You've extracted a list of 600 businesses in a given area and sector. Names, addresses, phone numbers. At a glance, nothing distinguishes the limited company founded in 1994 with fifteen employees from the sole trader registered last month, nor the active business from the one struck off two years ago but still lingering in directories. You're about to contact all of them at the same pace, with the same message. Half the effort will land on targets that make no sense for you.
The problem isn't the list. It's that a raw list says nothing about what these businesses actually are. Yet this information exists, it's public, and it's structured in France's official registries. Matching it against your list changes the nature of the work: instead of prospecting in the dark, you filter first, then contact the businesses that genuinely fit your target.
What this article covers. How to enrich a business list with legal data — legal form, registration date, directors, share capital, NAF/APE code, administrative status — to sort and prioritise before a first contact. The legal_data module on outsend.xyz performs this matching automatically. It's the direct complement to SIRET / SIREN / VAT number enrichment: one retrieves the identifiers, the other reads the full company record behind them.
A business list doesn't tell you whether the company is active, how large it is, or who runs it
A list from a directory or map scrape gives you the visible: trade name, contact details, sometimes a website. It doesn't give you the legal status of the business. And it's precisely that status which determines whether reaching out makes sense.
Three blind spots come up consistently. First, actual activity: a company may have been struck off or never started trading without anything in a contact list signalling this. Second, maturity: a raw record doesn't distinguish a fifteen-year-old structure from a new registration. Third, legal form and governance: SARL, SAS, sole trader, association — each form corresponds to a different type of contact and decision cycle that the trade name alone doesn't reveal.
As long as this information is missing, qualification is guesswork. With it, it becomes a filter you apply in seconds to the entire list.
What legal data exists in open data, and what it reveals
France publishes the civil records of its businesses in two complementary open registries. These are not marketing databases: they are official administrative registries, accessible to everyone.
The Sirene database, maintained by INSEE and open as public data since 1 January 2017, contains the civil records of businesses and their establishments. According to INSEE, it covers nearly 25 million companies and 36 million establishments registered in the directory since 1973. It holds identifiers (SIREN, SIRET), registration date, administrative status (active or ceased), address, employee headcount band, and activity code.
The Registre national des entreprises (RNE), operated by INPI since 1 January 2023, centralises legal data: legal form, share capital, registered name, principal activity, and legal representatives (named directors). Its public data is freely accessible to anyone on the INPI website or through the business directory.
Here is what each field reveals in practice when qualifying a B2B target.
| Legal data | Source | What it reveals for qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Legal form | RNE | SARL, SAS, sole trader, association… → type of contact, decision cycle, structure |
| Registration date | Sirene | New creation vs established structure → maturity, likely needs |
| Administrative status | Sirene | Active vs ceased/struck off → keep or exclude from list |
| NAF / APE code | Sirene | Actual sector of activity → segmentation by market |
| Employee headcount band | Sirene | Approximate size → prioritisation |
| Share capital | RNE | For companies → indicator of financial substance |
| Directors (name) | RNE | Legal representative → personalise outreach to the business |
A word on the NAF / APE code, which is often misunderstood. According to INSEE, the APE code (activité principale exercée — principal activity carried out) is based on the French activity classification (NAF): four digits followed by a letter, assigned to each business when it registers in the Sirene directory. It's the identifier that lets you filter a list by actual sector — not by what the trade name suggests.
On legal forms: according to Service-Public, solo activity takes the form of a sole trader (entreprise individuelle), EURL, or SASU; multi-partner activity becomes a SARL, SAS, or SA. Legal form isn't just a label: liability, the director's tax status, and formality requirements all follow from it. For prospectors, it says a great deal about the organisation on the other side.
How outsend automatically enriches your list with this data
The legal_data module (labelled "Données société" in the interface) takes a business list — typically the output of a Google Maps scrape — and matches each row against the official registry to surface a structured legal record.
The matching relies on the public API recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr, which aggregates Sirene and the RNE. For each business on the list, the module first attempts a match by SIREN if the identifier is known; otherwise, a fuzzy match by name + postcode; and as a last resort, a geographic fallback using the coordinates returned by the scrape. No manual input, no third-party paid service: the data comes from France's open government registries.
The result is added to your list as new columns. Here is what an enriched record looks like for a business on the list:
The module also produces a consolidated status per row, summarising the company's state (active, flagged, to exclude) so you don't have to scan twelve columns before deciding who to contact. Everything exports with your list as CSV, JSON, or XLSX.
