How to Check if a Company Is Registered in Uganda

Before you pay a supplier, sign with a partner, or invest in a Ugandan business, there is one check worth two minutes of your time: confirming the company is actually registered. A real company in Uganda is recorded with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), and you can verify it for free — by name or by Business Registration Number (BRN). 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 Uganda's company register?

Uganda's official company registrar is the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB). URSB operates the OBRS — the Online Business Registration System — through which every limited company, business name, and registered entity in the country is incorporated and recorded. A company's name, type, status, and registration date are matters of public record, and each registered entity carries a unique Business Registration Number (BRN).

That public-record status is what makes verification possible at all: because URSB is the single source of truth for who is registered in Uganda, you don't have to take a business's word for it. The same register backs a company's certificate of incorporation, so checking the register is simply confirming the document against the source that issued it. Searching is free and needs no login — you only need the company's exact name or its BRN.

How to search the Uganda company register

1. Get the company's exact registered name or its Business Registration Number (BRN) (the certificate or an invoice usually shows one).
2. Search it on Fylings — type the name in the box and we check the URSB register, so you're not limited to a stale cache.
3. Open the matching result to see the registered name, BRN, entity type, status, and registration date.
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 Uganda company record shows

Uganda's public URSB search confirms a company exists and gives you the core facts that matter for a first check. On Fylings, a Uganda record shows:

• The registered (legal) name — the exact name on the URSB register
• The Business Registration Number (BRN) — the unique identifier assigned at registration
• The entity type — e.g. a company limited by shares, company limited by guarantee, or a registered business name
• The status — whether the entity is registered and active on the register
• The registration date — when the entity was first recorded
• The source and date — every record is attributed to URSB, with the date it was checked

Using the Business Registration Number (BRN)

Every entity on the URSB register is assigned a unique Business Registration Number (BRN). It's the most reliable thing to search on, because — unlike a name — it points to exactly one entity and sidesteps same-name confusion:

• Ask the business for its BRN, not just its name — it should appear on the certificate of incorporation.
• Search the BRN and confirm it resolves to the same name the business gave you.
• Check the entity type matches how the business presents itself — a 'company' that's actually a registered business name has no separate legal personality and no shareholders.
• Check the status reads as registered and active rather than dissolved or struck off.

Matching the BRN to the name, type, and status on the register is a quick sanity check that a paper certificate alone can never give you.

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.
• A BRN 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.

Verifying directors and ownership in Uganda

URSB's public search confirms a company's existence, type, status, and registration date, but the free name search doesn't list every director. The sensible order is to verify existence first and dig deeper only once that's confirmed. To do that, search the company on Fylings to confirm the registration, BRN, type, and status, then request an official certified extract from URSB for a full filing of directors, shareholders, and the registered address — useful for due diligence on who actually stands behind a business. If you're running checks at scale, you can also verify programmatically via the API rather than searching one company at a time.