If you’ve been wondering for some time now how you can search on Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) website if any existing business has or uses a business name which you already have in mind, and you want to cross-check that…
I will be taking you through a process you can use to make this search, how you can navigate on the CAC platform, and how you can visit a part of the platform which will provide the functionality for you to search for an existing company or business entity name, their registration number, or even their AV code.
Go to the CAC Website
So first, all you need to do is go to the CAC website – the official website of the CAC. After that, go a bit to the below into the website, and then you will see a particular button that says “Public Search.” Click on that, and it will take you to a 404 page on the new CAC Intelligent Company Registration Portal (ICRP).
The CAC’s ICRP is a new AI-powered platform by the CAC to make your business registration seamless. It includes real-time name checks to ensure your business name meets compliance, smart business name suggestions, and instant registration processing.
Note: In case you can’t find some of the steps mentioned at the time you are going through this post, you will see the direct link to the Public Search page on the new CAC ICRP platform, so you can directly go to the public search page on that new platform.
Do a Public Search First
When you already have your name, e.g. “Blessed Autos” what you need to do first is check if there’s already a name there that exists.
So “Blessed Autos” is a name that the client gave me. I will copy it here and then paste it on the browser exactly on the search exactly how it was given to you.
You can already see that there are other companies with that name. When you see that other companies has the same name, you can add some other suffix, just to differentiate it.
If you want to find out how to register a business name on Nigeria’s CAC platform, check out this page where we extensively talk about how you can do it, using illustrations and examples and evidence of how you can.