Legal
Terms of Service
Effective July 9, 2026 · Last updated July 9, 2026
These Terms are a binding agreement between you and BYOQ LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company (“BYOQ,” “we,” “us”), governing your use of GovFiles — our website, API, documentation, dashboard, and any bulk datasets we deliver (together, the “Service”). By creating an account, minting an API key, or using the Service, you agree to them. If you are agreeing on behalf of a company, you represent that you are authorized to bind it.
1. The Service
GovFiles replicates business-entity filings from the authoritative company registry of each of the 50 US states, normalizes them into a single schema, and makes them queryable through an API, bulk exports, and warehouse shares. The Service is offered to users in the United States.
2. Accounts and API keys
You must be at least 18 years old and provide accurate account information. GovFiles accounts are passwordless; you sign in with an emailed one-time code or with Google.
You are responsible for all activity under your account and API keys, including usage and charges incurred by anyone who obtains your key. Keep your API keys secret. Do not embed them in client-side code, mobile apps, or public repositories. If a key is exposed, revoke it in the dashboard and mint a new one — we cannot recover a key, only replace it. Tell us promptly at hello [at] govfiles [dot] dev if you suspect unauthorized use.
3. Plans, credits, and billing
Billing is per row returned. A search that returns 25 rows costs 25 credits; a direct entity lookup costs 1. Requests that return no rows, and requests that fail with a server error, are not charged.
- Pay as you go. A free monthly allowance of rows, then per-row pricing at the rate published on our pricing page. No card required to start.
- Scale. A monthly subscription that includes a credit grant each period at a discounted per-row rate thereafter, with a 99.9% uptime commitment.
- Bulk replication. Full jurisdictions delivered as Parquet or as a warehouse share, priced and contracted separately. Where a separate bulk or enterprise agreement exists, it controls over these Terms to the extent of any conflict.
Current pricing is on the pricing page and is incorporated into these Terms. We may change pricing on 30 days’ notice to account holders; changes do not affect the current paid subscription period.
Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled, and you may cancel at any time from the billing portal, effective at the end of the then-current period. Purchased credits and subscription fees are non-refundable except where required by law, and credits have no cash value. Prepaid credits do not expire while your account is in good standing. Fees are exclusive of taxes, which are your responsibility. If a charge fails or is disputed, we may suspend the Service until it is resolved.
4. Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- Circumvent metering, rate limits, or authentication, or share keys to evade per-account limits
- Interfere with or unduly burden the Service, or probe it for vulnerabilities outside a good-faith security report
- Use the Service to harass, stalk, dox, defraud, or threaten anyone
- Use the data in violation of any law, including anti-discrimination, telemarketing, anti-spam, and consumer-protection law
- Misrepresent GovFiles data as sourced from, or endorsed by, a government agency
- Resell, redistribute, or sublicense the data except as section 5 permits
5. Your license to the data
Subject to these Terms and your payment of fees, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the data you retrieve from the Service for your internal business purposes, and to incorporate it into your own products and analyses.
You may: store retrieved records, cache them, enrich them with your own data, and surface derived insights to your customers.
You may not: systematically extract the Service in order to reconstruct or offer a substantially similar bulk dataset or competing company-data API, or redistribute substantial portions of the dataset as a standalone product. If you want bulk data, license it — talk to us (hello [at] govfiles [dot] dev), we are reasonable about it.
The underlying facts in public records are not ours to own. Our rights are in the compilation, normalization, schema, matching, enrichment, and the Service itself.
6. Permitted purposes
GovFiles is a source of public business-registry data. It is not a background-screening product, and the following restriction is a condition of your license.
BYOQ is not a consumer reporting agency, and GovFiles data is not a consumer report as those terms are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. We do not collect the data for, and you may not use it for, any purpose that would make it a consumer report. In particular, you may not use GovFiles data, in whole or in part, as a factor in establishing an individual’s eligibility for credit or insurance for personal, family, or household purposes; for employment; for housing or tenancy; for a government license or benefit; or for any other purpose enumerated in 15 U.S.C. § 1681b.
You are responsible for the lawfulness of your own use of the data, including under any applicable anti-discrimination, telemarketing, and anti-spam law, and you will indemnify us for claims arising from your misuse under section 11.
7. Data accuracy — no warranty
GovFiles mirrors what state registries publish. Registries contain errors, omissions, stale records, inconsistent formatting, and delayed filings, and they go offline. We do not warrant that the data is accurate, complete, current, or fit for any particular purpose, and we are not the system of record for any filing.
Refresh cadence is a target, not a guarantee. Do not rely on GovFiles as the sole basis for a legal, financial, compliance, or lending decision. For anything consequential, verify against the state registry, which remains the authoritative source. Nothing in the Service is legal, tax, or financial advice.
8. Availability and support
We commit to 99.9% monthly uptime for accounts on the Scale plan and on bulk agreements that say so. Free and pay-as-you-go usage is provided without an uptime commitment. Uptime excludes scheduled maintenance, force majeure, and failures of upstream state registries or third-party providers. We may apply reasonable rate limits, and may modify or discontinue features with notice for material changes.
9. Intellectual property and feedback
The Service, including the GovFiles name, logo, schema, documentation, and software, belongs to BYOQ. These Terms grant no rights to our trademarks. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without restriction or obligation to you.
10. Suspension and termination
You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access if you materially breach these Terms — in particular section 4 or section 6 — if your payment fails, or if your usage threatens the security, integrity, or availability of the Service. Where circumstances reasonably allow, we will give notice and an opportunity to cure.
On termination, your license ends and your API keys stop working. Data you already retrieved and stored remains subject to sections 5, 6, and 7. We may terminate accounts on the free tier at any time. If we terminate a paid account without cause, we will refund the unused, prepaid portion of your subscription.
11. Disclaimers, liability, and indemnity
The Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, accuracy, and non-infringement.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, BYOQ will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to the Service, even if advised of the possibility. BYOQ’s total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these Terms will not exceed the greater of one hundred US dollars ($100) or the amounts you paid us for the Service in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.
Indemnity. You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless BYOQ and its members, officers, and employees from any claim, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of your use of the Service, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of law — including any claim that your use of the data violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act or another permitted-purpose restriction in section 6.
Some states do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, willful misconduct, or anything else that cannot be limited by law.
12. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and BYOQ agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Wyoming, and each of us waives any objection to venue there.
Before filing anything, email hello [at] govfiles [dot] dev and give us 30 days to work it out. Most things are resolvable by email. Any claim must be brought within one year of when it arose.
13. General
Changes. We may update these Terms. For material changes we will email account holders at least 14 days before they take effect, and continued use after that date constitutes acceptance. The “last updated” date above always reflects the current version.
Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them to an affiliate or to a successor in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
Entire agreement and severability. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any bulk or enterprise agreement, are the entire agreement between us. If a provision is held unenforceable, it is severed and the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. Sections 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12 survive termination.
Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond its reasonable control.
14. Contact
BYOQ LLC (Wyoming) · hello [at] govfiles [dot] dev