Company registries compared

Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States

ACRA (Singapore). Bizfile offers a free search that confirms name, UEN, status and registered address. Directors, shareholders, paid-up capital, charges and filing history are in the paid Business Profile and purchased documents (fees: check the authority). The Register of Registrable Controllers is lodged with ACRA but is not public.

Companies House (UK). Free in full: filing history with document images, accounts, officers, people with significant control, charges, insolvency notices and previous names. Since 18 November 2025 directors and PSCs must verify their identity with Companies House, phased in over a 12-month transition; the register shows verification status.

United States. There is no national registry. EDGAR covers SEC filers only. Each state keeps its own registry; Delaware's free search shows name, file number, incorporation date, status and registered agent, with detailed reports and certificates for a fee. Most state registries show officers from annual reports but not shareholders. Beneficial ownership is not public, and domestic companies no longer report it to FinCEN.

Japan and Taiwan

Japan 商業登記 (commercial registration). The registry is kept by the Legal Affairs Bureaus (法務局). Any person can obtain a 登記事項証明書 (certificate of registered matters) at a bureau or through the paid online 登記情報提供サービス (fees: check the authority). It discloses 商号, head office, business purposes, stated capital, total issued shares, directors and representative directors with appointment dates, and company-type details. It does not disclose shareholders, and there is no beneficial-ownership register. The National Tax Agency's 法人番号 site is free and gives name, address and corporate number for every registered corporation, with change history.

Taiwan 商工登記 (company and business registration). The MOEA public search is free and detailed: 統一編號, registered Chinese name, representative, capital and paid-in capital, registered address, business scope, and the list of directors and supervisors including the shareholder each represents and that shareholder's holding. Filing history and recent changes are shown. English names are not part of the legal record. Ownership above 10% is declared annually to a government platform under the Company Act but is not public.

Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand

Hong Kong Companies Registry. The e-Services Portal replaced ICRIS at the end of 2023. Basic search (name, number, BRN as Unique Business Identifier, status, date) is free; document images, including annual returns (NAR1) that list directors, company secretary and members with shareholdings, are purchased per document (fees: check the authority). The Significant Controllers Register is kept at the company's registered office and is open to law-enforcement officers, not the public.

ASIC (Australia). ASIC Connect gives free name, ACN, status and registered office. Current and historical company extracts, listing officeholders and (for proprietary companies) members, are paid. Security interests are in the separate Personal Property Securities Register, also paid. Australia has no public beneficial-ownership register; a public register has been consulted on but not enacted at the time of review.

New Zealand Companies Office. Free and unusually complete: directors, all shareholders with holdings, addresses, ultimate holding company, annual returns and filed documents. The NZBN register is free. A beneficial-ownership register has been proposed but not enacted at the time of review.

Canada and Malta

Canada. Corporations Canada's free federal search covers CBCA corporations: name, number, status, registered office, directors and annual filings. Since 22 January 2024 federal corporations file information on individuals with significant control (25% or control in fact), and part of it is published: name, address for service, date of becoming an ISC and a description of the control. Provincial registries (Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta and others) are separate, with their own fees and disclosure; Quebec's Registraire des entreprises also publishes ultimate beneficiary information. Check each province.

Malta Business Registry. The MBR online system allows company search and purchase of documents without an account; memorandum and articles, annual returns listing directors and shareholders, and filed resolutions are available for a fee. Malta's beneficial-ownership register was closed to the general public after the Court of Justice of the EU judgment of 22 November 2022; access is limited to competent authorities and subject persons, pending the EU's revised legitimate-interest regime under the 2024 anti-money-laundering directive.

At a glance: free, paid, ownership

Fees and coverage change; confirm with the authority before relying on a column above for a specific purchase.

How OpenDossier uses registries

Each registry is read in its own terms. The dossier states which register was read, which product (free search, paid profile, document image), the document date shown by the registry and the retrieval date. Where a registry does not disclose something, the dossier says so with the reason: shareholders not disclosed by the Japanese commercial registry is a verified claim about the source, and it sets up the next step, which is to ask the company for its shareholder register through the Trust Workspace.

Paid documents are purchased when they are the only route to officers, members or charges and the engagement warrants it; the purchase is noted so that the reader knows the figure is from a dated extract rather than a live screen. Registry content is never paraphrased in a way that drops the registry's own qualifiers, such as as at last annual return.

Finally, registries are re-read on the monitoring cadence agreed for the file, because status, officers and charges are the fields that change most and matter most after signing.