How to Check a Georgian Company: Reading the Registry Extract Line by Line
Every Georgian company has a public record, and anyone can read it without asking the company. The extract shows who can sign, who owns the shares, and whether a seizure, a tax lien or an insolvency is registered. It does not show the people behind a corporate owner, or the accounts. How to search, how to read each line, and how to get an extract that a bank abroad will accept.
Every company registered in the country of Georgia has a public record at the National Agency of Public Registry, and anyone can read it, without the company's permission and without giving a reason. The summary of that record is the extract: a short document that states who the company is, who may sign for it, who owns it, and whether a seizure, a tax lien, a pledge or an insolvency is registered against it. Read properly, it answers most of what you need to know before you sign with a Georgian company, pay it or buy into it. It also has blind spots, and knowing them matters as much as reading the lines.
Public
Who may read the record
Under the Law on Entrepreneurs any person may view registered data and request an extract
5
Registers behind one extract
The company registry plus restrictions, tax liens, movable-property rights and debtors
Dated
What an extract proves
The position at the moment it was prepared, not today's
Anyone can look a Georgian company up in the public registry
The Registry of Entrepreneurs and Non-Entrepreneurial (Non-Commercial) Legal Entities is kept by the National Agency of Public Registry, an agency under the Ministry of Justice. Its search page, at enreg.reestri.gov.ge at the time of writing, finds a company or an individual entrepreneur by identification number, by name or by legal form, and has an English view. The agency's own site, napr.gov.ge, opens the same search through the my.gov.ge services portal, which is where to start if the address has moved. A company's identification number is, in practice, a nine-digit code that stays with it for life. The name is registered in Georgian, and Latin spellings vary from one invoice to the next, so search by the number. If a counterparty will not give you one, that is the first finding.
Data registered in the Registry is public: any person may view it and ask the registering authority for an extract. The extract is prepared for a fee, within a period set by the Government, and brings together the company's entry with the data held on it in the registers of public-law restrictions, of tax liens and mortgages, of rights over movable and intangible property, and of debtors. It reflects the data in force at the moment it is prepared. Electronic copies of the documents filed for registration are published on the agency's electronic platform and are open to any person free of charge.
- 1
Ask the company for its identification number and its exact registered name, and search by the number.
- 2
Open the entry and note three things first: the legal form, the registered address, and whether a liquidation or insolvency is shown.
- 3
Find the most recent extract in the record and read its date of preparation. If it is weeks or months old, treat it as history.
- 4
Read the filed documents behind the entry. The charter, the decisions appointing directors and the share transfers are published as scans.
- 5
When the decision matters, order a newly prepared extract. The agency issues it for a fee, on a standard or a same-day track, in Georgian and, on request, in English as well.
What each line of a Georgian registry extract shows
| Line | What it shows | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Number and date of preparation | When this extract was made | That it is recent enough for your decision and for whoever will receive it |
| Subject | Registered name, legal form, identification number, registration date, legal address | That name and number match the contract, the invoice and the bank details |
| Liquidation, reorganisation, insolvency | Whether any such proceeding is registered | An entry changes who acts for the company and whether to deal at all |
| Governing body | The directors by name, and a supervisory board where there is one | That the person signing your contract is on the list today |
| Management and representative powers | Whether a director signs alone or only jointly | That every signature the company needs is on the document |
| Partners | For an LLC, each partner and the share held, as a percentage, with any restriction registered over a share | That a seller of shares owns them, that the share is free, and who the partners are |
| Seizure or injunction | Seizures and prohibitions imposed by a court or another public body | Ask for the decision behind any entry before relying on the asset |
| Tax lien or mortgage | The State's security over the company's property for a tax debt | An entry means the Revenue Service is securing a debt; ask for its statement |
| Pledge or leasing on movable or intangible property | Registered pledges and leasing over equipment, stock and other assets | Whether the asset you rely on already secures someone else's claim |
| Debtor Registry | Whether the company is entered as a debtor in the enforcement of a money claim | An entry restricts the company's right to dispose of registered property |
The line on representative powers is the one most often skipped. Under the Law on Entrepreneurs, directors represent a company jointly unless a different arrangement has been registered. A company with two directors and no entry for individual representation therefore needs both signatures. The charter can add internal limits, for example a value above which the partners must approve a transaction; those sit in the filed charter, not in the extract. Under the Law such a limit does not bind an outsider, but the company may challenge a contract made with a counterparty who knew of it, which is a reason to read the charter. For an LLC the Law on the Public Registry requires the extract to show restrictions registered over partners' shares, such as a pledge: the first thing to look for when the deal is a purchase of shares.
The registry records what was filed. The agency answers for the match between an entry and the documents it holds; whoever prepared those documents answers for whether they are true. The Law presumes registered data to be reliable and complete, which broadly protects a person who relies on it in good faith, but a presumption is not an audit.
