🇨🇴 Colombia

Overview

AiPrise verifies Colombian businesses by their NIT against the Unified Business and Social Register (RUES), kept by the chambers of commerce. A business verification returns the company profile, legal representatives and other officers when listed, and background checks on the company.

Coverage

Data point	Returned	Note
Company profile	Yes	Legal name and status. Legal form, address and contact details for about 1 in 6 companies.
Business activities	Yes, when listed	CIIU activity codes
Legal representatives and officers	Yes, when listed	Legal representatives and their alternates, board members, statutory auditor
Shareholders	No
Ultimate beneficial owners	No
NIT check	Yes	The NIT is the lookup key, so a match confirms it
Background checks	Yes	Business, legal and criminal background, tax and finance records, international lists and media alerts

Document	Returned
Register extract (Certificado de existencia y representación legal)	No
Articles of association	No
Financial statements	No

Speed

Step	Typical	9 in 10 within
Business verification (company data, officers, background checks)	60 seconds	4 minutes

These are typical times from production, not a service-level commitment: set timeouts well above them, or use callbacks.

Company types

Every entity with a NIT in the RUES is covered.

Company type	Legal forms	Covered	What to expect
Simplified stock company	S.A.S.	Yes	Profile, and officers when listed
Public limited company	S.A. (Anónima)	Yes	Profile, and officers when listed
Limited company	Ltda. (Limitada)	Yes	Profile, and officers when listed
Partnership limited by shares	S.C.A.	Yes	Profile
Branch of a foreign company	Sucursal extranjera	Yes	Profile

Sources

Register	What it gives
RUES (Registro Único Empresarial y Social)	Company profile, activity codes, legal representatives, officers
Background databases	Business, legal and criminal background, tax and finance records, international lists, media alerts

Identifiers

Send the NIT as tax_identification_number, with country_code set to CO.

Identifier	Format	Example
NIT	9 digits plus a check digit. Dots and the dash are optional. If you send 9 digits, AiPrise adds the check digit.	`900.123.456-8` or `9001234568`

Statuses and legal forms

Every result carries the register's own status in registration_info.status and an AiPrise status in registration_info.normalised_status. The normalised status is one of Active, Suspended, Dormant, Dissolved / Struck Off, In Liquidation / Insolvency or Unknown.

Register status	Normalised status
found	Active
active, ACTIVA	Active

Legal forms come back in business_info.entity_type when listed, for example S. A. S., ANONIMA and LIMITADA.

Quirks and gotchas

Country-specific behaviour to know before you integrate.

Quirk	Details
Send the NIT, not a name	The lookup runs on the NIT in `tax_identification_number`. A 10-digit NIT with a wrong check digit is rejected.
`found` status	Most results show `found`, meaning the NIT exists but the register's own status did not come back. It maps to `Active`, so a cancelled company can still show `Active`. Check the background results before approving.
Thin company profiles	Legal form, address and contact details come back for about 1 in 6 companies, and the registration date is usually missing. Collect them in your onboarding flow.
Legal representatives come with alternates	Roles are listed as the register writes them, for example `REPRESENTANTE LEGAL PRINCIPAL`, `REPRESENTANTE LEGAL SUPLENTE` (alternate) and `REVISOR FISCAL` (statutory auditor).

Limits

Shareholders, beneficial owners and register documents are not available.
The registration date is usually missing.