What a company registry extract shows, and what it hides

What an extract is

Every country has its own name for the same document: the official summary of what a company has registered. In the UK it is the free Companies House profile. In Germany, the current printout (AD) from the register portal. In the Netherlands, the KVK Business Register extract (uittreksel). In France, the registry record and extract from the national register. Some are free to view; some cost a few euros as certified documents.

A typical extract shows: the exact legal name and legal form, the registration number, the registered address, the date of incorporation, the current status, and, depending on the country, the directors or authorized signatories, share capital, and business purpose.

What it hides

• Bank details. No public register anywhere links a company to its bank accounts. An extract can never confirm that the IBAN on an invoice belongs to the company. This is the single most misunderstood point, and it is why invoice redirection fraud works against buyers who did check the register.
• Financial health. Status "active" is not solvency. Accounts are filed separately, months in arrears, and small-company accounts can be minimal or confidential.
• Operational reality. A registered address can be a mailbox or an agent's office. The extract shows no staff, no premises, no stock, no customers.
• Ownership, in much of Europe. The UK publishes persons with significant control; in Germany and the Netherlands, public access to beneficial-ownership data has been restricted since a 2022 EU court ruling, so extracts often show managers but not owners.
• Disputes and reputation. Most registers carry no litigation history and no complaints. Insolvency proceedings surface in separate gazettes (BODACC in France, for example) rather than always on the extract itself.
• Timing. Registers show what was filed, as of when you looked. Yesterday's change may not be visible yet, and an extract the supplier generated months ago is stale evidence.
• Who you are talking to. A genuine extract attached to an email proves nothing about the sender. Fraudsters attach real extracts of real companies to fake invoices precisely because the document looks authoritative.

Using extracts well

1. Pull the extract yourself from the official register, fresh. Do not rely on a PDF the supplier sent: even a genuine one only proves the company exists, not that the sender speaks for it.
2. Read it against the paperwork: name, number, address, signatories versus the quote, the invoice, and the website's legal notice.
3. Treat it as one layer. Registry extract, VAT validation, sanctions check, and a bank-detail callback each catch a different failure mode; none substitutes for the others. The red-flag checklist ties them together.

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