Ecuador’s company registry.

3,428

operate with negative equity and keep selling

607

filed statements identical to another company’s, to the cent

214

closed at exactly $0 while selling $500 k or more

199

billed over $5 M one year and never filed again the next (running total over several years)

105

bill 50 times or more the value of all their assets

57

crossed $10 M in the very year they were incorporated

Each figure counts companies across the whole registry, from the statements filed with the Superintendencia de Compañías. These are statistical facts, not accusations: an atypical pattern can have a legitimate explanation; a foreign subsidiary, for instance, can run on negative equity (owing more than it owns) financed by its parent. No company is identified in this section.

$3,525 M

in enforceable debt across the country

40,815

companies of the registry carry it

49%

of that debt belongs to companies already dissolved

Enforceable-debt ranking of the SRI, Ecuador's tax authority, cutoff of August 28, 2026. Enforceable means already collectable, with no pending dispute. Aggregate totals only: no company is identified.

$30,924 M

in assets across 3,885 trusts

$3,213 M

managed by the 77 investment funds

37 of 100

of the country’s largest companies issue securities

Public registry of the securities market, balance sheets as of July 2026. Trusts (estates run by an administrator on assignment), funds, brokerage houses and issuers, with a monthly series since late 2014.

$81,874 M

in assets across 23 private banks

$30,282 M

across 202 cooperatives in segments 1 to 3, the largest tiers

8th

is where the largest cooperative would rank among the banks

Monthly bulletins of the Superintendencia de Bancos and the SEPS (the cooperatives regulator). Assets, deposits, loan book and delinquency of every institution.

In 2025, 21,206 companies were incorporated, ×2.4 the count of 2019, and 88% were born as S.A.S., the simplified stock company. It is already the most common type among the registry's active companies: 88,098 against 65,276 stock corporations, even though the entrepreneurship law created it only in February 2020. Compare the nine legal forms of the registry.

Only companies still on the registry are counted: distant years are missing the ones already cancelled, and 2026 is still in progress, so its bar is not a full year.

1. 1964 First Companies Law Supreme Decree 164 of January 1964 (Registro Oficial 181, February 15) gives the country its first Ley de Compañías. On April 20 of that year the Intendencia de Compañías Anónimas opens, still a department of the banking superintendency.
2. 1967 The companies superintendency With the Constitution of May 25, 1967, the Superintendencia de Compañías comes into being as its own technical, autonomous institution. Today it is the Superintendencia de Compañías, Valores y Seguros, the primary source of this directory.
3. 1997 The SRI is born Law 41 (Registro Oficial 206, December 2, 1997) creates the Servicio de Rentas Internas, the tax authority that administers the RUC, each taxpayer’s number. It has thirteen digits: it starts with the code of the province where the company registered and always ends in 001 (RUC Law regulations, art. 3).
4. 1999 The codification in force The Ley de Compañías is codified (Registro Oficial 312, November 5, 1999): it is the text, much amended since, that governs to this day. Its article 20 requires companies to file their financial statements within the first four months of each year.
5. 2008 IFRS arrives Resolution 08.G.DSC.010 of the Superintendencia (November 20, 2008) makes International Financial Reporting Standards mandatory in stages: securities market participants and auditors from 2010, companies with assets over $4 million from 2011, and everyone else from 2012.
6. 2020 The S.A.S. The Ley Orgánica de Emprendimiento e Innovación (Registro Oficial supplement 151, February 28, 2020) creates the simplified stock company: no minimum capital, a single shareholder allowed, incorporated by private document. The Superintendencia enabled online incorporation in May 2020.
7. 2023 Corporate reform The reform to the Ley de Compañías (Registro Oficial supplement 269, March 15, 2023) lets stock corporations and limited liability companies have a single owner, authorizes more filings without a notarized deed, and orders the SRI to issue a new company’s RUC within 24 hours.

Every milestone cites its source: the Registro Oficial (official gazette), decree or resolution where it stands. That calendar also sets this page's rhythm: a year's statements are filed through April of the next, so the latest year's figures keep filling in over these months.

$21.5 B

collected by the SRI in 2025

52%

of that collection is VAT: the treasury lives off consumption

95%

comes from companies, not individuals

Public tax-collection dataset of the SRI, 2017–2026. It arrives aggregated at the source: it contains no identifiable taxpayers.

7,105,830

RUC numbers registered in the country

3,007,519

remain active

3,381,067

open establishments

~724

new RUC registrations per day

The companies in this directory are the formal summit of the economy: for each active one there are 15 individuals with an active RUC, that is, 2,720,183 businesses and trades in a person's own name, from the corner store to the medical practice. The wages and registered employment shown above describe exactly that world.

And nearly half of those own-name businesses, 1,279,462, pay taxes under RIMPE, the simplified regime for entrepreneurs and small businesses; 1,694,338 taxpayers remain under the general regime.

Public RUC registry of the SRI; the cutoff is deduced from the data itself. Totals only: no data about an identifiable individual is published here.