Checking a Company Before You Sign: The Official Registers

A brand partnership, an agency contract, a contractor setting up your shop: as a creator business grows, the signatures pile up. Most of them go fine. The ones that go wrong often have one thing in common: before signing, nobody checked that the company on the other side existed under the name it gave, that it was still active, and that the person signing was authorized to do so.

This check requires neither a subscription nor a middleman. The official registers are public, and much of what they contain can be consulted online for free. You still need to know which one to open, and what to look at.

What to check, in order

1. The exact identity: company name, legal form, registration number, registered office address.
2. The status: is the company active, struck off, or subject to insolvency proceedings?
3. The directors: is the person writing to you or signing listed among the legal representatives?
4. How long it has existed and recent changes: date of incorporation, transfers of registered office, changes of name or director.
5. The accounts, when they are published: they show whether the company can afford to pay what it promises.
6. The intra-EU VAT number, if it appears on the contract or the invoice.

None of these points alone proves that a partner is reliable. Together, they rule out the most common situations: the company that does not exist, the one that has ceased trading, the one that changes its name from one year to the next, or the contact person who has no connection with the company whose logo they are using.

In France: the Annuaire des Entreprises as a starting point

The first reflex is the Annuaire des Entreprises (annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr), a public service developed by the French interministerial digital directorate (DINUM). It is free and does not require an account. You can search by name, by SIREN or SIRET number, or by director's name.

The Annuaire does not keep a register itself: it brings together open data from several administrations, including INSEE (the Sirene directory) and INPI (the National Register of Companies). It shows the address, the date of incorporation, the declared activity (NAF/APE code), the administrative status and the directors. It also lets you download proof of registration in the National Register of Companies.

INPI and the National Register of Companies

Since 1 January 2023, every business carrying on a commercial, craft, agricultural or independent activity in France is registered in the Registre national des entreprises (RNE, National Register of Companies), operated by INPI. It replaced the national trade and companies register, the trades directory and the register of agricultural businesses.

On data.inpi.fr, a company's entry can be consulted without an account: name, SIREN, legal form, share capital, representatives, registered office, establishments. For the documents themselves — deeds, articles of association, annual accounts — you need to create a free account. Some companies file their accounts with a confidentiality declaration, so missing accounts do not necessarily mean the company failed to file them.

BODACC, for events

The register gives a snapshot; the Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales (BODACC, the official bulletin of civil and commercial notices) tells the story. It lists registrations, amendments, strike-offs, sales and transfers of businesses, notices of filed accounts and, above all, insolvency proceedings. Notices published since 2008 can be consulted for free, and an alert service, also free, tells you when a new notice is published about a company you follow.

Before a contract that commits several months of work, recently opened insolvency proceedings are the most important thing to know. They do not make signing impossible, but they change how you will be paid, and in what order.

In Belgium: the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises

In Belgium, the reference is the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (BCE in French, KBO in Dutch), managed by the FPS Economy. Anyone can consult the public data on companies for free on the Public Search site: enterprise number, status, legal situation, start date, name, registered office address.

The entry links directly to two complementary sources: the publications in the Annexes to the Belgian Official Gazette (Moniteur belge), where articles of association and changes of directors in particular are published, and the Central Balance Sheet Office of the National Bank of Belgium, where companies file their annual accounts.

In the United Kingdom: Companies House

For a British company, Companies House's "Find and update company information" service gives free access to basic information (registered address, date of incorporation), current and past officers, previous names, registered charges, insolvency information and images of filed documents.

One criticism used to come up often: information was filed there without any identity check. Since 18 November 2025, anyone appointed as a director must have their identity verified, and directors already in office do so when they file their next annual confirmation statement. The reform is recent: an older filing history should still be read with caution.

The VAT number: VIES

If your partner is established in another EU country and invoices you with an intra-EU VAT number, the European Commission's VIES tool checks that this number is registered in the relevant national database. VIES is not a database: it is a search engine that queries the tax administrations at the time of the search. An "invalid" answer means the number is not registered in that country's database. Depending on the country, the associated name and address may or may not be displayed.

When the partner is based elsewhere

Each country keeps its own register, with its own identifiers, language and publication rules. For a German, Italian or Dutch company, the European e-Justice portal lists the business registers of the Member States and links to each of them.

If you regularly check companies from several countries, you can also use a directory that aggregates these open registers. That is what Propecto does: a multi-country company directory built on open data from public registers. Propecto is published by DYONYSOS, like Agoeon: we mention it because it meets this need, not because it replaces the source. For an important contract, the official register entry remains the reference to consult last.

What the registers do not tell you

A register confirms that a company exists and who runs it. It says nothing about how it treats its partners, or how solid a verbal promise is. Two steps complete the check: ask for the contract to state the registration number and the registered office address, then check that they match the register entry exactly.

A one-letter difference in the company name, a number that points to another company, a very recent incorporation date for a business that presents itself as long established: none of these signs is proof. Each one deserves a question, asked before signing rather than after.