Germany does not run one company register. It runs three, kept by different bodies, and the one that would answer the ownership question is the one you cannot walk into. The commercial register became free to search and free to download in August 2022, which is a real improvement; the accounts sit in a second system; and the beneficial ownership register has been closed to the general public since a European court ruling in November 2022. Here is what each one holds, in the order a buyer would use them.
The commercial register (Handelsregister) is the foundation. It records that a company exists and who may act for it: the legal name and legal form, the register number and the court that keeps it, the registered office and business address, the business object, the share capital, the managing directors with their rules on who may sign, and the current status. It is kept by the local courts, of which there are around 150 across the country, and exposed through one national portal at handelsregister.de. There is no single national company number: the register number only means something together with the court, so record both or you cannot reliably find the same company twice.
The second system is the company register (Unternehmensregister). It aggregates what the courts hold and adds what companies have to publish elsewhere: the annual accounts filed under the disclosure rules, insolvency notices, and Federal Gazette publications. This is where you learn whether a company files accounts at all, and whether it filed them late.
The third is the transparency register (Transparenzregister). It holds beneficial owners, the natural persons behind a company, and since November 2022 it is no longer open to the general public. That is the register most buyers actually want, and it is the one they usually cannot get quickly.
Retrieving documents used to cost money per item and required an account. Since 1 August 2022 the contents of the register and the documents already filed with it are retrievable at the portal free of charge and without registration. In practice that means three printouts and one folder of filed documents.
The current printout is the snapshot: everything valid today, including the managing directors together with their dates of birth and places of residence, the share capital, the representation rules and the status. One gap is worth knowing before you rely on it. The current printout does not state when the company was incorporated, so if the age of the company matters to you, pull the second printout as well.
The chronological printout carries the full history of entries since the register went electronic: changes of name, of legal form, of address and of business object, appointments and resignations of managing directors or liquidators, insolvency orders, and the incorporation date for companies registered after the switch. An older company also has a historical printout covering what was valid before that switch.
Third, the document folder. This holds what the company actually filed with the court: the articles of association and their amendments, minutes of shareholder meetings, and for a limited liability company the list of shareholders. For a GmbH this folder is where the ownership record sits, because the printouts themselves do not name the shareholders.
Two cautions on reading all of this. Entries move at the speed of a notary and a court, so the register can lag reality by weeks, and a record that is correct on the day you read it can be out of date by the time you pay. And searches are sensitive to German characters, which is why a name with an umlaut should be tried in both spellings, the name as written and the substitution of ae, oe or ue.
German law has required companies to declare their beneficial owners since 2017, and since August 2021 every legal entity has had to file that information directly rather than relying on what other registers already showed. A beneficial owner is a natural person who directly or indirectly holds more than 25% of the capital, controls more than 25% of the voting rights, or exercises equivalent control. Where no such person can be identified, the legal representatives are entered as presumed owners.
The difficulty is access, not content. In November 2022 the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down general public access to beneficial ownership registers, holding that publishing the data to anyone at all was neither necessary nor proportionate. The register was closed and reopened only on a stated interest, a legitimate interest that an applicant has to argue and the register reviews by hand. German authorities and German obliged entities such as banks, lawyers and notaries have wider access. A compliance team outside Germany is in the weakest position, and the honest answer is usually not no but not quickly.
That has been slow to settle. In September 2025 the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Germany for not yet meeting the cross-border access requirements, and the German transposition bill only cleared cabinet in August 2026. Under the new European rules the access provisions were due in national law in July 2026, a register will have to answer a request within twelve working days from November 2026, and the ownership threshold itself moves from more than 25% to 25% or more in 2027, which brings anyone holding exactly a quarter into scope. None of this opens the register to the general public. It defines who may ask, and how.
There is one useful detail for whoever does get access. It is enough to identify a person rather than to profile them: the name, the month and year of birth, the country of residence, the nationality, and the nature and extent of the holding. A full date of birth and any national identifier are not disclosed. So the register settles who is behind a company, and it does not become a dossier on them.
Start with the commercial register, to settle identity and status. Take the exact registered name and the register number together with its court, confirm the company is not in liquidation or dissolved, and note the legal form, because a GmbH, a UG and an AG do not carry the same capital or disclosure duties. Read the business object, but read it for what it is: a free-text description drafted by a notary, not a standard industry code, so a purpose that names your product does not prove the company trades in it.
Then the accounts. Look in the company register for the most recent filed annual accounts and for insolvency notices. Size matters here. Smaller companies may file only abridged accounts, often without a profit and loss statement, so a thin filing is normal and an overdue one is the thing worth noticing.
Then ownership. For a GmbH, retrieve the shareholder list from the document folder and read it for what it shows and what it does not. It names the direct shareholders and their holdings, it reflects the position as at the last filed change rather than as at today, and it stops at the first layer. A company old enough to predate the filing duty, or one whose articles already set out the structure, may have no list in the folder at all. And because nominee arrangements are lawful in Germany, a complete-looking list is a starting point rather than proof of who is really behind the company.
Finally, the payment. Compare the account name on the invoice to the registered legal name you verified. No register can tell you whether a bank account belongs to the entity it names. That comparison, the written details against the register entry, is the check that decides whether the money reaches your supplier or somewhere else, and it is the one part of this that no amount of register reading replaces.
| Register | Who runs it | What you get | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial register (Handelsregister) | Around 150 local courts, one portal at handelsregister.de | Legal name and form, register number and court, registered office and address, business object, share capital, managing directors and their signing powers, current status | Free, no account, since 1 August 2022 |
| Document folder on the same portal | The same courts | What the company filed: articles of association and amendments, minutes of shareholder meetings, and for a GmbH the shareholder list | Free since 1 August 2022 |
| Company register (Unternehmensregister) | Bundesanzeiger Verlag, on the federal side | Filed annual accounts, insolvency notices, Federal Gazette publications | Free to view; micro-entity balance sheets about EUR 1 |
| Transparency register (Transparenzregister) | Bundesanzeiger Verlag, supervised by the Federal Office of Administration | Beneficial owners above 25% of capital or voting rights | Closed to the general public since November 2022 |
The shorthand that keeps them straight: the commercial register says the company exists, the company register says how it files, and the transparency register would say who controls it, which is the one you can rarely reach. Read a row for the question it answers and not for the one you were hoping it would answer.
One portal, three systems. Searching the commercial register at handelsregister.de is free and needs no account, and since August 2022 the register contents and the filed documents download free as well, which covers identity, officers, capital and status. The accounts sit in the company register at unternehmensregister.de, and the beneficial ownership data sits in the transparency register, which is no longer open to the general public. There is no single national registration number that resolves across all three.
Not in the printouts. For a GmbH the shareholder list is filed separately and is retrieved through the same portal's document folder, not from the current or the chronological printout. It names the direct shareholders and their holdings, it is refreshed only when ownership changes, and it shows the first layer only. If the company predates the filing duty, or its articles already set out the structure, there may be no list in the folder at all, and nominee arrangements are lawful, so a complete-looking list is not proof of who is really behind the company.
Usually not directly. The transparency register has been closed to the general public since the November 2022 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and access now runs through a stated legitimate interest that the register reviews case by case. Firms outside Germany are the hardest cases, which is why the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Germany in September 2025, and why the rules on who may ask are still being rewritten. The threshold at which someone counts as a beneficial owner changes in 2027.
No. It confirms the entity exists, what it is registered as, and who is on record as running it. It says nothing about whether the account on the invoice belongs to that entity, and the ownership record reflects the last filed change rather than the position today. Run the sanctions and export-control check separately, and compare the payment details to the registered name before the money moves.