The official company registry in every country: Companies House equivalents

Why "the Companies House of X" rarely has a single answer

Companies House is unusual in three ways at once: it is a single national register, it is free, and filed accounts are published in full. Most countries match at most one of those. Three structural models cover almost every jurisdiction:

• Centralised national registers, with one register and one regulator: the UK, Ireland (CRO), New Zealand, Singapore (ACRA), Sweden (Bolagsverket) and Poland (KRS).
• Federal or state-based systems, where registration happens regionally: the USA (50 Secretaries of State), Canada (federal plus provincial), Brazil (27 state Juntas Comerciais behind the federal CNPJ), Switzerland (26 cantonal registers behind Zefix) and the UAE (emirate authorities and free zones).
• Court- or chamber-based systems, in which the register is maintained by courts or chambers of commerce: Germany (local courts behind the Handelsregister portal), Italy (chambers of commerce behind Registro Imprese), Turkey (trade registry offices behind MERSIS) and South Korea (the court registry IROS).

The practical consequence is that searching the local Companies House equivalent is the right instinct everywhere, but access, what it costs, and the language of filed records will change at every border.

The Companies House equivalent in 25 major economies

Access at a glance: 1 free online  2 online, pay per document  3 online but restricted

Need a country that isn't listed? Our free company registry directory covers the official registries, tax authority, courts, regulator and gazette equivalents for all 239 countries we report on, each rated 1–5 for accessibility.

What "free access" actually gets you abroad

Even where the equivalent register is free to search, three gaps appear quickly compared with Companies House:

• Accounts are the exception, not the rule. Full filed accounts free of charge is close to unique to the UK. In most jurisdictions financial statements are paid documents, partial disclosures, or not filed publicly at all.
• Language. Registers answer enquiries in their own language and legal vocabulary, so a Handelsregister extract or a Chinese NECIPS record assumes you can read it, and simple translation may not accurately interpret legal forms and statuses.
• Identity. The trading name you know is rarely the registered legal name, and in federal systems you also need to know where the entity is registered before you can search at all.

A registry search confirms existence and basic facts. What it cannot tell you is whether the company actually trades, pays its suppliers, or has adverse history sitting in courts, gazettes or local-language media. That is the additional detail a full company information report provides on top of the registry record.

Common questions

Is there a Companies House for the USA?

No. Incorporation is state law, so there are fifty separate registers and the Secretary of State for the state of incorporation is the place to search (Delaware alone covers a large share of US corporations). Public companies additionally file with the SEC (EDGAR), which is free. There is no national register of private-company accounts: US private companies do not publish financial statements at all.

What is the German equivalent of Companies House?

The Handelsregister, maintained by local courts and searchable through a joint national portal through which extracts have been made available free online since 2022. Accounts are published separately in the Bundesanzeiger, and beneficial ownership sits in a third register. Our Handelsregister guide explains HRB vs HRA and how to read an extract.

Is there one register for the whole EU?

Not a single register, but the European e-Justice portal (BRIS) interconnects the national business registers of member states for basic lookups. Depth varies by country and it directs you to the national register rather than replacing it.

Is there a global Companies House?

No. Aggregators cover many jurisdictions with basic data, but coverage, freshness and depth are uneven, and none holds the paid layers (accounts, documents) of the underlying registers. For one-off checks, use the official register via our registry directory; where the register is restricted, offline, or not in your language, a commissioned report retrieves and translates the record for you.

When the local register isn't enough

Use the table above for quick, free company existence checks using the local official country registers. Commission a report when you need to know more, where the register is pay-per-document or restricted, where you can't read the language, where you need financials the register doesn't publish, or where you need credit and financial status information.

Our reports search the registry record from the sources above, add financial, ownership and adverse-data layers, and deliver the result in structured English for any of 200+ countries, instantly online where the registry supports it, by in-country investigation where it doesn't.