Due Diligence on a Nigerian Supplier Before You Pay

Start by searching the supplier free on Fylings to pull its CAC record. Confirm the RC or BN number and exact legal name, check the status is active, sanity-check the incorporation date and nature of business, and verify a TIN exists. Critically, make sure the bank account name matches the registered legal name. For larger deals, add director and beneficial-owner checks and sanctions screening.

Active status means the company is currently in good standing on the CAC register and recognised as trading. Other statuses — dormant, inactive, struck off, or in liquidation — indicate the entity is not properly active, and paying it carries extra risk. Always check status alongside the last-verified date so you know how current the information is.

Yes. Director and shareholder details, including beneficial-ownership information, are available on Fylings on demand through licensed KYB verification, which is a paid step. The free record covers registration, status, type, and nature of business; ownership data is pulled when a deal is large or regulated enough to need it.

A registered, tax-active Nigerian company should have a Tax Identification Number, and Fylings surfaces it as part of the company record where available. Confirming the TIN exists is a useful signal that the supplier is a real taxpaying entity and helps with your own withholding-tax and reporting obligations, though it does not by itself prove solvency.

Make it proportional to the risk. For small, routine orders, the free registration, status, name-match, and TIN checks are usually enough. For large, first-time, sole-source, or regulated-sector payments, add beneficial-ownership and sanctions screening and pull a full verification report. The deeper checks only need to fire on the deals where they would change your decision.

Yes. The Fylings API lets you embed company verification into your onboarding or procurement system — validating registration and legal name when a vendor is created, confirming active status before a PO is approved, and flagging mismatches for review. The free checks run on every vendor automatically, and paid KYB or report steps trigger only on your high-value cases.