🇰🇪 Kenya

Overview

AiPrise verifies Kenyan businesses against the Business Registration Service (BRS). A business verification returns the company profile, and directors, shareholders and owners when the register lists them.

Coverage

Data point	Returned	Note
Company profile	Yes	Legal name, status, registration date, registered address
Directors and legal representatives	Yes, when filed	About 4 in 10 private companies
Shareholders	Yes, when filed	About 4 in 10 private companies
Owners of business names	Yes, when filed	About 1 in 3 business names, returned as beneficial owners
Company secretary	Yes, when filed

Document	Returned
Register documents	No

Speed

Step	Typical	9 in 10 within
Business verification (company data, officers, shareholders)	2 seconds	19 seconds

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

Company types

The legal form rarely comes back in entity_type, so the number prefix tells you the type. What comes back depends on it.

Company type	Legal forms	Covered	What to expect
Private company	`PVT-` numbers	Yes	Profile; directors and shareholders for about 4 in 10
Business name (sole trader or partnership)	`BN-` numbers	Yes	Profile; owners for about 1 in 3
Older companies	`CPR/` and `C.` numbers	Yes	Profile; directors and shareholders when filed

Sources

Register	What it gives
Business Registration Service (BRS)	Company profile, officers, shareholders, owners

Identifiers

Send the BRS registration number as business_entity_id, with country_code set to KE.

Identifier	Format	Example
Private company number	`PVT-` and 8 letters or digits	`PVT-AB1CD2EF`
Business name number	`BN-` and 8 letters or digits	`BN-AB1CD2EF`
Older company number	`CPR/`, the year and a sequence, or `C.` and digits	`CPR/2009/12345` or `C.12345`

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
Registered	Active
Active	Active
Ceased	Dissolved / Struck Off
Converting	Unknown

The legal form is rarely returned in entity_type (about 1 in 20 results). Use the number prefix instead.

Quirks and gotchas

Country-specific behaviour to know before you integrate.

Quirk	Details
Send the full number with its prefix	Keep the prefix (`PVT-`, `BN-`, `CPR/`, `C.`) in `business_entity_id`. Name search is not supported for Kenya.
Officers are not always returned	Directors and shareholders come back for about 4 in 10 private companies. When they are missing, collect the CR12 from the business as an uploaded document.
Business names have owners, not directors	Business names (`BN-`) have no directors or shareholders. Their owners come back as beneficial owners for about 1 in 3 of them.
Legal form rarely returned	Only about 1 in 20 results carry a legal form. Read the number prefix (`PVT-` private company, `BN-` business name).

Limits

Register documents (CR12, certificate of incorporation) are not available.
The KRA PIN is not checked.