
      ],
      "addresses": [
        {
          "full_address": "1725 Slough Avenue, Suite 200, Scranton, PA 18505",
          "labels": ["office"]
        }
      ],
      "people": [
        { "name": "David Wallace" },
        { "name": "Robert Kazamakis" },
        { "name": "Jolene Bennett" }
      ],
      "entity_type": "CORPORATION"
    }
  ]
}

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