What the registry extract does not show
| Not in the extract | Why | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| The people behind a corporate partner | Only the direct partner is registered: for a company, its name, address and number | The partner's own registry record and the beneficial-owner declaration the company keeps |
| Shareholders of a joint stock company | Only partners of partnerships and LLCs are entered in the Registry | The share register, kept by the company or by a licensed registrar |
| Accounts, turnover, profit | The Registry is not a financial register | reportal.ge for larger companies; the smallest category's statements are not published there |
| Tax position in general | A tax debt appears only once a lien or mortgage is registered | A Revenue Service statement, obtained by the company |
| Licences and permits | They are issued and recorded by the regulator of the activity | The regulator's register, or the licence itself |
| Court disputes | A claim shows only if it has produced a registered seizure or injunction | A written confirmation from the company and a warranty in the contract |
| The charter's terms | The extract summarises; it does not reproduce | The filed charter, published with the record |
Financial statements are a separate system. Entities covered by the Law on Accounting, Reporting and Auditing file their annual statements with the Service for Accounting, Reporting and Auditing Supervision, no later than 1 October of the following year at the time of writing. The Service publishes them on its reporting portal, with one exception: the statements of the smallest, fourth-category enterprises are not published, and access to them can be requested from the Service under its procedure. A small company with no accounts on the portal is therefore not, by itself, a warning sign. Beneficial owners are a separate matter again: the declaration naming the natural persons behind a company is held by the company and given to its bank, not printed in the extract.
Using the extract for due diligence on a Georgian counterparty
- Before signing: the signatory is a registered director with the power to sign alone, or every joint signatory signs.
- Before paying: the name and number on the invoice and the bank details match the Subject lines, and no liquidation, insolvency or debtor entry is registered.
- Before buying shares: the seller is the registered partner, the percentage matches the contract, no pledge is registered over the share, and the transfer itself will be filed.
- Before lending or leasing: the asset offered as security is not already pledged, and no tax lien is registered.
- Before relying on any of it: the extract is days old, not months, and the filed documents say the same as the extract.
The advance that waited for a second signature
A Polish importer agrees to prepay 30% of a first order to a Tbilisi food producer, an LLC. The contract arrives signed by the commercial director, with a registry extract attached that is five months old.
- 1The importer searches the registry by the identification number on the invoice and orders a fresh extract in English.
- 2The governing body lists two directors. The commercial director is not one of them, and no individual representation is registered, so the two directors sign jointly.
- 3The partners line shows 60% held by an individual and 40% by a company registered abroad. The importer asks who owns that company and receives the beneficial-owner declaration the producer keeps for its bank.
- 4The tax lien line carries an entry that the old extract did not. The producer supplies a Revenue Service statement showing a disputed assessment and a payment schedule.
- 5The contract is signed again by both directors, the advance is reduced and tied to shipment, and the lien is named in the contract as a disclosed fact.
Nothing in the record made the producer a bad counterparty. It showed a contract signed by someone with no registered power to sign, and an extract that had gone out of date. Both were put right in a week, because someone read five lines before sending money.
Illustrative. What an entry means in a given case depends on the document behind it; the extract shows that an entry exists, not the whole story.
Getting a registry extract that works abroad
A foreign bank, registry or notary will rarely accept a printout. Order a fresh extract, with the English-language version if the receiver reads English: the agency prepares it on request, alongside the Georgian. For a country that is party to the Hague Apostille Convention, the apostille is issued in Georgia by the Public Service Development Agency and can be applied for at a Public Service Hall; a destination outside the Convention needs consular legalisation instead. Translation into any other language comes after the apostille, so that the certificate is translated together with the document. Ask the receiver two questions before you start: how old the extract may be, and whether an electronic extract with an electronic apostille is acceptable or paper is required. Our article on apostille and legalisation covers the chain in full, and the mistakes that mean doing it twice.
What this article does not answer
An extract tells you what is registered. It does not tell you whether a counterparty will perform, whether its accounts are sound, or whether a restriction on the record is about to be lifted or enforced. Those questions need the documents behind the entries and, for a purchase of shares or a large contract, a lawyer's reading of the charter and the corporate file; our article on corporate documents sets out what that file should hold. We obtain and apostille extracts for the companies we administer and keep their registry entries current, and in a consultation we can say what a particular record does and does not establish. We do not run credit checks or investigations into third parties, and we do not vouch for a company because its extract is clean.
Next step
A record that is right before someone reads it
The extract a bank or a partner pulls about your own company should match the facts on the day they pull it. Trustlex keeps the registry entry current for the companies it administers, and obtains fresh extracts, apostilled and translated in the right order, when someone abroad asks for one.
See what the secretarial plan coversGeneral information, not legal advice. Registration, the publicity of the Registry and the content of the extract are governed by the Law of Georgia on Entrepreneurs, the Law of Georgia on the Public Registry and the agency's rules; headings, portals, fees and time limits change, and an extract is evidence only of the position on the date printed on it.