Guinea-Bissau Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify a Guinea-Bissau Business

TL;DR. Guinea-Bissau’s official commercial registry is the RCCM (Registre du Commerce et du Credit Mobilier), nominally accessible via the OHADA portal at rccm.ohada.org, though coverage for Guinea-Bissau is very limited as of May 2026. The registry operates primarily through physical court searches in Bissau. Guinea-Bissau is on the FATF increased monitoring (grey) list. This is a high-difficulty jurisdiction for foreign compliance buyers; engage a local legal representative in Bissau for any material counterparty check.

What is the official Guinea-Bissau business registry?

Guinea-Bissau’s commercial registry is the Registre du Commerce et du Credit Mobilier (RCCM), established under OHADA’s Uniform Act Relating to General Commercial Law. Guinea-Bissau joined OHADA on 15 February 1994, making it one of the founding member states of the OHADA framework. The RCCM provides the legal basis for commercial entity registration, and OHADA’s Uniform Acts are directly applicable in Guinea-Bissau without domestic transposition.

Operationally, RCCM filings are managed by the greffe of the Tribunal de Bissau (Bissau Regional Court) and its associated registry section. Guinea-Bissau is a small country with a single principal court handling the majority of commercial registrations in Bissau, the capital. The country’s interior courts have minimal commercial registration activity.

Online search access is nominally provided via the OHADA federated RCCM portal at rccm.ohada.org. However, Guinea-Bissau’s digitization of historical RCCM records is very limited compared to higher-capacity OHADA members such as Senegal or Ivory Coast. Many records exist only in paper form at the court registry. Foreign compliance buyers should not assume that a nil result on the OHADA portal means an entity is unregistered; physical court verification is required.

The RCCM covers commercial companies (SA, SARL, SNC, SCS), individual traders, economic interest groups (GIE), branches of foreign companies, and moveable security registrations. Most active commercial entities in Guinea-Bissau are SARLs or individual traders.

Guinea-Bissau also participates in ECOWAS and UEMOA (West African Economic and Monetary Union), using the CFA Franc (XOF), shared with Senegal and six other UEMOA states.

What can you search?

Where digitized records are available on the OHADA RCCM portal, searches support:

• Corporate name (denomination sociale)
• Trade name (nom commercial)
• Abbreviation
• RCCM number
• Legal form

However, Guinea-Bissau’s registry coverage on the OHADA portal is materially incomplete. For practical compliance purposes, a physical search at the Tribunal de Bissau is the only reliable method for verifying a Guinea-Bissau entity. Local legal representatives with court access can obtain registry extracts directly.

Data returned where available: corporate name, RCCM number, legal form, registration court, entry date, and formalities filed since registration. Shareholder and director information at the public counter level is limited and varies by the nature of the filing.

[VERIFY: current state of Guinea-Bissau’s RCCM digitization and portal availability before relying on online search results.]

How much does it cost?

[VERIFY: current court fee schedule at Tribunal de Bissau.] EUR/XOF conversion: 1 EUR = 655.96 XOF (fixed peg). Intermediary prices (where available) sourced from Schmidt and Schmidt’s published tariff. Guinea-Bissau’s thin commercial infrastructure means fewer intermediaries serve this market compared to neighboring Senegal; direct engagement with a Bissau-based lawyer is typically more reliable.

Do you need a local account or ID?

Account registration on the OHADA RCCM portal requires an email address and basic contact information. No Guinea-Bissau national ID is required for portal access by foreign users. However, the practical limitation is the incomplete digitization of Guinea-Bissau records, making portal access alone insufficient.

For physical court searches and certified extracts, a local legal representative is required. Foreign entities cannot independently access court registry files without a local representative or an authorization letter from the court administration.

Is the website in English?

No. Guinea-Bissau’s official language is Portuguese (unlike most OHADA members which use French), though Guinea-Bissau’s legal and registry systems operate in French under OHADA. The OHADA RCCM portal interface is in French, with English navigation available via the lang=en URL parameter. Entity data appears in French. No English-language interface exists for Guinea-Bissau entity searches.

Compliance buyers should note this dual-language dynamic: Guinea-Bissau’s national language is Portuguese, but its commercial law framework (OHADA) operates in French. Company names and business documentation may appear in Portuguese or French. A bilingual Portuguese-French legal representative in Bissau is the most effective resource.

What’s the turnaround time?

The OHADA portal returns available digitized records instantly. For physical court searches at the Tribunal de Bissau, turnaround typically ranges from 14 to 30 business days, reflecting limited court administrative capacity and manual processing. Expedited processing is not standardized. Third-party intermediaries serving Guinea-Bissau quote longer timelines than for more digitized OHADA jurisdictions. Plan for extended timelines and potential administrative delays.

Is there an API?

