India puts more of a company on the public record than most countries do, and it costs nothing to look. The register of every company and limited liability partnership is open on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal: no account, no payment, one captcha. What it does not show is who ultimately owns the business, so the register answers half the question and two other free checks answer more of it.
Start at mca.gov.in, open MCA Services, then Master Data, then View Company or LLP Master Data. A partial name works, and a CIN removes every doubt about which entity you are looking at. The portal has moved to its V3 generation and the older V2 address and form-based pages no longer resolve, so ignore any guide that still sends you there.
The record is organised in three parts, and most people stop after the first. The master data gives the identity of the legal person: the CIN, the registered name, the registered office, the date of incorporation, the Registrar of Companies that holds the file, authorised and paid-up capital, the date of the last annual general meeting and the date of the last balance sheet, and the company status. Below that sit the index of charges, which shows what has been borrowed against the company's assets, and the director and signatory details, which list who is currently on the board with their identification numbers. Read all three before you form a view.
The status field is the one to read slowly. Active means the company is on the register. The other values are not synonyms for active: a dormant company has filed to be treated as inactive, a company under liquidation is in insolvency proceedings, and a struck-off company has been removed from the register and cannot transact. A seller whose website is still taking orders while the register reads struck off is the clearest stop signal this whole page will give you.
The Corporate Identification Number is twenty-one characters, and it is not random. The first character shows whether the company is listed or unlisted. The next five are the industry code for its main activity. Two more identify the state of registration, four give the year of incorporation, and three give the company type: a private limited company, a public limited company or a one person company. The last six are the serial number under which the Registrar recorded it. A code reading U74999MH2020PTC123456 is an unlisted company, in services, registered in Maharashtra in 2020, as a private limited company.
That structure lets you catch a mismatch before you spend a rupee. An incorporation year that contradicts the trading history you were quoted, a state code that does not match the address on the invoice, or a company type that does not match how the seller describes itself are all things you can see in the identifier alone.
The other identifier worth mapping is the director's. Each director has an eight-digit number, and clicking it on the company record opens that person's own file: every company and limited liability partnership they are, or have been, a director of. It turns one company check into a network check, and it is free. A director whose number reads deactivated has missed the annual confirmation required of all directors, which is a fact about the person rather than about your supplier, but it belongs in the picture.
The tax registration answers whether the business is currently registered for goods and services tax, and whether it is filing. On gst.gov.in, the Search Taxpayer service needs no login and no payment, and it accepts either the fifteen-character registration number or the business's tax identity number. It returns the legal name, any trade name, the date of registration, the constitution of the business, the taxpayer type and the status. The status is the field that matters: registration cancelled or suspended means invoices carrying tax from that period are worth questioning. The same page shows a filing table, which tells you whether returns are actually being submitted rather than merely registered. The portal does not support searching by business name, so you need the number off the invoice or the tax identity number to run this check.
The import and export code answers whether the business is allowed to trade across the border. The Importer-Exporter Code is mandatory for imports and exports, and since the introduction of goods and services tax, a newly issued code is the same number as the firm's permanent account number. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade publishes a public lookup called View Any IEC, which needs the code and the first three characters of the firm name, with no login. It returns the name, address, date of issue and status, and it also shows whether the firm sits on the Denied Entity List. One administrative trap is worth knowing: every code holder has to confirm or update their details on the portal every year between 1 April and 30 June, and a code that misses that window is deactivated automatically, which blocks customs clearance and bank payments until it is restored.
The third check is the one nobody runs: the index of charges. It sits inside the same MCA record and lists money secured against the company's assets, with the amount and the dates. It takes a minute, and it is the difference between taking a supplier's word that its assets are unencumbered and knowing.
Ownership. Indian company law requires an individual who holds, directly or indirectly, at least ten per cent of the shares, voting rights or dividend rights, or who otherwise exercises significant influence or control, to declare that interest to the company. The company then files a return with the Registrar. The register of those beneficial owners is kept at the company's registered office and is open to inspection by the company's members, not to the public, and the individual declaration itself is not published. So what you can see publicly is the shareholder on record, and beyond it a filed return that describes the position as of the date it was filed.
That matters most in exactly the cases where it is hardest to check. Where the shareholder on record is itself a company, a partnership or a trust, the person who really controls your counterparty sits further up the chain, and following it means reading filings rather than looking at an entry. Nominee arrangements are not prohibited in India, and the board that signs your contract is not always the party that decides.
Two more things stay outside every register. Whether the bank account you were given belongs to the legal person you verified, which is answered by asking for the account details in writing and comparing them to the registered name rather than by any lookup. And whether anything has changed since the record was last updated, which is answered by repeats: run the same three checks before the next payment, and keep the date on each result. An entry read today is evidence about today, and nothing more.
| Field | What it proves | What a fake usually looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Company status | Whether the entity is on the register as active, dormant, under liquidation, or struck off | A seller still quoting a long trading history while the register reads struck off or under liquidation |
| CIN | One identity per company: listing status, industry, state, year of incorporation, company type | No CIN at all, or a code whose state or year of incorporation contradicts the address and the story you were told |
| Registered office | The official address on file, which may be a shared or serviced office | An address that does not match the contract, or the same address returning dozens of unrelated companies |
| Authorised and paid-up capital | Authorised capital is the ceiling the company may issue; paid-up is what has actually been taken up | Authorised capital quoted as if it were money in the bank |
| Directors and their identification numbers | Who is currently on the board, and every other company each of them is or was a director of | Very few directors behind a large claimed operation, or a director number that reads deactivated |
| Index of charges | Money secured against the company's assets, with the amount and the dates | Assets presented as free of encumbrance while a registered charge sits on them |
| GST registration status | Whether the business is currently registered for tax, and whether returns are being filed | Registration reads cancelled or suspended while invoices adding tax are still being issued |
None of these fields is a verdict on its own. The one pattern worth acting on is disagreement: when the name on the invoice, the name on the bank account and the name on the register are three different strings, there is a question to settle before any money moves.
Yes. Master data on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal needs no account and no payment, and the tax registration and import-export lookups are free and public as well. You need a login and a fee only for certified copies of filed documents.
Not directly. The register shows the directors and the signatory details, and the shareholder on record. Individuals holding at least ten per cent, or exercising control, declare their interest to the company, which files a return with the Registrar, while the register of those beneficial owners is kept at the registered office and open to inspection by members rather than the public. Where the shareholder is itself a company or a nominee, the real owner sits further up and has to be traced through filings.
No. Active means the company is on the register, not that it is trading, paying its suppliers or solvent. Read the date of the last annual general meeting and the balance sheet date in the same record, and the filing table on the tax side, before you read anything into it.
The Importer-Exporter Code is the number a business needs in order to import or export, and since the introduction of goods and services tax a newly issued code is the same as the firm's permanent account number. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade's public lookup shows the firm name, address, date of issue and status without a login. Holders must confirm or update it every year between 1 April and 30 June, and a code that misses that window is deactivated automatically.