Dun & Bradstreet and the DUNS Number: The Story Behind the Global Business Identifier

To understand the DUNS number, you need to understand the company that created it: Dun & Bradstreet. With over 180 years of history and a database of 455 million companies, D&B has become the global standard for business identification and commercial information. Here is the fascinating story of this institution.

Dun & Bradstreet: Over 180 Years of History

The Origins: 1841 in New York

It all began in 1841 in New York, during a period of rapid American commercial expansion. A merchant named Lewis Tappan founded the Mercantile Agency, the first commercial information service in the United States. The idea was revolutionary for the time: gathering information about the creditworthiness and reputation of American merchants so that other merchants could make informed decisions.

In those days, before modern bank credit, the decision to sell "on credit" (that is, with deferred payment) to a customer was entirely based on personal reputation. Tappan's idea was to systematize this information by creating a nationwide network of local correspondents who would report on merchants.

Among the Mercantile Agency's local correspondents was a young lawyer from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln.

The Birth of Dun & Bradstreet

In 1849, Robert Graham Dun took over the Mercantile Agency and renamed it R.G. Dun & Company. Around the same time, John Bradstreet founded a competing agency, the Bradstreet Company. The two firms coexisted and competed for decades, each building their own information networks and rating systems.

In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, the two historic rivals merged to form Dun & Bradstreet. This merger created the world's largest commercial database and established D&B as the undisputed reference for business information.

1962: The Creation of the DUNS Number

In 1962, Dun & Bradstreet took a decisive step: the creation of the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS). The idea was to assign each company in the D&B database a unique and permanent number. This numbering system would make it easy to locate any company, even if it changed its name or address.

Initially, the DUNS system was primarily used by American companies to identify their business partners and assess credit risk. But very quickly, the logic of standardization convinced other players to adopt this system.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations and various governments began adopting DUNS as the identification standard in their procurement processes. The internationalization of post-Cold War trade accelerated global adoption.

The Global Database: 455 Million Companies

Today, the D&B database is one of the largest ever assembled in the history of commerce:

This database is continuously fed by thousands of sources: national trade registers, government data, information declared by companies themselves, media and legal publications, local partners (such as Altares in France), and transactional data.

D&B claims to update more than 5 million records per day. This freshness of data is what makes the system valuable for companies that use it to evaluate their partners.

D&B's Role in the Global Economy

Dun & Bradstreet plays a structuring role in the global economy at several levels:

Key D&B Products and Services

Alternatives to DUNS

While DUNS is the most widespread standard, there are a few alternatives for specific uses:

• LEI (Legal Entity Identifier): International standard used primarily in the financial sector to identify parties to financial transactions. Managed by the GLEIF.
• GLN (Global Location Number): GS1 standard used to identify physical locations in the supply chain. Not a direct competitor to DUNS.
• UPIK: Business directory based on DUNS, maintained by the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce. Allows free lookup.

None of these alternatives has achieved the worldwide adoption level of DUNS for public procurement and B2B partnerships. DUNS remains the de facto standard in these areas.

To learn more about how to use your DUNS number, see our guide: DUNS Number: The Complete Guide 2026.