No. The OHADA RCCM portal does not offer a public API as of May 2026. Guinea-Bissau has no national digital registry platform with programmatic access. Compliance platforms requiring automated Guinea-Bissau entity lookups must rely on manual court-level research through a local partner.

What you legally cannot do

OHADA registries prohibit bulk automated scraping of entity data. Commercial redistribution of RCCM records without court or OHADA authorization is restricted. Guinea-Bissau’s formal data protection legislation is limited; however, international compliance buyers should apply standard data minimization principles to personal data found in registry filings. Document access purpose for AML/KYC audit trail purposes, especially given the FATF grey list status.

Practical tips for foreign compliance buyers

• Physical search is essential. Guinea-Bissau’s RCCM is not reliably searchable online. Always engage a Bissau-based legal representative for any material counterparty verification. Do not rely solely on the OHADA portal.
• FATF grey list. Guinea-Bissau is on FATF’s increased monitoring (grey) list as of May 2026. [VERIFY: current FATF status at fatf-gafi.org.] Enhanced due diligence is required for most institutional compliance frameworks when transacting with Guinea-Bissau counterparties.
• Political instability risk. Guinea-Bissau has experienced repeated military coups and governmental instability since independence in 1974. Political disruption periodically affects institutional functioning including the judiciary and court registry. [VERIFY: current governance status before engaging counterparties.]
• Drug transit risk. Guinea-Bissau is classified by UNODC as a material transit point for cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe. This elevates money-laundering risk for companies in logistics, fishing, and agriculture sectors. Apply heightened scrutiny to counterparties in those sectors.
• UEMOA/XOF currency zone. Guinea-Bissau uses the XOF (CFA Franc West Africa), fixed to the EUR at 655.96. This facilitates cross-border transactions within the UEMOA zone.
• Portuguese-language documentation. Many business contracts and government documents in Guinea-Bissau exist in Portuguese. Request both Portuguese-language originals and French translations for RCCM-related documents to ensure consistency with the registry record.

Alternatives if you cannot access the RCCM directly

• OHADA RCCM portal (rccm.ohada.org): partial coverage for Guinea-Bissau. Free to access; treat any result as indicative only and verify with physical court search.
• Aggregator search: OpenCorporates has extremely limited Guinea-Bissau coverage. Not suitable for compliance-grade verification.
• Local legal firms in Bissau: direct engagement is the most reliable route for certified company verification. International law firms with West Africa practices (Dakar or Abidjan offices) sometimes cover Guinea-Bissau.

Local data suppliers

No major international credit bureau operates a Guinea-Bissau service as of May 2026. [VERIFY: local credit information availability.] For commercial due diligence, a Bissau-based legal firm or an international risk consultancy with West Africa coverage is the primary resource.

FAQ

Can a foreign company access the Guinea-Bissau registry directly?

Foreign users can attempt the OHADA RCCM portal for digitized records, but coverage for Guinea-Bissau is very limited. Physical court searches at the Tribunal de Bissau require local representation. There is no online portal providing full registry access for Guinea-Bissau entities.

What is the RCCM number in Guinea-Bissau?

The RCCM number encodes the registration court and year, following the OHADA standard format. Guinea-Bissau entities registered in Bissau carry the “GW-BSC” court prefix. Collecting this number from counterparty documents is the starting point for any registry verification.

What entity types are registered with the RCCM in Guinea-Bissau?

The RCCM covers SA (Societe Anonyme), SARL (Societe a Responsabilite Limitee), SNC (Societe en Nom Collectif), GIE (Groupement d’Interet Economique), individual traders, and branches of foreign companies, all governed by OHADA’s Uniform Act on Commercial Companies.

Does Guinea-Bissau have a beneficial ownership (UBO) registry?

Guinea-Bissau does not operate a publicly searchable UBO register as of May 2026. Beneficial ownership disclosure requirements exist under AML legislation, but UBO data is not publicly accessible. Given the FATF grey list status and elevated financial crime risk profile, enhanced UBO verification is critical: rely on RCCM filings for director and shareholder names, direct counterparty declaration, and supplementary EDD documentation.

Is Guinea-Bissau on the FATF grey list?

Yes, as of May 2026. [VERIFY: current status at fatf-gafi.org.] Enhanced due diligence obligations apply to transactions involving Guinea-Bissau counterparties under most institutional AML frameworks.

What’s the difference between the RCCM and tax registration?

The RCCM holds commercial registration records. Tax registration and compliance records are held separately by the Direccao-Geral das Contribuicoes e Impostos (DGCI). These systems are administered separately and are not reliably cross-linked in public-facing databases. A complete CDD file should address both.

Last verified: May 2026. Sources: OHADA RCCM portal (rccm.ohada.org), FATF (fatf-gafi.org). For the full global due diligence framework, see our Global Business Due Diligence Guide.