How to Check if a Company Is Registered in Togo

Before you pay a supplier, sign with a partner, or invest in a Togolese business, there is one check worth two minutes of your time: confirming the company is actually registered. A real company in Togo is recorded in the RCCM (Registre du Commerce et du Crédit Mobilier), the commercial register kept under OHADA law, and you can verify it for free — by name or by RCCM number. This guide shows you how, what a genuine record looks like, and how to spot a business that isn't what it claims to be.

Who keeps Togo's company register?

Togo's official company registrar is the RCCM (Registre du Commerce et du Crédit Mobilier). Togo is a member of OHADA (the Organisation pour l'Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires), so its commercial law and registration format are shared with 16 other African states. Each Togolese RCCM filing — made through the register attached to the courts in Lomé and other towns — is federated into the Fichier Régional du RCCM, the regional commercial register maintained by the CCJA (Common Court of Justice and Arbitration). Every company, sole trader, and economic interest grouping operating legally in Togo is recorded there as a matter of public record.

How to search the Togo company register

1. Get the company's exact registered name or its RCCM number (the certificate, contract, or invoice usually shows one).
2. Search it on Fylings — type the name in the box and we check the OHADA RCCM register, so you're not limited to a stale cache.
3. Open the matching result to see the registered name, legal form, registration date, status, and the source and date the record was checked.
4. No match under that exact name? Try a shorter form of the name. Still nothing — that's a red flag worth pausing on.

What a Togo company record shows

Togo's RCCM record confirms that a company exists, what legal form it takes, and where it stands. On Fylings, a Togo record shows:

• The RCCM number — the unique commercial-register identifier assigned at registration
• The registered (legal) name — the exact name on the register
• The legal form — e.g. SA, SARL, SAS, SNC, GIE, or Entreprise Individuelle
• The registration date and the status — whether the company is recorded as active or struck off
• The source and date — every record is attributed to the OHADA RCCM, with the date it was checked

Understanding Togo's OHADA legal forms

Because Togo follows the OHADA Uniform Acts, its companies use the same standard legal forms as the rest of francophone West and Central Africa. Knowing the form tells you how the business is structured at a glance:

• SA — Société Anonyme, a public-style company with share capital, used for larger businesses
• SARL — Société à Responsabilité Limitée, the common limited-liability company for SMEs
• SAS — Société par Actions Simplifiée, a flexible joint-stock company
• SNC — Société en Nom Collectif, a general partnership where partners are jointly liable
• GIE — Groupement d'Intérêt Économique, a vehicle for businesses cooperating on a shared aim
• Entreprise Individuelle — a sole trader, with no separate legal personality from its owner

Matching the form to how the business presents itself is a quick sanity check — an 'Entreprise Individuelle' has no shareholders and no legal personality separate from its owner, so it can't honestly describe itself as an incorporated company.

How to spot a company that isn't registered

Most problems aren't elaborate forgeries — they're businesses that simply never registered, or that use a name close to a real one. Watch for:

• No match on the register under the exact name they gave you — the single biggest signal.
• An RCCM number that doesn't resolve to the name on the document.
• A name that is suspiciously similar to a well-known company (e.g. an extra word or initial).
• Pressure to pay before you've had a chance to verify anything.

Checking ownership and legal form in Togo

The OHADA RCCM confirms a company's existence, legal form, and registration details. For deeper due diligence on who stands behind a business, Fylings indexes the published RCCM data so you can cross-check the RCCM number, legal form, and registration date against what a counterparty tells you — and confirm the legal form matches the way the business presents itself. For an official certified extract, you can request one or verify programmatically via the API.