Australian Company Register: How to Search ASIC and ABN Lookup and Verify Australian Companies (2026)

1. Two registers, two numbers

Australia's system is centralised but split by purpose. ASIC (the Australian Securities and Investments Commission) keeps the companies register under the Corporations Act: every Pty Ltd, public company and registered scheme, identified by a nine-digit ACN. The Australian Business Register, run by the tax office, issues the eleven-digit ABN to anyone carrying on a business, whether company, sole trader, partnership or trust, and exposes it through the free ABN Lookup.

The two link neatly: a company's ABN is its ACN with two leading check digits. That makes Australia unusually generous at the index level, since even unincorporated one-person businesses are publicly findable, while staying stingy where Europe is generous: financial statements.

One number you will not find: the Director ID, mandatory for all directors since 2022, is held by the registry services agency and not shown in public searches.

2. How to search the Australian registers step by step

Both searches are free, English-language, and need no account.

1. Start with ABN Lookup

   Go to abr.business.gov.au and search by name or ABN. It resolves trading names and covers every business type, so it is the fastest way to confirm an entity exists and find its identifiers. A search for "Qantas" finds 189 matches, sorted by relevance, with entity names and registered business names side by side.

   

2. Note the identifiers

   ABN for the business, ACN if it is a company (the ABN minus its first two digits). Always verify against the number, not the name, because business names are registered separately and change hands.

   

3. Search ASIC's registers for the company itself

   The free snapshot shows name, ACN/ABN, type, registration date, registered office locality and every document ever lodged. The lodgement list alone is a useful activity signal.

4. Buy an extract when you need people

   A current or historical extract (~AUD 9–43) adds officeholders and, for proprietary companies, members (shareholders). Officeholder residential addresses are excluded.

5. Check published notices

   publishednotices.asic.gov.au carries insolvency appointments and winding-up applications, free, and usually ahead of the register status.

3. What data is public and what it costs

Australia is generous at the index level and per-document beyond it:

The financials rule of thumb: public and large proprietary companies (meeting two of AUD 50M revenue, AUD 25M assets, 100 employees) lodge accounts you can buy; small proprietary companies, the vast majority, lodge nothing.

4. Australian legal forms, briefly

The suffix tells you the structure, and whether accounts might exist:

5. How to verify an Australian company: a practical checklist

1. Validate the ABN

   Check the ABN in ABN Lookup: active, right legal name, GST-registered if they invoice you with GST. For a quick first pass with revenue data included, use our free company lookup.

2. Trace the business name to the entity

   If you were given a trading name, find the ABN holder behind it. The contract belongs with the entity, not the name.

3. Confirm the company at ASIC

   Match the ACN, check the status is Registered, and scan the lodged-documents list for recent activity, or its absence.

4. Buy the extract for people and shares

   Officeholders and, for Pty Ltds, members with shareholdings. Watch for a corporate trustee structure: the Pty Ltd you see may hold assets for a trust you cannot.

5. Check published notices

   Insolvency appointments and winding-up applications appear on ASIC's published notices site before most other signals.

6. Limitations of the official registers

For single checks, the Australian setup is among the friendliest anywhere. The structural limits:

• No accounts for most companies. Small proprietary companies are exempt from lodging financial reports, so revenue for the typical Australian business must be modelled.
• People cost money. Officeholders and shareholders sit behind per-extract fees, and ownership through trusts is invisible even then. There is no public UBO register.
• No public company-search API. ABN Lookup's API validates ABNs but carries no officers or documents; ASIC data flows only through the portal and resellers.
• Self-reported ABR data. ABN Lookup reflects what businesses tell the tax office; stale entries are common.

Verifying one Pty Ltd takes minutes. Screening a portfolio, or getting any revenue signal on small proprietary companies, is where the official sources stop.

7. Access Australian register data programmatically

The ABR's free web service is excellent for what it does: real-time ABN validation with name, type, GST status and state, the standard for Australian form autocomplete. What it does not carry: officers, shareholders, documents, or any financial fields. ASIC offers no public search API at all.

CompanyData maintains records for all 8,568,817 Australian businesses, sourced from ASIC, the ABR and other official sources, with ACN/ABN reconciled and revenue and employee figures as structured fields. The ABN Lookup API serves them by ABN, ACN, name or address, with free trial credits to start, and the same Company Data API covers 200+ other countries.

GET /api/company/search?nationalId=53004085616

{
  "name": "CORAL COAST FREIGHT PTY LTD",
  "legalForm": "Australian Proprietary Company",
  "abn": "53 004 085 616",
  "acn": "004 085 616",
  "city": "Brisbane, Australia",
  "status": "Registered",
  "anzsic": "4610 · Road freight transport",
  "employees": "50 to 100",
  "revenueRange": "AUD 10M to 50M"
}

8. Australia vs other company registers

Australia pairs a UK-grade free index with a US-grade financials gap: