Ireland Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify an Irish Business

TL;DR. Irish companies register with the Companies Registration Office (CRO), which operates the CORE portal at core.cro.ie. Name and number searches are free with no account. Statutory documents cost EUR 3 to EUR 15 per item. Ireland also maintains a public Beneficial Ownership Register (RBO) under EU AML directives. The entire system is in English.

What is the official Ireland business registry?

The Companies Registration Office (CRO) is Ireland’s statutory body for company registration and disclosure, established under the Companies Act 2014. The CRO operates under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. All companies incorporated in Ireland must register with the CRO, and most statutory filings, including annual returns, financial statements, and director changes, are publicly available through the registry.

The CRO’s online portal is CORE (Companies Online Registration Environment), accessible at core.cro.ie. CORE was introduced to replace the older CRO Online system. Through CORE, users can search the register, view company details, and purchase filed documents.

Ireland also maintains a separate Register of Beneficial Ownership (RBO), operated by the CRO at rbo.gov.ie, under the European Union (Anti-Money Laundering: Beneficial Ownership of Corporate Entities) Regulations 2019. This register discloses the ultimate beneficial owners of Irish companies and is publicly searchable.

For listed companies on Euronext Dublin, the Central Bank of Ireland’s investor disclosure system holds prospectuses and major shareholding notifications.

What can you search?

CORE portal (free search, no account):

• Search by company name, company number, or Business Name
• Partial name match is supported
• Returns: company type (private limited, public limited, designated activity company, etc.), company number, registered office address, current status (normal, struck off, dissolved, in liquidation, in receivership), date of incorporation, and registered agent
• Director and secretary names are viewable in the free company detail page
• The list of filed documents (annual returns, financial statements, constitutional documents) is visible for free; each document costs EUR 3 to EUR 15 to download

CORE document purchases (paid):

• Certificate of Incorporation: free (PDF download, no charge for basic)
• Annual return (B1 form): EUR 3 per filing
• Financial statements: EUR 3 per filing
• Constitution (Memorandum and Articles): EUR 3
• Change of director (B10 form): EUR 3
• Certified copy with CRO seal: EUR 15

Register of Beneficial Ownership (free, via rbo.gov.ie):

• Search by company name or company number
• Returns: name of beneficial owner, date of birth (partially masked), nationality, country of residence, and nature and extent of interest (share percentage or control category)
• No account required for basic search; full detail requires login

How much does it cost?

All prices are from the CRO published fee schedule as of May 2026. EUR/USD conversion used: 1.07 (approximate; verify at point of purchase). Payment is by credit card or debit card.

Do you need a local account or ID?

For a free name and status search, no account and no Irish identity document are required. The CORE portal is open to international users.

To purchase documents, users must create a CORE account. Account creation requires an email address. No Irish PPS number (Personal Public Service number, the Irish equivalent of a national identity number) or other local document is required from foreign applicants.

The Register of Beneficial Ownership at rbo.gov.ie allows a free basic search without login. Full beneficial owner details require registering for an RBO account, which also requires only an email address.

Is the website in English?

Yes. Both the CORE portal and the RBO are fully in English. Ireland’s corporate statutory documents are filed in English (or Irish, where the company chooses to use the Irish language, with English translation required for submission). All company documents available for purchase are in English.

What’s the turnaround time?

Document purchases from the CORE portal are available for instant download after payment. There is no processing queue for standard filings. Certified copies with the CRO seal take slightly longer but are still available digitally through the portal. Physical certified documents by post take 5-10 business days.

Is there an API?

No public API is available from the CRO as of May 2026. The CORE portal does not expose a documented REST or SOAP API for external queries. Bulk data products from the CRO are available through the CRO’s data dissemination service for authorized recipients, but these are not a public API.

Commercial data suppliers (see “Local data suppliers” below) expose Irish company data via API. Vision-net and Creditsafe both offer REST APIs for Irish entity lookups, verification, and credit report retrieval, which is the practical route for compliance platforms integrating Irish registry data programmatically.

