LEI Record Management Share: 41 Issuers Compared

The global result

We counted 3,201,178 LEI records for active legal entities whose registration status was ISSUED or LAPSED in the GLEIF snapshot published at 00:00 UTC on 21 October 2026. Each record was assigned to the LEI issuer named in Registration.ManagingLOU.

The two largest current managers were Bloomberg, with 509,176 records, and Ubisecure RapidLEI, with 475,856. Together they managed 30.77% of the population. The five largest managers held 53.09%.

The top ten managed 77.22% of the defined population. That is a useful description of where record administration sits. It is not a quality score, a price comparison or proof that these organisations originally issued every record they now manage.

Download the complete results table. It includes all 41 current issuers in the global result and in each country comparison, including zero-count rows.

Country markets are much more concentrated

We repeated the calculation for India, the United States, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. These were the five largest country populations in GLEIF's Q2 2026 business report.

Our country denominator is deliberately different from the report's quarter-end total. We use the legal-address country and keep only active entities with ISSUED or LAPSED registrations in the 21 October snapshot. The comparison is therefore internally consistent, but its counts should not be pasted beside the quarterly report as though they were the same measure.

The United States is the sharpest example: Bloomberg managed 308,061 of 342,725 records in scope. Italy and the United Kingdom also had a single manager responsible for more than two-thirds of the records counted.

India and Germany were less dominated by one organisation, but their records still sat mainly with a small group. In India, LEIL and Ubisecure together managed 68.10%. In Germany, Bundesanzeiger Verlag and WM Datenservice together managed 70.96%.

The final column is the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index: square each issuer's percentage share and add the results. A higher number means the shares are more concentrated. We report it as a compact comparison, not as a competition-law finding. Legal tests depend on the market definition and jurisdiction; this table defines neither.

Current manager does not mean original issuer

GLEIF defines ManagingLOU as the LEI issuer responsible for administering the record. A record manager is not a corporate parent; Level 2 accounting-parent data is analysed separately in our LEI corporate ownership analysis. The field can change when an LEI is transferred. GLEIF's Q2 report, for example, records a transfer of records after the Zagreb Stock Exchange stopped operating as an issuer.

Our table answers: who manages the record now? It does not answer who first issued it. The current Level 1 Golden Copy exposes the current manager, not a ready-made original-issuer field. Reconstructing issuance history would require a separate historical analysis with its own rules for transfers and predecessor organisations. The United States result is therefore an 89.89% share of the defined records currently managed, not an 89.89% share of original issuance.

Issuers are not the same as storefronts

The GLEIF issuer directory returned 41 current issuers when we collected the data. These organisations are accredited to issue and maintain LEIs in authorised jurisdictions. A legal entity can use an issuer accredited for its jurisdiction even when the issuer is based elsewhere.

Registration Agents sit between customers and issuers. GLEIF says there are more than 100 of them, and one agent may work with one or more issuers. Several different websites can therefore lead to the same underlying issuer.

This result should not be combined with our LEI provider price study as if the populations matched. That study compared selected public storefront offers. This one counts accredited issuers named as current record managers.

What this says about choice

The global figures show a reasonably spread top tier: no issuer alone managed more than 15.91% of the defined worldwide population. National patterns can be quite different because regulation, language, local infrastructure, historical issuer activity and record transfers shape where management accumulates.

Large management share does not show that customers had no choice when they applied. Nor does the count tell us whether a user applied directly, through an agent or through a bulk service. GLEIF's directory is the right place to confirm which issuers are accredited for a particular jurisdiction; the current manager count is not a substitute for that check.

If you are obtaining an identifier for one company, start with what an LEI is used for and how to get one. If you already have a code, check the current record rather than relying on a country average.

Method

We used GLEIF's public API, which is based on the Golden Copy data. The API reported a Golden Copy publication date of 21 October 2026 at 00:00 UTC throughout the collection.

First, we retrieved the 41 organisations in GLEIF's current LEI issuer endpoint. For each issuer, we queried the number of records matching:

• Entity.Status = ACTIVE
• Registration.Status = ISSUED or LAPSED
• Registration.ManagingLOU = the issuer's LEI

For country results, we also required Entity.LegalAddress.Country to equal the relevant ISO country code. This is the legal-address country in the record, not necessarily the entity's legal jurisdiction, headquarters or operating market.

We kept the status filter narrower than GLEIF's quarterly “active LEI” business-report measure, which can include pending transfer and pending archival records. That choice avoids counting a transfer state against both the concept of a current manager and a settled registration status.

The 41 issuer counts summed exactly to the independently queried population total in all six scopes: global, India, United States, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom. Shares were calculated from integer counts before rounding. Top-five share is the sum of the five largest unrounded shares. HHI is the sum of squared percentage shares on a 0–10,000 scale.

The GLEIF Level 1 specification supplies the field and status definitions. GLEIF makes the underlying data available as open data under CC0.

Limits

This is a snapshot. GLEIF updates the Golden Copy several times a day, so later queries will produce different counts. The issuer set can also change through accreditation, consolidation or an organisation leaving the system.

The results measure managed records, not revenue, application volume during a period, customer numbers, accredited-country coverage, service speed, accuracy, price or satisfaction. One legal entity record counts once, regardless of how much work or income it creates for the manager.

We selected five major jurisdictions for a focused comparison rather than presenting every country in the article. The download preserves the exact issuer-level rows used here. It does not contain personal data beyond the public institutional details already present in GLEIF's issuer directory.

Frequently asked questions

Which organisation manages the most LEI records?

Bloomberg managed the largest number in this snapshot: 509,176 of 3,201,178 active-entity records with an ISSUED or LAPSED registration status, or 15.91%. Ubisecure RapidLEI was second at 14.87%.

Does the largest manager issue the best LEIs?

No. An LEI follows the same global standard regardless of issuer. A large current management share does not establish price, service or data quality, and it does not show who originally issued every record.

Why can a record have a different current manager from its original issuer?

LEIs can be transferred between accredited issuers without changing the identifier. The ManagingLOU field names the organisation administering the record now, so a transfer changes the manager counted in this analysis.

Are Registration Agents included as separate issuers?

No. The issuer population comes from GLEIF's current issuer endpoint. Registration Agents may help customers apply, but the accredited issuer remains responsible for issuing and maintaining the LEI.