How do I verify if an African company is legitimate?
Every document a counterparty sends you can be forged. Verification means confirming facts independently, from sources they do not control.
Start with the company register
Confirm the entity exists, is currently in good standing rather than dormant or struck off, and that the directors named match the people you have been dealing with. Check the incorporation date against the trading history they have claimed, since a company registered four months ago cannot have ten years of export experience.
Registry access varies across the continent. Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa and others offer searchable online registers; elsewhere a physical search may be required.
Confirm tax and regulatory standing
A legitimate trading company has active tax registration and, in many markets, can produce a tax compliance certificate. For regulated activities, verify the licence directly with the regulator rather than accepting a copy. A licence certificate is one of the easiest documents to fabricate and one of the easiest to check.
Test the financial picture
Request audited accounts or filed financial statements and read them for whether the business has the scale to fulfil what it is proposing. A supplier offering to ship twenty containers a month with a balance sheet that cannot support two is telling you something important.
Take references and actually call them
Ask for named trading partners and contact them independently, using details you find yourself rather than those supplied. Ask specific questions about volumes, consistency, quality disputes and payment behaviour. Vague or unreachable references are themselves a finding.
The step most buyers skip: go and look
A physical visit to the stated premises is the single highest-value check, and it is the one most often omitted because of distance and cost. It confirms the operation exists, that its scale matches the claims, and that equipment and staffing are consistent with the volumes discussed.
A registered address that turns out to be a residential flat or a shared mailbox, when the company claims to run a processing facility, ends the conversation immediately. No amount of documentation substitutes for someone standing in the building.
Warning signs worth stopping on
Pressure to move quickly and skip checks, reluctance to permit a site visit, bank details in a different country or a personal name, prices markedly below market, and inconsistencies between documents are each grounds to pause. In combination, they are grounds to walk away.
Our teams conduct registry, financial and regulatory checks alongside physical on-site verification, so you know who you are dealing with before funds move.