There are more situations where this check makes sense than it seems. Prepayment for a service, an order from an unfamiliar online store, a contract with a contractor, a new employer, a landlord, a freelance client. In all these cases, a basic check takes five minutes and can be done for free through state registers, while a deeper one takes approximately twenty.

Let us look at what to check and in what order.

What You Need to Start

For a legal entity, you need the EDRPOU code, which consists of eight digits. For an individual entrepreneur, you need the registration number of the taxpayer's account card, that is, what is commonly called the identification code. These data should be in the contract, in the payment details, on the invoice, or on the company's website in the contacts section. This is where the first signal also appears. If the counterparty refuses to provide the code or does not have it in its public details, this is already a reason not to rush, since there is no confidential information in these numbers. It is better to search specifically by the code, rather than by the name, because there are many companies with similar names, and when searching by name, it is easy to get someone else's data.

Basic Check in Five Minutes

Start with the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Formations, which is maintained by the Ministry of Justice and is available free of charge.

What is worth checking there?

The status of the record, since it should be registered. Any other status means termination of activity or restrictions, and it is not worth working with such a counterparty. The registration date, which gives an understanding of how long the company has existed. Types of activity, since they should correspond to what you are being offered. A contractor with activity codes for retail trade who takes on construction work operates outside the scope of the declared activity. The manager and founders, who should be compared with the person who signs the contract. The registration address. The history of changes in registration data, since frequent changes of directors or legal address are a signal that is worth attention.

Deeper Check

If the amount is significant or cooperation is planned for a long period, it is worth spending another fifteen minutes.

The Unified State Register of Court Decisions allows you to find all mentions of the company in court documents, and you should search there specifically by the code in the search by context field, rather than by name. What to look at in the results. The number of cases by itself means little, since a large company regularly goes to court. What matters is the role of your counterparty in these cases, that is, whether it mainly acts as a defendant in disputes over failure to fulfill obligations, and whether there are criminal cases among the cases.

Tax debt is published by the State Tax Service, and its presence is a serious signal. The Debtors Register, maintained by the Ministry of Justice, shows the presence of open enforcement proceedings. Sanctions lists are worth checking if significant amounts or long-term cooperation are involved. The presence of wage arrears is a separate indicator, since it indicates financial problems earlier than they become noticeable in other sources.

Free Sources and Paid Services

It is worth explaining the difference here, since commercial services dominate search results.

All the data listed are open and available for free on official state resources, that is, on the Ministry of Justice portal, in the court decisions register, and on the tax service website.

Paid aggregators collect this same data in one place, build a consolidated dossier, and add conveniences such as monitoring changes with notifications. That is, they save your time rather than provide fundamentally different information. The practical conclusion is this. For a one-time check before a single purchase, free sources are sufficient. For a business that regularly works with new counterparties, a paid subscription with monitoring pays off through the time saved. Some services provide a limited number of checks or monitoring of several counterparties for free, and this is usually enough for a private individual.

An Important Limitation

During martial law, access to some registers was restricted, and some datasets are not updated. In practice, this means that the absence of a record does not always indicate the absence of a problem, and you should not completely rely on the result of the check. Before making an important decision, it is worth checking several sources, not just one.

What the Registers Will Not Show

This is the most important section, since a clean check creates a false sense of security. The registers will not tell you about the quality of work, compliance with deadlines, or adequacy in communication. A newly registered company is not automatically bad, since every business starts at some point, and the absence of history means only the absence of history. The absence of court cases also guarantees nothing, since fraudulent structures usually operate for a short time and close before cases reach court. Likewise, the clean reputation of a legal entity does not extend to the specific person you are communicating with if they have no official connection to this entity.

Therefore, checking the registers is the first filter, not the final argument.

What Else Is Worth Doing

Compare the payment details with the registration data, since a request to transfer money to an individual's card instead of the company's account is a classic signal, and I wrote separately about the mechanics of such schemes. Check the age of the website and the presence of full details on it, since their absence contradicts the requirements for electronic commerce. Search for reviews outside the company's own website, paying attention to specifics instead of general assessments. For significant amounts, insist on a written contract with a clear subject, deadlines, and payment procedure. Do not pay the entire amount in advance if it is possible to split the payment into stages.


Sources

Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Formations, Unified State Register of Court Decisions, materials from the open data portal, Opendatabot