CAC Company Search: Verify a Nigerian Company Free

You can check whether any Nigerian company is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) for free and in seconds: search the business name or RC number on Fylings and you will see its legal name, RC or BN number, registration status, and incorporation date instantly. No CAC login, no payment, no waiting. This guide walks through exactly how to verify a company, what each status means, and the red flags that separate a real registered business from a scam.

What is CAC and why registration matters

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is Nigeria's official company registry. Every legitimate company, business name, or incorporated trustee operating in Nigeria is supposed to be registered with CAC under the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA). Registration produces a unique identifier — an RC number for limited companies or a BN number for registered business names — and a public record of the entity's existence, type, and status.

If a business has no CAC record, it has no legal standing to enter contracts, open a corporate bank account, or issue valid invoices in its own name. That is why verifying CAC registration is the first and cheapest fraud check you can run before you pay a supplier, accept a job offer, invest, or sign anything. Fylings pulls this public CAC data so you can confirm it without visiting a CAC office.

How to check a company on Fylings (step by step)

The fastest way to verify a Nigerian company is to search it on Fylings. The process is the same whether you have the company name or the registration number.

1. Go to Fylings and type the company's exact name (or its RC/BN number) into the search box.
2. Open the matching result to load the company's public page.
3. Check the legal name — it should match the name on the invoice, contract, or certificate you were given.
4. Note the RC or BN number and incorporation date, then confirm they match any document you were shown.
5. Read the status field (active, dissolved, or dormant) to confirm the company is currently in good standing.
6. Check the source, last-verified date, and confidence score shown on the record so you know how fresh the data is.
7. For a deeper check, look at the nature of business and company type to confirm the entity actually does what it claims to do.

Searching by name vs by RC number

Both work on Fylings, but they answer slightly different questions. Searching by name is best when someone gives you a brand or trading name and you want to find the underlying registered entity. Because Nigerian businesses often trade under shortened or slightly different names, expect to scan a few close matches and pick the one whose details line up.

Searching by RC or BN number is the gold standard for verification. A registration number maps to exactly one entity, so if a vendor hands you a number on a quote or certificate, searching it confirms in one step whether that number is real and which company it belongs to. If the number returns a different company name than the one you were given — or returns nothing for a number that supposedly exists — treat that as a serious warning sign. Confused about which prefix you are looking at? See our guide to RC number vs BN number.

What each registration status means

The status field tells you whether the entity is a live, operating business or a shell you should avoid.

• Active — the entity is registered and in good standing with CAC. This is what you want to see for a company you are about to transact with.
• Dormant — registered but not currently trading or filing. It legally exists but may not be operationally active; ask why before relying on it.
• Dissolved (or struck off) — the entity has been removed from the register and no longer exists as a legal person. Do not transact with a dissolved company; any contract or invoice in its name is a red flag.

Always read the status alongside the last-verified date. Fylings never returns zero for a real company — on a cache miss it queries the live CAC registry and caches the result — so coverage reflects the live registry rather than a stale snapshot, and every record shows where the data came from.

What is free vs what is paid

The core verification you need is free. On Fylings you can see, at no cost, a Nigerian company's legal name, RC or BN number, registration status, incorporation date, company type/classification, nature of business, and TIN (tax identification number). That is enough to confirm a company is real, registered, and currently active.

What is not in the free CAC public search are the directors and shareholders. Those are not exposed in CAC's free public lookup; on Fylings they are available on demand through a licensed KYB (know-your-business) verification report when you need documented proof of ownership for compliance, due diligence, or onboarding. If your goal is simply "is this company real?", the free data answers it. If you need to know who owns and controls it, that is where a paid verification report comes in. You can also cross-check tax registration using our guide to verify a company's TIN.

Red flags when verifying a Nigerian company

Use these signals to decide whether to trust a business. Any single one warrants a pause; several together usually mean walk away.

• The company name on the invoice or contract does not match the legal name in CAC's record.
• The RC or BN number returns a different company — or no company at all.
• The entity's status is dissolved or dormant but they are presenting themselves as actively trading.
• The incorporation date is suspiciously recent for a company claiming a long track record.
• The nature of business on file has nothing to do with what they are selling you.
• They refuse to provide an RC/BN number, or show a certificate that does not match the live record — learn the tells in spotting a fake CAC certificate.

Listed companies and corporate disclosures

For companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), there is an extra layer of free transparency. On a listed company's Fylings page, the filings tab surfaces corporate disclosures — board and director changes, director dealings, and financial statements — pulled from public sources. That lets you go beyond "is it registered?" to "what has this company actually been announcing?" — useful for investors, journalists, and anyone doing serious due diligence. Browse the Nigeria registry hub to start from the company you care about.

Before you pay an invoice, sign a contract, or trust a Nigerian business, spend ten seconds confirming it is real. Search any company free on Fylings by name or RC number, read the status, and check the source date — then explore the Nigeria registry hub for thousands more registered entities. Verification is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.