What you legally cannot do

The CRO’s terms of use permit searching and downloading documents for compliance, due diligence, legal, and research purposes. The CRO prohibits:

• Systematic bulk downloading of the company register for commercial database construction
• Redistributing purchased documents for commercial gain without CRO authorization
• Misrepresenting CRO documents as independently certified without the CRO seal

The Register of Beneficial Ownership operates under the EU 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) as transposed into Irish law. Access to beneficial ownership data is restricted to entities with a “legitimate interest” in cases where the company requests restriction. For most Irish companies, the register is freely accessible, but certain natural person beneficial owners can apply to restrict public access where there is risk of harm.

Ireland is a FATF member country and is not on the FATF grey list as of May 2026. The OECD Global Forum on Transparency has rated Ireland as compliant with international exchange of information standards. See fatf-gafi.org and oecd.org/tax/transparency for current ratings.

Irish GDPR (applying EU Regulation 2016/679 as transposed via the Data Protection Act 2018) governs how personal data appearing in registry filings may be processed by third parties. Director names and addresses in public filings are considered lawfully disclosed for the purpose of company transparency, but the data controller collecting this information for CDD purposes must maintain a documented lawful basis.

Practical tips for foreign users

• Start with the company number. Irish company numbers are issued at incorporation and remain stable for the company’s life. They appear in the format of 6 digits (e.g., 123456) for older companies or up to 9 digits for newer ones. Using the company number avoids name-matching ambiguity in searches.
• Check annual return currency. Irish companies must file an annual return (B1) with the CRO each year. The filing date is visible in the free CORE company detail. A company more than 12 months overdue on its annual return may be in the process of being struck off. Struck-off status means the company has lost legal standing to enter contracts.
• Financial statements are often filed. Unlike some jurisdictions, Irish companies (including small private companies above certain thresholds) must file abridged financial statements with the CRO, which are publicly available. For credit assessment, the filed accounts at the CRO are a starting point before ordering a commercial credit report.
• Beneficial Ownership Register is public but can be restricted. Most Irish companies have fully visible UBO data at rbo.gov.ie. However, a minority of beneficial owners have applied for and received a restriction on public access. If the search returns a restricted record, a request citing legitimate interest (AML/KYC purpose) can be submitted to the CRO to access the restricted data.
• Liquidation and receivership flags. The CORE portal status field shows if a company is in liquidation, in receivership, or has a court examiner appointed. These are distinct legal states. Liquidation is a wind-down of the company. Receivership means a secured creditor has appointed a receiver over assets. Examinership is court-supervised restructuring. Each affects counterparty risk differently.
• Ireland as a holding company jurisdiction. Ireland is a common jurisdiction for group holding companies and IP holding structures. A company may have minimal staff and activity in Ireland while being the registered entity for substantial assets. Check group structure in the filed annual return, which should identify the ultimate parent.
• CRO number vs RBO number. The CRO company number is the primary company identifier, issued at incorporation and used in all statutory filings on CORE. The RBO does not assign a separate identifier; it is searched by the same CRO company number. Do not confuse the CRO number with a VAT number (issued by Revenue) or a tax reference number.
• RBO search fees. The first 25 searches per year on rbo.gov.ie are free. From the 26th search onward, each search costs EUR 2.50. For compliance teams running high volumes of Irish UBO checks, budget for this cost or use a commercial supplier with an API.
• Wolfsberg Group alignment. Ireland’s AML framework is aligned with the Wolfsberg Group Correspondent Banking Due Diligence standards, relevant for financial institution counterparty checks. The CRO’s beneficial ownership data feeds directly into enhanced due diligence workflows at Wolfsberg-aligned institutions.

Alternatives if you cannot access the registry directly

CORE is straightforward for English-speaking users and the fees are low. The main gap is the absence of a public API, which makes direct integration with compliance workflows harder than in registries like the UK’s Companies House.

• Commercial data suppliers (see section below): Vision-net, Creditsafe, SoloCheck, and Experian Ireland all provide packaged Irish company reports with credit risk data and API access, bypassing the need to query CORE directly.
• UK Companies House: For Irish companies with UK operations or parent/subsidiary relationships, the UK’s free Companies House search at find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk may hold related entity information.

