Guides · 12 articles
Understanding the registry, and what comes after it
Guides to the rules that produce this directory's data and to what happens around them: how a company is born, how to check one before signing with it, what it must file every year, and how the electronic receipt and the electronic signature work, the two pieces that touch its whole operation today. Every legal statement carries its citation: a number of the Registro Oficial (the gazette where the State publishes its rules), a resolution or the article of the law. What could not be verified against its source is not asserted.
The corporate registry
Which legal forms exist, how a company is born, and what the codes the State identifies it with actually mean.
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S.A., Cía. Ltda. or S.A.S.: how Ecuadorian company types differ
Minimum capital, number of partners, how each form is incorporated and why the S.A.S. became the dominant one. With the legal citation behind every rule.
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The S.A.S.: the legal form that redrew Ecuador’s corporate map
Since 2020, the simplified stock company went from not existing to being the form behind 95 of every 100 new companies. What it is, what it allows and where it came from.
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How to incorporate a company in Ecuador
The full path, in order: company name, electronic signature, articles of incorporation, registration and the RUC. What changed with the 2020 S.A.S. and the 2023 reform.
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What the RUC is and how to read it
What the thirteen digits mean, who issues the number, the statuses it can have with the SRI, and the common myths, like the final 001 identifying a head office: it does not, every company carries it.
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The ISIC code: how a company’s activity is classified
From the letter to the last digit: how to read an ISIC (CIIU) code, why the registered activity is not always what the company does today, and what the classification is for.
Verify before you sign
What to check, and where, before paying an advance, extending credit or signing with a company you do not know.
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How to verify an Ecuadorian company
The public data worth checking before doing business with a company, what each legal status means and where to confirm it in the official sources.
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Active, dissolved, liquidated, cancelled: what each status means
A company in liquidation still exists; a cancelled one no longer does. What every registry status means and what it implies for whoever is about to sign.
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What it means when a company owes the SRI
A debt that is enforceable, disputed, under a payment plan or in forced collection is not the same thing. How to read the debtors list and which conclusions it does not support.
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How to tell if an Ecuadorian electronic invoice is authentic
The PDF proves nothing: what exists before the SRI is the authorized XML file. How to check an invoice’s access key and what to do if the receipt does not show up.
Obligations, receipts and signature
What a company must do every year, and the two things that touch its whole operation today: the electronic receipt and the electronic signature.
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A company’s year in Ecuador: what gets filed and when
Financial statements, income tax, VAT, annexes and receipt retention. The calendar to keep in order not to end up dissolved or on the debtors list.
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Electronic invoicing in Ecuador: how it really works
How an e-invoice is generated, signed and authorized, explained in order. Who has been required to use it since when, and the July 2026 change: the supplier’s RUC now travels inside the receipt.
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The electronic signature in Ecuador: what makes it valid
It has carried the same weight as a handwritten signature since the 2002 Electronic Commerce Law, but only if the certificate comes from an accredited authority. What a .p12 file is and what to check before buying one.
Tools
This directory answers who a company is. Issuing the receipt, receiving it, reading it and signing it is what comes next, and these tools solve it, built by the same team. The services operate in Spanish.
- ride.ec View any e-invoice from its access key. Free, no sign-up.
- recibo.ec Receive purchase invoices and have them file themselves. Up to 200 receipts a month, free.
- E-invoicing API Issue e-invoices from your own system. Free to try; production use is billed by documents issued.
- Electronic signature Sign documents with your certificate, nothing to install. Requires your own certificate, issued by an accredited authority.
- RUC lookup API This data, inside your application. Lookup by number, public for testing.