How long does business verification in Africa take?

Standard verification: five to ten working days

A standard check covering registry confirmation, director screening, tax standing, basic adverse media and a physical site visit typically completes within five to ten working days. This is usually sufficient before appointing a distributor, placing an initial order or signing a supply agreement.

Full due diligence: two to four weeks

Where the transaction is material, an investment, an acquisition or a long-term exclusive arrangement, full due diligence involving financial analysis, litigation searches, supply chain verification, customer and supplier references and beneficial ownership tracing runs two to four weeks.

Compressing this is possible but involves choosing which checks to drop, which should be an explicit decision rather than a silent one.

What extends the timeline

The recurring causes of delay are structural rather than procedural:

• Registries that are not digitised, requiring a physical search
• Counterparties operating across several jurisdictions, each needing separate checks
• Audited accounts that must be requested from the company rather than pulled from a filing
• Remote sites where a visit requires substantial travel
• Regulators who confirm licence status by post or in person only

Where the counterparty controls the clock

Some elements depend on the subject cooperating, particularly accounts and site access. Delay or obstruction at this stage is itself informative. A legitimate business with nothing to hide generally wants verification completed quickly, because it unblocks the transaction they also want.

Sequence it before commitment, not after

The most common mistake is starting verification after committing to a deadline, which creates pressure to accept partial results. Beginning verification when a counterparty first looks serious, rather than when a contract is ready to sign, removes that pressure entirely.