Company Registration Number Search in South Africa

A company's registration number is its unique fingerprint on the official South African business register. If someone has given you a registration number on a quote, an invoice, a contract or a job offer, you can use it to look the business up, confirm it is real, and see who stands behind it. This guide explains how to do a company registration number search in South Africa, what the search returns, and how to tell a genuine number from a fabricated one.

It sits alongside idchecker.co.za's original purpose. We began as a free tool for checking the structure of a 13-digit South African ID number, and a company registration number is the business equivalent: a structured number you can read and verify. You can validate an ID number free with our tool whenever you need the personal side of the same check.

What a company registration number is

Every company on the register kept by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) is issued a registration number in the format YYYY/NNNNNN/NN: the year of registration, a six-digit sequence, and a two-digit entity-type code. So 2019/123456/07 is a private company registered in 2019, while a suffix of 06 is a public company, 08 a non-profit company and 21 a personal liability company. Older close corporations use the CK format instead, because they predate the current numbering.

The number never changes for the life of the entity, which is exactly why it is the most reliable thing to search on: a company can rebrand its trading name, but its registration number stays put. For a full breakdown of what each part of the number means, see our guide to checking whether a company is registered, which explains the format and every entity-type code in detail.

How to do a company registration number search on CIPC

The register is public and searching it is free. There are two official CIPC routes, and both let you search by company name, registration number, or a director's ID number.

Search on CIPC eServices

1. Go to the CIPC eServices enterprise search page.
2. Create a free profile and log in. A basic account is enough for a registration-number lookup.
3. Open the Enterprise Search service.
4. Enter the registration number exactly as it appears, including the slashes.
5. Open the matching result and read the key fields: registered name, status, registration date, entity type and directors.

Search on BizPortal

The government's BizPortal platform, also run by CIPC, offers a BizProfile search that works the same way. Log in with your CIPC profile, choose BizProfile, and search by the registration number to pull the company's current record. Either route returns the same underlying CIPC data.

What a registration number search shows you

A search by registration number confirms the essentials that matter for basic due diligence:

• The registered company name, and any previous names it has traded under.
• Its current status: in business, deregistered, in deregistration or in liquidation.
• The registration date and entity type.
• The active and past directors linked to the company.
• The registered address and annual-return filing compliance.

What it does not show is just as important: the free record carries no bank details, no turnover or financial statements, no SARS tax or VAT status, no credit history, and no independent verification of the directors' identities. For those layers you need more than the public register, which is covered further down.

How to check a company registration number is genuine

Fraudsters lean on the fact that most people never actually check a number. A registration number search closes that gap. Run it through four quick tests:

• Format: does it match YYYY/NNNNNN/NN, or a CK number for a close corporation? A number that does not fit either pattern is a red flag.
• Year: does the year in the number fit the company's story? A number from last year cannot belong to a business that claims to be "established for over a decade".
• Name match: does the registered name that comes up match the business you were told about? A number that returns a completely different company is being borrowed or invented.
• Status: is the entity actually in business, rather than deregistered or in liquidation?

The same instinct applies to the people behind the company. Cross-checking that a director's name matches their ID is a sensible next step, and you can search an ID number by name or use the free idchecker validator to sanity-check that the human matches the paperwork. Under the current ID system, the 13-digit number itself has a built-in structure, explained in our SA ID number format guide.

Registration number versus other company numbers

Businesses carry several different numbers, and mixing them up is a common source of confusion. Here is how the main ones differ:

Only the CIPC registration number confirms that the company legally exists. A VAT or tax number tells you about its dealings with SARS, not whether it is a valid registered entity, so always start a verification with the registration number.

Common problems with a company registration number search

• Nothing comes up: check for a typo or missing slash first. Close corporations in the CK format sometimes need to be searched slightly differently, and a genuinely absent record points to a fake number.
• The name does not match: the number may belong to a dormant shelf company or a completely unrelated business. Do not proceed until the name and number line up.
• The company is deregistered: a deregistered entity is no longer a valid legal person, so contracts and payments carry real risk.
• It is a foreign company: CIPC only covers South African registrations. An overseas business will not appear, which is not proof of fraud but does mean you need to verify it through its home register.

When to get a verified company report

For a casual check, the free CIPC search by registration number is enough. But when the stakes are higher, onboarding a supplier, vetting a tender bidder, running due diligence on a new business client or making a large payment, you usually want a consolidated report that pulls the company's CIPC record and the people behind it into one document you can keep on file. This is where a registration number search feeds directly into your FICA obligations, and any personal information you gather along the way is governed by POPIA.

A company verification (CIPC) report does exactly that: it takes the registration number, confirms the company's status and directors, and packages the result as a verified check rather than a screenshot from a free portal. You can see the full range on our reports page. It never replaces the free CIPC register, it builds on it, adding the verified layer the public search leaves out.

Frequently asked questions

Can I search a company by its registration number for free?

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

Where do I find a company's registration number?

A registered company must show its registration number on its official documents: quotes, invoices, contracts, letterheads and its CIPC registration certificate. If a business will not give you its number, that in itself is a warning sign worth taking seriously.

How do I know if a company registration number is fake?

First check the format. A genuine number follows YYYY/NNNNNN/NN, with a plausible registration year, or the older CK format for a close corporation. Then search it on CIPC: if no company comes up, or the name attached to the number does not match the business you were told about, treat the number as fake until proven otherwise.

What is the difference between a company registration number and a VAT number?

They come from different bodies. The registration number is issued by CIPC when the company is formed and follows the YYYY/NNNNNN/NN format. A VAT number is issued separately by SARS and is a 10-digit number starting with a 4. A company can be registered with CIPC without being a VAT vendor, so the two are not interchangeable.

Why can't I find a company when I search its registration number?

The usual reasons are a typo or wrong spacing in the number, an old close-corporation number in the CK format, a company that was only ever registered under a name rather than a reserved number, or an entity that has been deregistered. If none of those apply and the number still returns nothing, the number is probably not genuine.

Do I need a CIPC login to search a company registration number?

Yes. CIPC requires you to register a free profile and log in before you can run an enterprise search, partly for POPIA reasons. Creating the profile costs nothing, and a basic account is enough to look a company up by its registration number.