HOW TO CHECK REGISTERED COMPANY NAMES AND VERIFY THEIR STATUS
With CAC being the apex body for business registration in Nigeria, registering your business with the Commission will entitle you to benefits which include establishing your business as a separate entity, giving proper identity to the business and making the business eligible for external funding.
Establishing Your Business as a Separate Entity
This is described as legal separation and it is a beneficial way of ensuring that your business liability doesn’t come in the way of your personal liability. Although it isn’t all forms of business registration that offer it, legal separation likely guarantees some assurance of limited loss in the event of business or personal disaster.
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Giving proper identity to your business
This is one of the reasons why any serious-minded person should not ignore the need for business registration. Many people like doing formal transactions with registered businesses. This is not only for financial safety but also to ensure they’re doing business on a formal note. Importantly, people will likely take you seriously if you’re running your business under a registered business name rather than your personal name.
Eligibility for external funding
If the funds at your disposal aren’t enough for some business needs, you might need to source funds externally. But before you’re deemed qualified to obtain funds from a governmental body or even a serious financial institution, your business must have been duly registered with the CAC.
An Overview of CAC Registration
CAC registration is an important requirement for any business or corporate body that aims to operate in Nigeria. If a (formal) business (or corporate body) in Nigeria fails to undergo CAC registration, its activities will likely be termed illegal. Moreover, the business will not receive any legal backing.
CAC registration can be done at any of the offices run by CAC agents. While such offices are found across Nigeria, they can carry out registration for both individual and company businesses. For the registration of a company, CAC requires the company owners to pay a filing fee and provide some important company information –company name, sharing formula, company’s registered address, names of directors and shareholders, etc.
After CAC’s registration of the company, its owner(s) will be provided with a Certificate of Incorporation spelling out company name, distinct RC Number and company status.
Confirming If a Company is Registered with CAC
The Corporate Affairs Commission runs an online portal that can be used by members of the public in confirming the names of registered companies. Such a public search portal will, especially, be useful to individuals who feel suspicious about the legitimacy of the businesses they want to transact with. One good thing about this is that you won’t have to pay any fee. Also, the process is very straightforward and you can complete the search within seconds.
If a company claims to have been registered in Nigeria, here is how you can confirm the registration on CAC’s website:
- Head over to the website of CAC via the link here
- You’ll find a “Public Search” widget down the homepage of the website
- Click “Public Search” and you’ll find a search box into which you can input the name (or RC Number) of the company
- You should select the “Search” button after inputting the company’s name or RC Number
- Subsequently, you’ll be provided with a search result indicating the details –company’s full name, RC Number and office address –of the searched company
If you can’t find any search result for the searched company (after having input its full name or RC Number), it’s very likely that the company is not yet registered with CAC.
