I verified all 160 official U.S. business-data portals so your agent doesn't have to — here's what I found

Every agent workflow I build starts with the same wasted motion: the agent searches the web for the official registry, lands on an ad or an aggregator, and burns its run. So I verified the official portals myself — business entity search (50 states + DC + federal), UCC lien search, and professional license verification — and wrote down what agents actually need to know before they start.

Findings that surprised me:

• Texas is the only state that charges for a basic business entity search ($1 via its portal) — and it retired the system agents' training data points to (SOSDirect) in September 2026.
• UCC search is a different world: 21 of 51 jurisdictions charge, 18 require an account before you can search, and Delaware has no public search at all (state-licensed "Authorized Searchers" only).
• License verification has no center: only 21 of 51 jurisdictions have a true central portal. California's main portal excludes contractors and real estate entirely. A "not found" there proves nothing.
• In 10+ states the business registry is not run by the Secretary of State at all.
• A large share of these portals return 403/bot challenges to plain HTTP clients. If your agent fetches with a simple client, it needs a browser session for these — the datasets flag them per portal.

I packaged the verified data (JSON + CSV, documented schema, per-entry cost/login/access notes, last verified October 2026) as the Source Finder datasets on Gumroad, with free samples so you can check the schema before paying anything: https://github.com/bradraylucas-eng/ai-agent-tools-free-samples · Vol. 1 on Gumroad: https://bradray2.gumroad.com/l/fxnjw

If you build agents that do due diligence, vendor checks, or lead verification, I'd genuinely like to know what other official sources you re-hunt every run — that's what Vol. 4 should be.

— Brad (maker; the datasets are my product, the samples are free)