No online register? Check a company anyway

No online register? Check the company anyway

35 jurisdictions have no company register you can open from a browser: war zones, closed economies and territories too small to run one. That does not end the check -- it changes the order of it. This page names every one of them, and the route that works in each instead: documents, issuing bodies, the OHADA court route, and the two checks that work everywhere.

These lines are generated from the same data as the company-registers tool, so the list cannot drift from it. Checked 19 September 2026.

What a missing register means, and what it does not

A register you cannot consult does not mean the companies are fake; it means the independent record is missing. You lose sight of three things a register normally proves: that the company exists under that name, in what legal form, and who is registered to bind it. Everything on this page is about replacing exactly those three answers with documents and channels that carry the same weight.

What it does not change: sanctions screening, VAT validation where a number exists, and bank-detail verification work the same from a country without a register as from any other. Do those first; they are free and fast.

Every jurisdiction without an online register

Grouped by why there is nothing to open; the right-hand line says what exists instead. If a country later publishes a register, it moves to the main table and disappears here.

Country	What exists instead
Conflict and collapsed states
Libya	No accessible online company register; commercial registry records sit with the Ministry of Economy.
Somalia	No functioning central public company register; verify through banks, chambers and sanctions lists.
Sudan	Commercial registry records sit with the trade registry courts; no online register. Sanctions screening essential.
Syria	No accessible online company register; sanctions screening is mandatory before any counterparty assessment.
Yemen	No functioning public company register; verify via banks and sanctions screening only.
Haiti	Commercial registry entries sit with the courts; no online register at the source.
Eritrea	No public online company register at the source; rely on licensed extracts and bank-channel verification.
Sierra Leone	The Corporate Affairs Commission's domain is currently broken at DNS level; SLIEPA (sliepa.gov.sl) publishes the CAC contact details as the fallback route.
Closed and state-directed economies
North Korea	No public company register; any trade touchpoint is sanctions-relevant. Screen every party against the lists first.
Turkmenistan	No public online company register; state-mediated trade only.
Cuba	No public online commercial register; foreign trade entities are state-controlled and listed via the Chamber of Commerce.
Francophone Africa with court-only registers (OHADA)
Comoros	No accessible online register at the source. Commercial law follows the OHADA treaty, so the RCCM extract from the court registry (via the Chamber of Commerce or a notary) is the document that counts.
Guinea-Bissau	No accessible online register at the source. Commercial law follows the OHADA treaty, so the RCCM extract from the commercial court is the document that counts.
Sao Tome and Principe	Company registration at the commercial registry in Sao Tome; no online register at the source.
US territories without their own online search
Guam	US territory; corporations register locally and the United States entry applies.
Northern Mariana Islands	US territory; corporations register locally and the United States entry applies.
American Samoa	US territory; corporations register locally and the United States entry applies.
Small Pacific and Atlantic territories
Kiribati	Company registration with the Attorney General's ministry; no online register.
Micronesia	Business registration at state level; no online register.
Nauru	Company registration via the justice department; no online register.
Palau	Company registration with the state; no online register.
Tuvalu	Company registration via the justice ministry; no online register.
Tokelau	NZ-administered territory without a local online company register.
Niue	No local online register; entities from here are rare enough that bank-channel verification is the practical route.
Pitcairn	A few dozen residents; no company register.
Wallis and Futuna	Local commercial registry only; no online register at the source.
Heard and McDonald Islands	Uninhabited Australian territory; no company register.
US Minor Outlying Islands	Uninhabited US territories; no company register.
Antarctica	The Antarctic Treaty system bars commercial activity; any 'company from Antarctica' is a fraud signal.
French Southern Territories	No permanent population and no company register.
British Indian Ocean Territory	No civilian commerce and no company register.
Bouvet Island	Uninhabited Norwegian territory; no company register.
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands	No permanent population and no company register.
Special cases
Vatican City	No commercial company register; bodies corporate of the Holy See are established by law rather than registered like companies.
Western Sahara	No functioning public company register; trade here is sanctions- and compliance-relevant by definition.

The order of the check

Documents from the counterparty. Ask for the registration certificate or extract with its number, and the ID of the person who signs. In the OHADA countries that is the RCCM extract from the commercial court; in the Gulf and conflict states a notarised commercial registration.

Verify with the issuing body, independently. Find the ministry, court or chamber yourself; call or write, and confirm the document and the number. The contact details on the invoice are not verification.

Sanctions screen the name and its owners. Free and instant, and in precisely these jurisdictions most often the check that saves you; screen here.

Bank channel. Confirm the account through a channel you already had, and check the IBAN country against the story you are told. A Liechtenstein account for a Mogadishu supplier is a question, not a convenience.

Group route. Many unverifiable companies have a parent or sister with a register record, an LEI, or a listing somewhere stricter. Check the group where the group lives; ownership above 50% is what sanctions bite on anyway.

Payment structure. Only now talk about money; and then against documents, a confirmed letter of credit or escrow, not open prepayment.

The questions

Does no register mean the company is fake? it means you cannot see

No. Companies exist and trade from every jurisdiction on this list. What is missing is the independent record: you cannot see existence, legal form, or who may sign. That gap is exactly what fraud exploits, so the burden of proof shifts to documents and channels you can verify.

The pattern to respect: the harder a country is to verify, the more often someone will offer you a deal from there that is too good to be true. A company that cannot be checked is not automatically criminal; it is automatically a case for the steps below, before any money moves.

Source: Practitioner experience of trade fraud in low-transparency jurisdictions; OHADA Uniform Act on Commercial Companies; the registers research of 19 September 2026 on this site. Checked: 19 September 2026.

Can I still get a certified extract? yes, usually

In most of these countries yes; through the court registry, the chamber of commerce or a notary, on request. In the OHADA countries the RCCM extract from the commercial court is the document that counts. Expect days to weeks, a fee, and often a local contact to collect it.

Ask the counterparty to obtain the extract itself and give you a scan; then verify the extract with the issuing body through a channel you found independently; the ministry's own phone number, not the one on the invoice. An extract that cannot survive that call was never an extract.

Source: OHADA Uniform Act relating to Commercial Companies and Economic Interest Groups, Article 119 (registry disclosure); national civil procedure codes for court-issued extracts. Checked: 19 September 2026.

Should I pay in advance to a company I cannot check? that is the fraud pattern

Not unsecured. Prepayment to an unverifiable counterparty in a low-transparency jurisdiction is the single most common loss pattern in trade. Use the instruments that keep the risk where it belongs: a confirmed letter of credit, escrow, or payment against documents.

And run the two checks that work everywhere: screen the name against the sanctions lists; free on this site; and confirm the bank account through a channel you already had. If both surprise you, the register was never going to save you anyway.

Source: Regulation (EU) 269/2014, Article 2 (ownership and control); ICC rules on documentary credits (UCP 600) as the standard instrument for unverifiable counterparties. Checked: 19 September 2026.