Do you treat “&” the same as “and”?

Short answer: No — not always. Many state Secretary of State search pages treat & and and as distinct characters and can register different legal names (for example “Pizza & Pasta” vs “Pizza and Pasta”). Because we aim to match what the state site returns, we do not globally normalize & → and.

Why this matters

Some states intentionally distinguish & from and in their official records. Converting & to and automatically can cause the wrong legal entity to be returned, which can break geolocation, underwriting, compliance, or other downstream checks.

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