How to Check a Company in Ukraine: Using Open Registries

Performing "business intelligence" is a valuable option if you want to protect yourself and understand how real and reliable a company with which you intend to collaborate. Ukraine, in this regard, is quite progressive and reliable. There are several ways to check companies, especially in the IT sector.

The simplest and most accessible method of verification is by using open internet sources. This will not only help you verify a business partner but also save on your security service.

Diia.City is a unique legal and tax space for IT companies, guaranteed by the state

The state guarantees residents of DiiA.City protection of rights and legal interests of residents and the professionals they employ. Companies – residents of DiiA.City are legally registered following the current Ukrainian legislation and engage in qualified types of activities. Despite the war, DiiA City has been operating since February 2022.

You can find the DiiA.City registry here: https://city.diia.gov.ua/registry/resident

As of September 23, 2023, the registry is up to date and includes 689 legal entities.

In the registry, you will find information such as the company's organizational and legal form, its official name, identification code in the Unified State Register, the date of acquisition/loss of residency, as well as relevant official decisions regarding the company.

The registry is available in both English and Ukrainian languages.

The website is equipped with a quick search window.

You can search by the company's name (but you need to know its precise spelling) or by the EDRPOU code (this is a local identifier that all Ukrainian companies have). This code is not a secret; it's open and legal, so you can confidently request it from the company you want to check or look for it in contracts, invoices, letterheads, company documents, and so on.

360 Tech Ecosystem Overview – an online portal for searching business information about Ukrainian IT companies

Launched with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine in December 2020, this is an online database of IT companies, individuals, investors, and the technological ecosystem in Ukraine.

As of September 2023, there are 1,628 registered Ukrainian product companies and 544 Ukrainian service companies on the platform.

The collected information includes data on the current development of IT companies, information about founders and executives, classification of companies by industries, investments and funding, mergers and acquisitions, company news, and industry trends.

The portal is available in both English and Ukrainian languages, with a search option by company name.

YouControl – an online company verification service

This is a non-governmental resource that offers both paid and free options for obtaining information about companies. The platform provides 8 analytical tools for businesses, dossiers on 4 million Ukrainian companies and individual entrepreneurs (FOPs), and access to information from 180 official sources.

In December 2019, YouControl was recognized as the best IT solution for businesses. In 2020, YouControl entered the top 5 best startup innovations in Ukraine and launched the extensive YouControl Academy project, which helps users quickly and easily familiarize themselves with the full functionality of the system and learn about compliance.

In 2022, they launched RuAssets – an international tool for checking connections of legal and natural persons with Russian and Belarusian assets, sanctioned individuals, war terrorists, and propagandists. In 2023, the "Myrotvorets" (Peacekeeper) database was also added.

The platform is available in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. To start a verification, you can enter the company name or its identification code (EDRPOU code) in the search bar on the main page.

A list of all services related to registries, both free and paid, can be found here: https://youcontrol.com.ua/services/

Opendatabot – a service for monitoring registration data of Ukrainian companies and the court register to protect against raiding and control contractors

This is a non-governmental resource. You can obtain basic information about a company by entering its identification code (EDRPOU code) into the search bar on the main page.

To check a contractor and learn more about your business partner, you can use Opendatabot in a convenient messenger (Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Viber) or the app (iOS, Android) and send the company code. The bot will display a company card containing all the information about the contractor. On the card, you can check all registration, tax, legal, sanction, reputational, and other risks.

Opendatabot offers paid tariffs based on the volume and functionality of client requests. The most popular tariff, costing about $12 per month, includes monitoring of 10 companies, individual entrepreneurs (FOP), or court cases and 20 extracts per day about companies or individual entrepreneurs.

Additionally, the resource conducts weekly analyses of open data from various aspects of life in Ukraine, such as land sales, road traffic accidents, child injuries, export changes, marriages, and more.

The platform is available in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.

Why Access to Some Registries is Restricted

Prior to the full-scale war in Ukraine, the country was ranked among the top European nations in terms of open data development, holding the sixth position in the overall Open Data Maturity Report 2021 ranking.

However, at the beginning of 2022, over 70 websites of state authorities became the target of one of the largest cyberattacks using WhisperGate, commissioned by Russia. The primary goal of this attack was to diminish trust in the state's personal data protection systems and damage databases.

As a result, government authorities decided to restrict access to some previously open State Registries during the state of war in Ukraine. Consequently, several state registries are operating under special conditions: in some, access is limited to a select group of individuals; other resources require prior ordering and obligatory registration, and certain registries are only accessible to users within Ukraine.

Therefore, we recommend using the online resources mentioned above, which currently are functioning correctly and without restrictions.