When you need the ultimate proof and confirmation of business information, you need official registry documents.
FirstLink gives you direct access to original, as-filed company documents across more than 140 countries so you can verify entities and confirm status and ownership, whether it’s onboarding a client, closing a cross-border deal, or delivering on compliance.
Why you need FirstLink’s Registry Documents Service
When you need hard proof to make a decision, official registry documents do the heavy lifting.
FirstLink’s Registry Documents Service delivers those originals in the format your process requires and with global coverage, via one simple to use, single point of access.
Banks and Financial Institutions
- KYB & AML Compliance: Access to official documents like Certificates of Incorporation and Shareholder Lists is essential for Know Your Business (KYB) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks in line with compliance regulation.
- Resilience Risk Assessment: Financial statements and annual returns help assess a company’s financial health before extending credit or financing.
- Regulatory Reporting: Banks and Financial Institutions must often provide proof of due diligence and verified documentation to regulators.
Law Firms
- Corporate Due Diligence: Lawyers require original registry documents for mergers and acquisitions, litigation, and corporate structuring work.
- Entity Verification: Legal teams need to confirm the legal existence, structure, and authority of companies through documents like the Certificate of Incorporation, Registry Extracts or Directors List.
- Cross-border Transactions: When dealing with foreign entities, having a trusted source for jurisdiction-specific ‘as filed’ registry documents is vital.
Corporates, SMEs and Consultancy Practices
- Market Entry & Strategy: As a business when you are looking to expand internationally, you need to understand local corporate structures and filing norms.
- Client Onboarding/Customer Due Diligence: As a business, you may need advice in vetting of partners or acquisition targets, requiring verified legal registry documentation.
- Regulatory Navigation: Understanding what documents are available in each country helps you streamline compliance and reporting.
- Supply Chain: Allows your business to be audit ready, by maintaining a verifiable audit trail of supplier documentation, sourced directly from official company registries.
About our Registry Documents Service
FirstLink’s Global Registry Documents Service offers seamless, reliable access to official, ‘as-filed’ company documents from registries around the world.
Whether you are conducting due diligence, onboarding clients, or verifying status of an entity, FirstLink’s service delivers original registry-sourced documents, ensuring authenticity and traceability.
FirstLink provides coverage across 145 countries worldwide, including comprehensive access in both the USA and Canada.
Document Availability
Document availability will vary by jurisdiction based on local filing requirements, but Registry Extracts remain the most widely filed and accessible document type.
Overall, our service delivers over 96% Registry Extract document availability across the countries we support.
Original ‘as filed’ PDF version registry documents include:
- Registry Extracts
- Certificate of Incorporation
- Articles/Statutes/Annual Returns
- Certificate of Good Standing
- Annually Filed Financial Statements
- Directors Registered List
- Shareholder Registered List
Registry Extracts
A registry extract is a summary of a company’s official registration details as recorded at a national or regional corporate registry.
A Registry Extract typically includes:
- Company name and registration number
- Date of incorporation
- Legal form and status (e.g., active, dissolved)
- Registered office address
- Current and past directors
- Share capital and shareholding structure (in some jurisdictions)
- Filing history or key dates
- Business activities or industry classification
- Company ownership or beneficial ownership (where publicly available)
Note: Annual returns data is sometimes summarised in a registry extract. Annually filed financial statements can be referenced in these too, but if so they are only summarised. Directors’ Registered list is often captured, whereas the Shareholders Registered list is less frequently made available.
Certificate of Incorporation
A certificate of incorporation is an official legal document issued by a government or corporate registry that confirms a company has been formally registered and legally exists as a corporate entity.
A Certificate of Incorporation typically Includes:
- Company name
- Registration number
- Date of incorporation
- Jurisdiction of incorporation
- Legal structure (e.g., Limited Company, Corporation)
- Issuing authority (e.g. Companies House (UK), Secretary of State in U.S. states)
Note: FirstLink has 70% accessibility of these in the US across the 50 States we cover. Also many other countries including Germany, Denmark, UK, Hong Kong, Malaysia and India. FirstLink also has very strong accessibility of these documents for many ‘offshore’ jurisdictions including Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, and British Virgin Islands.
Articles Statutes
Refers to a single foundational document that combines both the company’s external identity and internal governance.
Articles Statutes typically include:
- Company name, legal form, and registered office
- Share capital and ownership
- Governance structure and decision-making rules
- Incorporation details
Annual Returns
An Annual Return is a formal filing that provides a snapshot of a company’s key corporate information at a specific point in time, typically once per year. It’s distinct from financial statements and focuses more on structural and ownership details.
Annual Returns typically includes:
- Company name and registration number
- Registered office address
- Date of return
- Principal business activities
- Details of directors and company secretary
- Share capital structure
- List of shareholders and their holdings
- Jurisdiction-specific identifiers (e.g., NAICS/SIC codes, tax numbers)
Note: Unlike the Financial Statement, the Annual Return does not include income, expenses, or balance sheets.
Certificate of Good Standing
A Certificate of Good Standing is an official document issued by a corporate registry or government authority that confirms a company is legally registered and compliant with its statutory obligations at the time of issuance.
A Certificate of Good Standing typically confirms:
- The company is active and validly incorporated
- It has filed all required annual returns and financial statements
- It has paid all necessary fees and taxes
- It is not in default, liquidation, or dissolution
Note: Many countries or regions do not offer Certificates of Good Standing at all, or only provide them under specific conditions (e.g. for international trade or legal proceedings). Also it is important to note that even in countries where these are made available, they will only be issued by the Registry if the company is fully compliant. Registries will only issue this certificate if the company has:
- Filed all required documents (e.g., annual returns, financials)
- Paid all fees and taxes
- Maintained active legal status
Annually Filed Financial Accounts Statement
Annually Filed Financial Statements are formal documents submitted by a company to its corporate registry or regulatory authority, typically once per year, detailing its financial performance and position.
Annually Filed Financial Statements typically includes:
- Balance Sheet: Assets, liabilities, and equity at year-end
- Income Statement (Profit & Loss): Revenue, expenses, and net profit/loss
- Cash Flow Statement: Inflows and outflows of cash
- Notes to the Financial Statements: Accounting policies, breakdowns, and disclosures
- Auditor’s Report (if applicable): Independent opinion on the accuracy of the financials
Note: We have strong availability of these in many countries. However please note that in both Canada and the USA, we do not have any availability of annually filed financial statements. This is due to national filing requirements that do not make public disclosure mandatory for the majority of companies.
Directors Registered List
A Directors Registered List (also known as a Register of Directors) is an official record of the individuals who currently or historically serve as directors of a company, as filed with the corporate registry.
A Directors Registered List typically includes:
- Full names of directors
- Date of appointment (and resignation, if applicable)
- Nationality
- Date of birth (sometimes partial, depending on jurisdiction)
- Residential or service address
- Occupation or profession (in some jurisdictions)
- Executive or non-executive status (occasionally)
Note: This list reveals who is officially in charge. It is essential for understanding a company’s leadership structure, verifying authority to act, and identifying red flags in corporate governance.
Shareholder Registered List
A Shareholder Registered List (also called a Register of Members in some jurisdictions) is an official record of the individuals or entities that legally own shares in a company.
What it typically includes:
- Full names of shareholders
- Contact or service addresses
- Number and class of shares held
- Dates of share acquisition or transfer
- Shareholder type (individual, corporate, nominee)
- Share certificate numbers (in some cases)
Note: Usually includes number of shares held and total share capital, allowing % calculation.
Find what you need, where you need it – globally
FirstLink has meticulously mapped registry document availability across jurisdictions and legal form types so you can see exactly what’s available from each registry before you start.
This includes an understanding of each country’s filing requirements and the specific documents available by legal form, giving you global reach with local precision.
Get the right format, ready to use
In some jurisdictions, registries no longer issue traditional PDFs, and instead provide official outputs in XML or JSON.
FirstLink bridges the format gap and restriction by converting structured registry outputs into PDFs with an official transformation stamp that certifies their origin and preserves legal integrity.
File, share, and cite them with confidence.
Plug in the way your team works
Access global registry ‘as filed’ documents quickly and efficiently through the FirstLink online platform, or integrate retrieval directly into your workflow with the FirstLink API. Our research teams return the document requests within 24 hours. With FirstLink, you get global reach, local clarity, and trusted as-filed registry documents in one simple service.