Checking a company or business name
If you are about to hand money to a business, the first question is not whether they are any good. It is who they actually are, and whether you could find them again.
The Companies Registration Office answers that, for free.
Three registers, not one
The CORE search covers three things, and the third is the one people miss.
Entity search finds companies and registered business names. You can search by name or by company number, matching on exact name, starts with, or contains a word. It returns the entity’s status, registered office address and directors.
Auditor search finds registered statutory auditors.
Disqualified and Restricted Person search tells you whether an individual has been disqualified from acting as a director, or restricted. This is public, it is free, and hardly anyone looks at it. If you are handing over a large deposit to a company you have not dealt with before, it is a reasonable ten seconds.
Free and paid
Basic search is free: name, number, status, registered address and the list of directors. That is usually all you need to know who you are dealing with.
Filed documents, company printouts and certificates are paid. If you find yourself wanting the accounts, you are past the point this page helps with.
Company status is the thing to read
An entity appearing in the register is not the same as an entity in good standing. Status matters more than existence. A company listed for strike off has not filed what it should have. A dissolved company no longer exists, which means the person quoting you for work is not trading through the entity they say they are.
That single field catches a surprising amount.
A business name is not a company
These are different things and the difference trips people up constantly.
Registering a business name is required where you trade under anything other than your own true surname, or, for a company, under anything other than its registered name. It is filed with the CRO and it is searchable in the same place.
What it proves is identity. It links a trading name to the person or company behind it, so you know who you are actually contracting with and where to send a solicitor’s letter. That is genuinely worth having.
What it does not do is almost everything else. It creates no legal entity. It gives no exclusivity, so two unrelated businesses can register the same name. It is not a trade mark. And no one checks competence, insurance or solvency before granting it.
So “registered business name” on a van means someone filed a form. It does not mean anyone approved of them.
Beneficial ownership is not public
The Register of Beneficial Ownership is often suggested as a way to find out who really owns a company. It is not available to you.
Full access goes to competent authorities, restricted access to designated persons such as banks and solicitors carrying out anti money laundering checks. Public access is limited to the number of beneficial owners filed, not their names. That followed a 2022 Court of Justice of the European Union ruling which struck down mandatory public access.
There is EU level change in this area, so it may not stay exactly as described. As things stand, RBO is not a consumer lookup and anyone telling you to check it there is mistaken.
What this does not tell you
A clean CRO record means the paperwork is in order. It says nothing about whether the work will be done, done well, or insured. For trades with no register of their own, pair it with written confirmation of public liability cover obtained from the insurer rather than from the contractor.
Checked . Registers move and bodies get renamed. If a link here is dead, the register almost certainly still exists somewhere else on the same organisation's site.