Local data suppliers

If you need a packaged report rather than a raw CRO extract, Ireland has several established providers:

• Vision-net (vision-net.ie). Operated by CRIF VisionNet Limited, headquartered in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin. Rated the top Irish business intelligence platform by its users. Covers Irish and international company searches, credit risk scores, KYC/AML compliance checks including PEP screening, beneficial ownership verification, ESG scores, and real-time CRO filing data. Owned by CRIF Group, the Italian credit and risk information company.
• Experian Ireland (experian.ie). The Irish operation of Experian plc. Provides business credit reports starting from EUR 3, credit risk decisioning, and marketing data services for the Irish market. Covers company verification, director checks, and payment risk assessment.
• Creditsafe Ireland (creditsafe.com/ie). Provides Irish company credit reports, director and shareholder verification, CCJ and payment default data, and AML/KYC checks. Offers API integration and connects to the CRO for live document access. Serves over 100,000 companies globally.
• SoloCheck (solocheck.ie). Irish-focused business information platform with offices at Adelphi Plaza, Dun Laoghaire. Provides credit reports, company and director searches, consumer registry searches, judgment searches, and business monitoring with daily alerts. Positioned as a lower-cost option for domestic SME credit checking.

Use the CRO CORE portal for official statutory documents and filings. Use Vision-net or Creditsafe when you need payment behavior, litigation history, credit scoring, or API-integrated ongoing monitoring layered on top of the registry data. SoloCheck suits lower-volume domestic checks at a lower per-report cost.

FAQ

Can a foreign company access the Irish company registry without an Irish identity?

Yes. The CORE portal at core.cro.ie is open to international users. Free name and status searches require no account. Purchasing documents requires a CORE account, which needs only an email address. No Irish PPS number or other Irish identity document is required from foreign users.

What is the CRO company number and how is it different from a VAT number?

The CRO company number is issued by the Companies Registration Office at the time of incorporation and identifies the company in all statutory filings. A VAT registration number is issued separately by Revenue (the Irish tax authority) when the company registers for VAT. These are different identifiers. For company verification purposes, the CRO number is the primary identifier. The VAT number can be verified separately through the EU’s VIES system (ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies).

Where do I find a company’s directors and shareholders?

Director and company secretary information is in the free company detail page on CORE and in the annual return (B1) filing. Shareholder information for private companies is in the B1 annual return and in the Register of Members, which is a company-held document not automatically filed with the CRO. Shareholders holding 25% or more are typically disclosed in the beneficial ownership register at rbo.gov.ie.

Does Ireland have a public beneficial ownership register?

Yes. Ireland’s Register of Beneficial Ownership (RBO) at rbo.gov.ie is publicly searchable and discloses individuals who ultimately own or control 25% or more of an Irish company’s shares or votes. The register was established under the EU 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Most entries are fully visible, though a small number of beneficial owners have received a restriction on public access on grounds of personal risk.

Is Ireland on the FATF grey list?

No. Ireland is a member of the FATF and is not on the FATF grey list as of May 2026. Ireland is assessed as compliant with international AML standards. For current country status, check fatf-gafi.org.

How often do Irish companies have to file financial statements?

Irish companies must file an annual return (B1) with the CRO each year, with a deadline of 28 days after the Annual Return Date (ARD). Small companies may file abridged accounts, while larger companies must file full statutory financial statements. If a company misses its ARD for two consecutive years, it loses the right to use a later ARD and the CRO may begin the process of striking off. Financial statements attached to annual returns are publicly visible on CORE.

What is the difference between a private limited company (Ltd) and a designated activity company (DAC) in Ireland?

A private limited company (Ltd) under the Companies Act 2014 has no requirement to specify its objects (its permitted activities) in its constitution, which is the most common form. A designated activity company (DAC) must specify its objects and is limited to those activities. DACs are used for special-purpose vehicles, joint ventures, and regulated entities where restricting the company’s scope is intentional. For compliance purposes, the company type visible in the CORE search indicates which regime applies.

Last verified: May 2026. Sources: Companies Registration Office (cro.ie), CORE portal (core.cro.ie), Register of Beneficial Ownership (rbo.gov.ie), FATF (fatf-gafi.org), OECD Global Forum on Transparency (oecd.org/tax/transparency).