--- title: "Reference data" summary: "Reference data is the slow-changing, externally defined data used to classify and identify things — registers, code lists, identifier schemes — as opposed to the transactional data that refers to it." canonical_url: https://entitybind.com/glossary/reference-data last_updated: 2026-10-15 copy: full --- # Reference data > Reference data is the slow-changing, externally defined data used to classify and identify things — registers, code lists, identifier schemes — as opposed to the transactional data that refers to it. Canonical page: https://entitybind.com/glossary/reference-data Last updated: 2026-10-15 Glossary · Foundations ## How to read this The definition as the field writes it comes first, weaknesses and all. What Entity Bind does about it comes last, in its own paragraph, so you can take one without the other. [Filed under foundations](https://entitybind.com/glossary#foundations). By [James Rooney](https://entitybind.com/about), founder of Entity Bind · Last revised 15 October 2026 ## What reference data means Reference data is the vocabulary the rest of the data speaks. Country codes, currency codes, legal form codes, industry classifications, exchange codes and the identifier schemes that name companies are all reference data: defined by somebody outside the organisation, changing on their schedule rather than yours, and depended on by every system that reads a code and assumes it knows what it means. Two properties cause most of the pain. Reference data is versioned, and the versions are rarely visible in the field name — NACE Rev. 2 and Rev. 2.1 are different vocabularies, and a column called 'nace' is a bug waiting for the next revision. And reference data is scoped: a code is unique within an issuing authority, so a value without its scheme is a string that looks like several different things at once. For company identity, the reference data is the register itself and the identifier schemes layered over it — the LEI from GLEIF, the company number from the register of incorporation, the CIK from EDGAR, SIREN from SIRENE. Keeping them straight is largely a matter of never storing an identifier without the authority that issued it. Entity Bind treats identifier schemes as typed and scoped rather than as strings, versions its classification schemes in the scheme name, and publishes a crosswalk between the schemes it can source. Where an identifier is one it accepts but cannot supply, the coverage page says so by name. ## Where this shows up in Entity Bind Three pages where this term stops being vocabulary and starts changing an answer, a payload or a price. - [Reference data](https://entitybind.com/use-cases/reference-data): Identifier crosswalks, where each fact came from, and what a cited fact has to carry to be usable downstream. - [Register coverage](https://entitybind.com/coverage): The registers the resolver reads, the licence each one publishes under, and how often a live entity's name is unique once it is tidied to a common form. - [The API reference](https://entitybind.com/api): The REST surface: payloads, the decision outcomes, the error model, the usage block and the ceiling on the confidence field. The fastest way past a definition is a file: which of your rows are the same company, which of your existing matches we would not have made, and what we could not decide. [Start free →](https://app.entitybind.com/app?signup=1) ## The terms next to this one Each with its own sentence, because the next question is usually about the word beside this one. - [Crosswalk](https://entitybind.com/glossary/crosswalk): A crosswalk is a mapping between the identifier schemes that name the same company in different systems — LEI to company number to CIK to ticker — so that data joined on one key can be joined to data keyed on another. - [Company number](https://entitybind.com/glossary/company-number): A company number is the identifier a register assigns to a company at incorporation, and it is unique only within the register that issued it — never within a country and never globally. - [LEI (Legal Entity Identifier)](https://entitybind.com/glossary/lei): The LEI is a 20-character ISO 17442 code identifying a legal entity that participates in financial transactions, issued through the Global LEI Foundation and published as open reference data. - [VAT number](https://entitybind.com/glossary/vat-number): A VAT number is a tax registration identifier issued by a national tax authority, checkable against the EU's validation service for member states, and a strong but imperfect proxy for company identity. - [Master data management (MDM)](https://entitybind.com/glossary/master-data-management): Master data management is the organisational discipline and the platform category that maintains authoritative shared records for core business objects such as customers, suppliers and products. - [Licence tier](https://entitybind.com/glossary/licence-tier): A licence tier is the classification carried by an individual fact that determines what may lawfully be done with it — stored, redistributed, resold, or only shown once to the caller who asked. ### Answered at length elsewhere - [Company identifiers explained](https://entitybind.com/guides/company-identifiers-explained) (Guide): Company number, LEI, CIK, ticker, SIREN and SIRET, DUNS, VAT, EUID and ISIN. What each identifies, who issues it, what it does not guarantee, and which ones actually decide a match. - [LSEG PermID](https://entitybind.com/compare/lseg-permid) (Comparison): Free permanent identifiers, and largely unrivalled in capital markets. We do not issue them. ## The other 9 terms on this shelf What the problem is called, and what the objects in it are. Entity, record, cluster, and the four industry names for the same job. - [Entity resolution](https://entitybind.com/glossary/entity-resolution) - [Record linkage](https://entitybind.com/glossary/record-linkage) - [Deduplication](https://entitybind.com/glossary/deduplication) - [Entity](https://entitybind.com/glossary/entity) - [Record](https://entitybind.com/glossary/record) - [Cluster](https://entitybind.com/glossary/cluster) - [Golden record](https://entitybind.com/glossary/golden-record) - [Survivorship](https://entitybind.com/glossary/survivorship) - [Master data management (MDM)](https://entitybind.com/glossary/master-data-management) Previous, alphabetically: [Record linkage](https://entitybind.com/glossary/record-linkage) · Next, alphabetically: [Replay](https://entitybind.com/glossary/replay) ## Evidence basis Internal fixtures only. The historical 2026-08-29 per-tier recording covers 317 GB companies with identifier-rich arrivals seeding the catalogue first; the context tier includes country and registered-town prose. Its legacy replay has no full-prompt-verified calls and cannot certify current calibration. The September 5 CI reports cover 1,176 labelled pairs and 705 records over 250 companies using offline stubs. These are not independent customer holdouts or live production validation; the 99% minimum-input product target remains unmet. Scope is company and organisation identity only — not people, vessels, bank-account ownership, sanctions or emissions. Results may not be used for eligibility decisions about individuals, including employment, credit and tenancy. ## Start with your own company records. Create your workspace, verify your email and run your first company file. The Free plan needs no card. Create API keys in your workspace when you need an integration. [Start free](https://app.entitybind.com/app?signup=1) · [All 64 terms](https://entitybind.com/glossary) 300 credits. No card. For a guided review of your file, explore [the Merge Safety Sprint](https://entitybind.com/audit-pack). --- Entity Bind resolves companies and organisations only. It does not resolve people, vessels, bank-account ownership, sanctions exposure, emissions or geolocation, and its results may not be used for eligibility decisions about individuals, including employment, credit and tenancy. This is the Markdown copy of https://entitybind.com/glossary/reference-data, assembled from the same data the page renders and carrying every sentence, table row, figure and question the page's main content carries. The HTML page is canonical; it adds the layout, the navigation and the interactive parts (the ask panel, the forms), which a copy can name but not run. Every page on the site, with a line on each: https://entitybind.com/llms.txt.