Company documents search

Any documents registered with the New Zealand Companies Office are available for anybody to view.  The search options described below relate to companies only. 

The Companies Office website also contains information on a range of other entities held in a number of other registers.  These other registers can also be searched from the Companies Office website.

View information on searching other registers.

Conduct an Other Registers Search now.

What information is free?

When you search to Companies Register the company details you see in the search results are FREE to all users of our website.  These details include:

• Current name, number and status of the company
• Incorporation date
• Registered office address
• Address for service
• Names of directors and shareholders or officers and trustees
• The certificate of incorporation
• Company extract
• Documents that have been filed online.

Access to additional documents

Additional documents you may wish to view for a company include

• company constitutions,
• consent forms,
• prospectuses and
• financial accounts. 

There are several ways that copies of documents filed on the Companies Register are are stored and made available for viewing:  

1. PDF images 

PDF documents are identified by this icon  which indicates either that a paper copy of the document has been imaged or a PDF version of the document was uploaded online.  To access these documents, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC.

To view a scanned (PDF) document:

• Click on the document title hyperlink.
• The document will be displayed in a separate window.
• To print the document, use the Acrobat Reader Print icon in the pop up window.

2. Word or WordPerfect documents 

MS Word documents are identified by this icon  which indicates that a Word version of the document has been uploaded online.  Similarly WordPerfect documents are identified by this icon .  If you do not have Microsoft Word or WordPerfect installed you will need to download the relevant viewer software.

• Read more about downloading the appropriate software like Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word Viewer and Word Perfect Viewer on our Optimum software and site settings page.

3. HTML document

In the many cases where the Register has been updated using an online service, that update creates an HTML document.  These appear in the Documents Registered section of the search results as underlined and hyperlinked, but do not have a PDF, Word or Word Perfect icon beside them.

To view any of these documents, simply click on the document title link. 

You can print a copy of an HTML document by selecting the Ctrl and P keys at the same time.

4. Archived documents

If a document does not appear as a hyperlink and has the word "Archived" beside it, the document will not have been imaged.   As a result of a review of Companies Office archived records in May 2009, Archives New Zealand has determined that many of these records are no longer required to be kept and have been transferred to Archives New Zealand or destroyed.  Further information on this is set out below.

Companies

All company documents filed with the Registrar since 1 May 2002 are available electronically from our website.  Key documents filed before this date is also available electronically.   These include constitutions, prospectuses and liquidation/receivership documents.

If a company was removed from the register prior to 31 Dec 1999, the file is likely to have been transferred to Archives New Zealand.  Records for companies removed since 31 Dec 1999 are likely to have been destroyed but some were transferred to Archives and you can check with them.

Incorporated Societies and Charitable Trusts

For Incorporated Societies and Charitable Trusts, all documents filed since April 2002 are available electronically.  Prior to 2002, the last complete set of amended rules or trust deed variation are also available electronically.  Archived documents for Incorporated Societies and Charitable Trusts that were declared dissolved prior to 31 Dec 2002 have been transferred to Archives New Zealand.

Other Entities

We have also transferred to Archives New Zealand documents for those Overseas Companies, Industrial & Provident Societies, Friendly Societies and Credit Unions that were removed from the relevant registers prior to 31 Dec 2002.

A search for any archived document can be made through the Archives New Zealand website - http://archway.archives.govt.nz/.

If the records are not available electronically or through Archives New Zealand, the company or other entity should be approached directly for a copy.

Certificates and Company Extracts