For what it's worth, I was sent the URL above on a wink wink hush hush basis by a large EV SSL certificate issuer. We needed a cert for our non-US company, but they wanted a DUNS number. Nobody outside the US actually uses DUNS numbers (I don't care what D&B says). So yeah, that URL gives you a DUNS number for free within 1 business day, paid for by the US Government.
The above link pitches its offer as being for companies that do business with the US government. Does your business actually have to be engaged in a government contract, or can it be on a "we might respond to an RFQ someday" basis?
That's only because D&B have to look like their existence is necessary. So they just trawl for new entries at companies house and auto-generate the entry in their DB.
For what it's worth, I was sent the URL above on a wink wink hush hush basis by a large EV SSL certificate issuer. We needed a cert for our non-US company, but they wanted a DUNS number. Nobody outside the US actually uses DUNS numbers (I don't care what D&B says). So yeah, that URL gives you a DUNS number for free within 1 business day, paid for by the US Government.