How to Check if a Company Is Registered in South Africa

Before you pay a deposit, sign a contract, accept a job offer or take on a new supplier, one question is worth a few minutes of your time: is this company actually registered? In South Africa every legitimate company is recorded on the register kept by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC). That register is public, and checking it is free once you know where to look.

This guide explains how to check whether a company is registered in South Africa, what the CIPC search does and does not tell you, how to read a company registration number, and how to spot the warning signs of a business that is not what it claims to be. idchecker.co.za began as a free tool for validating the structure of a South African ID number, and company verification sits right alongside it: the same due-diligence instinct, applied to a business instead of a person. You can still validate an ID number free with our tool at any time.

What "registered" means for a South African company

A registered company is a legal entity recorded on the CIPC register under the Companies Act 71 of 2008. Registration gives the business a unique registration number, at least one director, a registered address and an ongoing obligation to file annual returns. The main entity types you will encounter are:

• Private company (Pty) Ltd — by far the most common form for small and medium businesses.
• Public company Ltd — larger companies that may offer shares to the public.
• Non-profit company (NPC) — organisations with a public-benefit or social objective.
• Personal liability company (Inc) — typically professional practices such as attorneys or auditors.
• Close corporation (CC) — an older form; no new CCs have been registered since 2011, but many existing ones still trade.

One important caveat: "registered" is not the same as "trading", "tax-compliant" or "trustworthy". It only confirms that the entity legally exists on the CIPC register. A company can be perfectly registered and still be dormant, in financial trouble, or run by people you would rather avoid. Registration is the first check, not the only one.

How to check a company on CIPC for free

The official, free way to check is through the CIPC's online enterprise search, now delivered mainly through the government's BizPortal platform (bizportal.gov.za), with the older CIPC eServices search still available too. Here is the process step by step:

Step-by-step CIPC company search

1. Go to the CIPC BizPortal website, or the CIPC eServices enterprise search page.
2. Create a free profile and log in. A basic account is enough for a simple existence check.
3. Open the BizProfile or Enterprise Search service.
4. Search by company name, registration number, or a director's ID or passport number. Searching by ID number is useful when you want to see every company a particular person is linked to.
5. Open the matching result and read the key fields: registration status, registration date, entity type, active directors and the registered address.

The basic enterprise search is free. A full disclosure certificate — the official document confirming directors and status — carries a small CIPC fee, usually around R30 to R50, paid from your CIPC account. For most everyday checks the free search already answers the question.

What the CIPC search shows, and what it does not

The free CIPC record is powerful, but it has clear limits. Knowing where those limits fall is the difference between a quick sanity check and real due diligence.

For the items in the right-hand column you need something more than the free register: a commercial company report, a credit-bureau check, or a consolidated verification report that combines the company record with the identities of the people behind it.

How to read a South African company registration number

A modern South African company registration number follows the format YYYY/NNNNNN/NN. Reading it takes only a moment once you know the parts:

• YYYY — the year the company was registered.
• NNNNNN — a sequential six-digit number assigned by CIPC.
• NN — a two-digit code for the entity type.

So a number like 2019/123456/07 tells you the entity is a private company registered in 2019. Close corporations use the older "CK" format (for example CK 2005/012345/23) because they predate the current company numbering. If the registration number you have been given does not match this pattern — or the year in it contradicts a company's claim to be "long established" — treat it as a red flag worth checking.

This is the business equivalent of the 13-digit South African ID number, which has its own built-in structure. If you also need to check the person behind a company, our guide to the SA ID number format explains what each digit means, and you can verify a director's ID number free using the idchecker validator.

Other ways to verify a company

The CIPC register confirms that a company exists. To confirm that it is safe to deal with, layer on a few more checks:

• Tax and VAT — ask for a SARS tax clearance PIN or check that a claimed VAT number is valid. A registered company is not automatically a VAT vendor.
• Directors and ownership — cross-reference the listed directors against the person you are dealing with. You can look a person up and search an ID number by name to sanity-check that the human matches the paperwork.
• Credit and litigation — a commercial credit report reveals judgments, defaults and financial health that CIPC does not.
• Operational signs — a real registered address, a working landline, a website that is more than a few weeks old, and independent reviews all add confidence.
• Compliance context — if you are onboarding the business as a client, this feeds directly into your FICA obligations, and any personal information you collect is governed by POPIA.

Red flags: how to tell if a company is not legitimate

Most business scams fall apart the moment you check the register. Watch for these warning signs:

• The company simply is not on the CIPC register at all.
• Its status shows deregistered, in deregistration, in business rescue or in liquidation.
• The registration number does not match the name you were given, or the year in the number contradicts the company's story.
• The directors listed do not match the person contacting you.
• A supposedly established business has a brand-new registration date.
• You are pressured to pay a deposit before you are allowed to verify anything.
• The only contact details are a free email address and a cellphone number, with payment requested into a personal bank account.

These same checks protect you against fake job offers and supplier fraud. If a "recruiter" or "employer" cannot survive a CIPC lookup, the offer is not real. Vetting the individuals as well as the company is often the safest route — a background check covers the people side of that due diligence.

When you need a professional verification or KYC report

For a casual check, the free CIPC search is enough. But when the stakes are higher — onboarding a supplier, running due diligence on a new business client, vetting a tender bidder, or making a large payment — you usually need a consolidated report that pulls the company's CIPC record, its directors and their verified identity details into one document you can keep on file.

That is exactly what a Standard KYC report is for: it combines business and individual due diligence in a single verified check, so you are not stitching together a company search, an ID verification and a director lookup by hand. You can see the full range of verification products on our reports page. It never replaces the free CIPC register — it builds on it, adding the verified-identity and consolidated layers the public search leaves out.

Frequently asked questions

Is checking a company on CIPC free?

Yes. The basic enterprise search on CIPC BizPortal is free once you have a profile, and it confirms a company's name, registration number, status and directors. A full disclosure certificate carries a small CIPC fee, usually around R30 to R50.

What does "in business" versus "deregistered" mean?

"In business" means the company is active and compliant on the register. "Deregistered" or "in deregistration" means it has been removed or is being removed, often for failing to file annual returns. Dealing with a deregistered company carries real risk, because it may no longer be a valid legal entity.

Can I check a company by a director's ID number?

Yes. The CIPC enterprise search lets you search by a director's ID or passport number, which returns every entity that person is linked to. This is useful for spotting whether someone is tied to companies they did not mention, or to businesses that have been deregistered.

How do I know if a company is a scam?

Start with the CIPC register. If the company is not listed, is deregistered, or its registration number and directors do not match what you were told, treat it as a scam until proven otherwise. Add pressure to pay upfront, a personal bank account and no verifiable address, and the picture is clear.

What does a South African company registration number look like?

It follows the format YYYY/NNNNNN/NN — the year of registration, a six-digit sequence, and a two-digit entity-type code (07 for a private company, 06 for a public company, 08 for an NPC, 21 for a personal liability company). Close corporations use the older CK format.

Do I need the company's permission to check its registration?

No. Company registration details are public record, so you can check any company on CIPC without its consent. Bear in mind that the personal information of directors is still protected under POPIA, so use what you find for legitimate verification purposes only.