LEI Data Access and Use LEI Data

Level 2 Data: Who Owns Whom



The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) connects to key reference data that provides the information on a legal entity identifiable with an LEI.

The business card information available with the LEI reference data, e.g. the official name of a legal entity and its registered address, is referred to as ‘Level 1’ data. It provides the answer to the question of ‘who is who’. In addition, the LEI data pool includes the ‘Level 2’ data that answers the question of ‘who owns whom’. Specifically, legal entities that have or acquire an LEI report their ‘direct accounting consolidating parent’ as well as their ‘ultimate accounting consolidating parent’. (For detailed statistics on direct and ultimate parent information provided by legal entities, refer to the quarterly Global LEI System Business Report.)

As a result, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) offers a unique and free data source that allows corporate dots to be connected globally based on open, standardized and high quality LEI data.

Connect the corporate dots globally with open, standardized and high quality LEI data.

If the direct and / or ultimate parents of an LEI registrant have obtained an LEI, the LEI of the parent(s) is published together with the LEI record of the child entity. Likewise, the LEI record of an organization that is the direct or ultimate parent of another organization that has obtained an LEI will display the LEI of the child entity or entities.

The principles governing the collection of data on direct and ultimate parents in the Global LEI System are set out in a dedicated policy document published by the Regulatory Oversight Committee in March 2016. Data collection was initiated in May 2017.

GLEIF has published the Global LEI Index. It contains historical and current LEI records including related reference data in one authoritative, central repository. GLEIF offers various means to access the publicly available LEI data pool. Subject to the selected mode of accessing the LEI data pool, users are able to source additional information relevant to an LEI record such as enriched reference data or other identifiers that have been mapped to the LEI.

Any interested party can access and search the complete LEI data pool free of charge and without the need to register. To explore the various means offered by GLEIF to access the LEI data pool, refer to these dedicated website pages:

For detailed information on how LEI issuing organizations report Level 2 data, and to download related technical documentation developed by GLEIF, refer to these dedicated GLEIF website pages: