How to Verify a Business in Germany: An Ultimate Guide

Germany offers a good quality energy, manufacturing, and communications infrastructure, providing quick access to the local and international markets. With a stable and transparent legal environment, Germany offers investors a great opportunity for businesses to secure a legal framework and operate in regulations. After the recession in 2023, Germany’s business environment is slowly recovering, with modest growth of 0.4% expected in 2024. Challenges persist in trade and construction due to financing costs, sluggish domestic consumption, and supply chain disruptions. Businesses are navigating an intricate landscape of regulatory changes and evolving market dynamics.

If you want to verify a company in Germany, this ultimate guide will help you navigate the process efficiently. In this blog, you will learn about the process of business verification in Germany, including its beneficial owners.

How To Verify If a Company is Registered in Germany?

The parent registry for business verification in Germany is Unternehmensregister. This Germany portal is a centralized system for accessing company data within the country. You can gain access to register entries and documents submitted to multiple registers, such as partnership, cooperative, commercial, and society registers. You can retrieve specific documents from any business to verify. Businesses in Germany are registered in this government portal so that users can find relevant information across all German federal states. 

Other types of registers you will find on the Handelsregister portal are as follows:

• Commercial Register (Handelsregister): On this register, you can find all the business data of the Germany-based businesses. This includes the name, legal document, and management details of a company, ensuring legal transparency for commercial operations.
• Partnership Register (Partnerschaftsregister): This register records the details of official partnerships. The data associated with professional collaborations, such as between lawyers and accountants, are available in this register, providing clarity on their operations. 
• Register of Cooperatives (Genossenschaftsregister): To verify a company in Germany as per the compliance regulations, you need to access the list of cooperative societies, statuses, and administrative bodies. This register has all the relevant data that you may require.
• Register of Associations (Vereinsregister): This register lists non-profit companies in Germany. It documents their statuses and management, ensuring their compliance with the association laws.

Step-by-Step Guide to Verify a Company in Germany

The German public portal for business verification is easy to navigate, enabling users to know the current status of the company they wish to verify. You can search for a company using multiple input parameters. For instance, the section “Normal Search” allows you to access the data with a company name or registration number. The portal keeps the data updated, allowing you to view the businesses that have been removed from the register. The “Advanced Search” section further eases the company verification procedure.

To verify a company in Germany through Handelsregister, the key input parameters include:

1. Company Name: Here, enter the full or partial name of the company you wish to verify.
2. Register Number: Every company has a unique identity number, and you can enter it using a combination of other parameters to get specific business details.

Location: You can also find a company through the city or the region where it is registered.

Challenges of Verifying a Company in Germany

While the portal seems simple apparently, the following are the challenges you can face during manual business verification without any third party:

• Language Hindrance

Although the portal offers multiple language options for search, there are still some language restrictions in some areas of the portal. Many business documents and official web registries are in the native and official German languages, which non-natives cannot understand. This increases the risks of engaging with illicit businesses or fraudulent threads due to inaccurate company verification, affecting compliance transparency. When you verify a company in Germany, you will find ample information on the portal. However, the available documents are in German. This limits the accessibility for non-German speakers.

• Unavailable Business Information

Another thing that hinders the company verification process on the Germany portal is the unavailability of essential business data. The registry does not provide any business details such as address details, any changes in the company details (physical address details, name, owners, etc), filing details, and many more important business information. To verify a company in Germany, you must have access to such information to confirm its legitimacy.

• Document Retrieval Difficulty

In the Handelsregister, you can only receive documents that are submitted electronically. To obtain a specific document, you need to ask the relevant register court for it. However, for any specific documents, you have to pay 2.00 euros per page, and they will not be older than 10 years.

Also Read: How Does Document Retrieval Service Help in Business Verification?

• Navigation Complexity

The portal interface requires familiarity with the structure. It may be challenging for you to understand the portal, such as where to find specific business details among different register types.

How to Verify Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) in Germany?

In Germany, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner is the person who has more than 25% of the company’s capital and voting rights. The Transparenzregister is the UBO register in Germany, and it is designed to enhance transparency therefore, all businesses are advised to conduct internal reviews to identify their UBOs and ensure accurate and timely registrations in the register. You will have difficulty accessing the UBO details because they are available to the UBO law enforcement and regulatory bodies, while only limited access is available to the general public. To verify a company in Germany, you must identify and verify the ownership structure of a company. However, the complex ownership structure of a company can pose a challenge in KYB verification, impacting its transparency and effectiveness.

Also read: Current State of Business Verification in Australia

Conducting AML Checks on Businesses in Germany

Company verification in Germany consists of two steps. In the first step, the KYB check is made on the business. In the second step, AML checks are performed on the ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs), shareholders, directors, and other important persons associated with an organization. These checks are mandatory to verify a company in Germany to ensure transparency in the company framework. Conducting different types of anti-money laundering (AML) checks on an organization and its members makes it safe and reliable for various partnerships and other operations. The AML checks include the following types:

• PEP Checks

Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) may exploit their position and could be involved in money laundering, corruption, or bribery. These checks gather data from global sources to enable businesses to conduct due diligence. To verify a company in Germany, it is important to verify the identity of PEPs, family members, and associates to manage the risk of money laundering.

Also Read: What are Foreign PEP and Domestic PEP?

• Transaction Monitoring

This type of AML check involves scrutinizing the company’s transactions after onboarding. Financial authorities utilize advanced algorithms and behavior recognitions to track transactional behavior like amount, frequency, and suspicious patterns to identify the risk of potential financial crimes.

• Adverse Media Checks

To verify a company in Germany, adverse media checks are crucial. Some companies have the potential to pose a risk to their partners. Adverse media checks uncover information from all over the web to report the activities of businesses and individuals who have involvement in illegal activities such as fraud and money laundering. Due diligence through the KYB procedures can mitigate the risk of potential risks associated with suspicious companies.

License and Certifications in Germany

BaFin- Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht

Bafin is Germany’s financial regulatory. It looks to banks, insurance companies, and financial service providers to ensure their compliance with relevant rules. This regulatory body protects companies and warns them in case of non-compliance, reinforcing AML regulations.

Zollkriminalamt

It is the central customs authority that combats the proliferation of illicit money across borders. It collaborates with international trade partners to prevent any compliance violations.

GGL- Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder

In Germany, the regulatory body for gaming and gambling is the Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States (Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder or GGL). Established in 2021, the GGL oversees all forms of gambling in Germany, including online casinos, sports betting, and lotteries. It enforces the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag (Interstate Treaty on Gambling), issues licenses, monitors operators and enforces regulations to protect consumers and prevent illegal gambling activities.

How Can The KYB Help You Verify a Company in Germany?

The KYB is the world’s largest and most accurate primary data source for corporate verification. We provide instant access to real-time business information across 250+ countries and over 300M legal entities. With our all-in-one platform, you can verify a company in Germany from any part of the world. We screen companies and beneficial owners against AML lists, adverse media licensing bodies, regulatory enforcement, and bankruptcy to analyze the present status of a business. Another important aspect of the KYB is that it simplifies business verification in Germany, including verifying the UBOs. At the KYB, we have swift API-integrated software that provides business information in no time. You can identify the high-risk profiles and see whether a company is compliant with the regulations. To verify a company in Germany, we ensure that our record-keeping makes the process easier for everyone.

Contact us today to retrieve any business data in Germany.