How to verify an Ecuadorian company

Every Ecuadorian company leaves a public trail: its registration with the Superintendencia de Compañías, its RUC (its taxpayer number) with the SRI, the national tax authority, and its annual financial statements. Verifying that trail takes minutes and prevents most surprises. This is the list we would use ourselves, in order, from what rules out fastest to what sharpens judgment.

1. That it exists and is active

Search for the company by name, trade name or RUC. The first thing is the legal status:

• Active. Registered and with no exit process in the registry.
• In dissolution or liquidation. The company is in an exit process, whether the owners decided it or the Superintendencia itself started it. It can keep operating during the process, but it is the first thing to ask your counterparty.
• Inactive or cancelled. It stopped operating or already left the registry.

In the directory, the status appears in the profile's very title. Watch out for a classic: two companies with nearly identical names, one active and one dissolved. Confirm the RUC, not just the name. What each status means exactly lives in the legal status guide.

2. That the RUC matches

The RUC they give you on the invoice or the contract must correspond to the legal name you are contracting with (here is how to read it). This is where impersonations get caught: the trade name matches, the RUC does not.

3. What the tax authority says about it

The profile shows the RUC status with the SRI when available. A company active before the Superintendencia but with a suspended RUC is a signal to ask more: they are two distinct registries, and their disagreement is rarely accidental.

Right there appear, when they exist, the designations the tax administration itself publishes: phantom taxpayer (a business the SRI considers to have no real operation) or nonexistent transactions (it invoiced operations the SRI determined never took place), always attributed to the SRI. If either is flagged, stop: invoices from such an issuer are useless for deducting taxes (the tax credit) and drag down whoever uses them.

4. That it files financial statements

The law requires filing financial statements within the first four months of each year (Ley de Compañías, art. 20). A company that has gone years without filing may be dormant even while listed as active. And if it accumulates two consecutive years of noncompliance, the Superintendencia can declare it dissolved on those grounds (art. 377, item 7). The profile shows the fiscal years filed, their revenue and their position in the country's distribution; if there are none, that is information too.

5. Its real footprint: establishments and age

The RUC registry says how many locations it keeps open and where ("Where it operates" in the profile), and since when it has had activities with the SRI. If it claims to be a "national company with branches" and registers a single location, or boasts a track record and was incorporated three months ago, ask why. Freshly incorporated companies are not suspicious for being new (every company was new once), but a large contract with a weeks-old company warrants checking more and asking for more guarantees.

6. The sector context

The profile links to the company's economic activity: there you see how many businesses compete in that trade, their aggregate figures and the sector's largest. It tells you whether your counterparty carries weight in its market or is marginal. The country can also be read top-down: the largest companies, the tax debt and who pays the taxes.

7. Its receipts

With the company verified, the document remains. When the first invoice arrives, check that the receipt exists before the SRI and that its data matches the PDF you were handed: the file that counts is the authorized XML, not the PDF. The procedure is in how to tell if an electronic invoice is authentic.

Red flags

• The RUC on the invoice is not the one of the company you negotiated with.
• The company stands dissolved, liquidated or cancelled, and keeps contracting.
• The SRI flags it as a phantom taxpayer or with nonexistent transactions.
• Pressure to pay in advance into an account different from the one in earlier documents.
• A sales pitch that does not square with the registered footprint: size, age, establishments, activity.
• Whoever signs does not prove being the legal representative or holding power to bind the company.

Where to check in the official sources

This directory reproduces public records and is a fast starting point; for actions with legal effect, go to the source. The portal of the Superintendencia de Compañías, Valores y Seguros (supercias.gob.ec) publishes the full corporate file, and the online services of the SRI (sri.gob.ec) let you look up the RUC and the tax status. Our methodology details what we publish, from where and at which cutoffs.