🇿🇦 South Africa

Overview

AiPrise verifies South African businesses against the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) register. A business verification returns the company profile, directors and other officers, and the CIPC company report.

Coverage

Data point	Returned	Note
Company profile	Yes	Legal name, legal form, status, registration date
Directors and legal representatives	Yes	About 3 in 4 companies
Company secretary and other officers	Yes, when filed
Shareholders	No
Ultimate beneficial owners	No
Tax number check	Yes	Separate check of the company's tax number

Document	Returned
Company report	Yes, on request
Articles of association	No
Financial statements	No

Documents, as the register names them

Company report (CIPC company record: profile, officers, status history)

Speed

Step	Typical	9 in 10 within
Business verification (company data, directors, company report)	5 seconds	32 seconds

When requested, the company report comes back with the verification, so there is no separate document wait. These are typical times from production, not a service-level commitment: set timeouts well above them, or use callbacks.

Company types

These company types came back in production. What comes back depends on the type.

Company type	Legal forms	Covered	What to expect
Private company	`Private Company`	Yes	Profile, directors; company report on request
Close corporation	`Close Corporation` (CC)	Yes	Profile; members when filed
Public company	`Public Company`	Yes	Profile; officers when filed
Non-profit company	`Non Profit Company (Section 21)`	Yes	Profile; officers when filed
Incorporated company	`INC`	Yes	Profile; officers when filed

Sources

Register	What it gives
Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC)	Company profile, directors, officers, company report
Tax register	Tax number check

Identifiers

Send the CIPC registration number as business_entity_id, with country_code set to ZA.

Identifier	Format	Example
CIPC registration number	Year, 6 digits and a 2-digit type code, separated by slashes	`2019/123456/07`
Tax number	Used only for the tax number check.

You can also search by legal name.

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
In Business	Active
Annual Return Final Deregistration	Dissolved / Struck Off
Annual Return Deregistration Process	Dissolved / Struck Off
Deregistration Final	Dissolved / Struck Off
Voluntary Liquidation	Unknown
Conversion CO/CC or CC/CO	Unknown
Annual Return Restoration Process	Unknown

Legal forms come back in entity_type in English, for example Private Company, Close Corporation and Public Company.

Quirks and gotchas

Country-specific behaviour to know before you integrate.

Quirk	Details
Letter in front of the number	Results show the registration number with a letter in front: `K` or `M` for companies, `B` for close corporations (`K2019/123456/07`). Send the number without the letter.
Liquidation shows as Unknown	`Voluntary Liquidation`, conversions and restorations map to `Unknown`. Read `registration_info.status` for these companies.
Deregistered companies	About 1 in 15 results are deregistered (`Annual Return Final Deregistration`) and map to `Dissolved / Struck Off`.
No shareholders from the register	The register data has no shareholders or UBOs. Collect a share register or UBO declaration as an uploaded document.
No address in the register data	The registered address is not in the register data. Collect a proof of address if you need one.

Limits

Shareholders and UBOs are not returned.
The registered address is not returned.
Articles of association and financial statements are not available.