Legal enrichment is part of outsend's all-in-one suite: it chains into a pipeline with upstream scraping and, downstream, a GDPR-compliant email finder or tech stack detection depending on your needs. outsend.xyz is in alpha, access is free on application: you can request access here and describe the type of list you want to qualify.
Sorting and segmenting your list with this data
Once the legal columns are in place, qualification becomes a series of filters. The object of the sorting remains the business as an organisation — its form, age, sector — not the individual who runs it.
Remove inactive businesses. Filtering on administrative status removes in one step all ceased or struck-off businesses that pollute a raw list. You stop wasting time and credibility contacting a company that no longer exists.
Distinguish new registrations from established structures. The registration date splits the list into two populations with different needs and different messaging. A business less than a year old and a SARL with twenty years of history don't warrant the same pitch.
Target by NAF code. Rather than guessing the sector from a trade name, you filter on the official activity code. That's the difference between "businesses whose name suggests construction" and "businesses whose declared principal activity is joinery."
Prioritise by size. The employee headcount band and, for companies, share capital give an order of magnitude. You focus effort where it makes sense for your offer, without over-reading: these are surface indicators, not audited accounts.
The result is not a bigger list, but a sharper one: fewer contacts, better chosen. That's the opposite of bulk blind outreach, and it's also what makes a lead generation approach qualitative rather than volumetric.
Compliance: public data, governed use
Company legal data is public by design. Anyone can look up a company's record on the INPI website or download the Sirene database from data.gouv.fr. Retrieving the legal form, registration date, NAF code, or share capital of a business is open economic information, and qualifying a business on these criteria raises no issue.
Two substantive nuances, however, on directors. First, the names of legal representatives appear in the RNE's public data, but the personal contact details of a director who is a natural person (personal address, phone number, personal email) are only disclosed subject to their express consent. Second, the Sirene database allows natural persons to object to the disclosure of their data: INSEE states that users must take into account the most recent dissemination status of each individual.
In practice, the line is clear. This data is used to characterise and segment the business — status, form, sector, maturity — to decide which ones to contact and with what message, not to build a profile on an individual. The module surfaces the legal representative's name to address the business correctly, not to profile the person. And any outreach remains subject to the usual prospecting rules (disclosure, opt-out, legitimate interest).
This article is part of a broader series: see all OutSend features.
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Request free alpha accessFAQ — Company legal data
What legal data can be retrieved on a French company?
The public data from official registries: legal form (SARL, SAS, sole trader…), registration date, administrative status (active or ceased), NAF/APE code, employee headcount band, share capital for companies, and the names of named directors. It comes from the Sirene database (INSEE) and the Registre national des entreprises (INPI), both open to the public.
Where does this data come from, and is it reliable?
From two official state registries: the Sirene database from INSEE (business civil records, nearly 25 million entities according to INSEE) and the RNE from INPI (legal data). outsend queries them via the public API recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr. These are administrative sources, regularly updated — not reconstructed marketing databases.
Is the NAF/APE code reliable for targeting a sector?
It's the official identifier for the principal activity, assigned by INSEE at registration in the Sirene directory (four digits + one letter). It's more reliable than inferring the sector from a trade name, but it describes the declared principal activity: a multi-activity business has a single APE code, which may not reflect its full reality. Combine it with other signals for edge cases.
Is it legal to use directors' data for prospecting?
The names of legal representatives are public in the RNE and can be used to address the business correctly. However, the personal contact details of a director who is a natural person are only disclosed if they have given express consent, and every individual has the right to object to the disclosure of their Sirene data. Best practice: qualify the business, don't profile the individual, and comply with prospecting rules (opt-out, legitimate interest).
How does outsend match my list against the registries?
By SIREN match when the identifier is known, otherwise by fuzzy matching on name + postcode, otherwise by geographic fallback using coordinates from the scrape. The result is added to your list as new columns, exportable as CSV, JSON, or XLSX, with no manual input.
What's the difference from SIRET / SIREN / VAT number enrichment?
The two modules are complementary. Legal identifier enrichment retrieves the official numbers (SIRET, SIREN, VAT number, RCS) that identify the entity. The company data module reads the full record behind those numbers — form, directors, headcount, dates. You often start with one to obtain the identifiers, then chain the other for the detailed record.