Check CAC Registration in Nigeria: cac.gov.ng Free Search

Search the company’s name for free at cac.gov.ng before you pay anyone for a visa or relocation service. The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is Nigeria’s official company registrar. Its public search shows three things at once: whether the name exists, its RC or BN number, and its current status. A CAC certificate is not a licence for immigration advice. That gap is where most japa scams and fake travel agent claims hide. For Canada the register that does cover advice is the CICC one, which our Canada RCIC consultant profile links directly.

How to check if a company is registered with CAC: the steps

In short: on the CAC public search at cac.gov.ng, type the exact company name — or the RC/BN number on their invoice — and search. A real, active company returns a name match, a registration number, and an Active status, free. Source: Corporate Affairs Commission, cac.gov.ng.

1. Open cac.gov.ng and go to Public Search.
2. Type the exact registered name, or the RC/BN number from their invoice.
3. Read the result: registered name, registration number, and status.
4. Match the number, not just the name, to the invoice or letterhead.
5. Check the status — it must read Active.

A name one word off a known brand, or no CAC entry at all, is common. This agent verification step stops many fake travel agent claims before you pay. For the wider picture, see how to avoid visa agent scams in Nigeria.

The three results you can get back — and what each one means

In short: a CAC search ends one of three ways. Name not found. Name found but Inactive. Or name found and Active, with an RC number that does not match your invoice. Only Active plus a matching number clears an agent to take your money. Source: Corporate Affairs Commission, cac.gov.ng.

Name not found means nothing by that name is registered. You may have mistyped it, or the “company” was never incorporated — some agencies exist only as a WhatsApp handle and a bank account, nothing more. Name found, Inactive means the company existed but is not in good standing, usually from missed annual returns; CAC periodically delists companies that go quiet on filings, and Inactive alone does not prove fraud, but it is not a going concern either. Name found, Active, number mismatch is the one people skip — an agent can use a real company’s name and print a different, invented RC number on your invoice, or bill you from an unrelated shell with a similar name. Match the number, not just the name.

What is an RC number, and where should it appear

In short: an RC number is the prefix RC followed by digits — printed as RC 1234567 on a limited company’s certificate and letterhead. A sole business name carries BN instead. Whichever they quote must match cac.gov.ng exactly. Source: Corporate Affairs Commission; Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020.

CAC prints the entity type into the number itself. RC is a limited company, BN a business name, IT an incorporated trustee (the NGO format). The digits run to seven for recent registrations and fewer for older ones. No letters after the prefix, no slashes, no year suffix — a number formatted any other way did not come from CAC.

Two things to do with it. An agent quoting an “RC” number should come back from the search as a limited company; if the search returns a BN, the number on their invoice is wrong or invented. And type the number into the search rather than the name. A name is easy to imitate. The number is the one field a fake invoice has to get exactly right.

Business name vs limited company — does it change anything

In short: a business name (BN) has no legal identity apart from its owner — you are contracting with a person. A limited company (RC) is its own legal entity, and can be sued in its own name. Neither proves the agent is licensed for immigration work. Source: CAMA 2020, Corporate Affairs Commission.

A BN registration is cheap and simple: a trade name for a sole proprietor, nothing more. An RC (Ltd) registration creates a separate legal person. Suing “Chukwuma Travels” the business name usually means suing Chukwuma himself. Suing a limited company means suing the company’s own assets. Either can be genuine — and neither says anything about the job offer or CoS they showed you, which is a separate check: see how to tell a fake job offer from a real one.

CAC-registered does not mean licensed for immigration advice

In short: a CAC certificate proves a company exists in Nigeria. It does not authorise anyone inside it to give paid immigration advice. That needs a separate listing on the IAA register (UK) or the CICC register (Canada). Source: gov.uk, “Find an immigration adviser”; College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, college-ic.ca.

This is the exact gap fake agencies sell into. A registered company. A Lagos office. Staff. A framed CAC certificate. None of it licenses anyone to advise on or represent your case for a fee. Paid UK immigration advice is legal only from an IAA-registered adviser, a solicitor or a barrister. Paid Canadian advice is legal only from an RCIC on the CICC register, a lawyer or a Quebec notary. A CAC certificate sits outside both regimes. A too-good-to-be-true promise of a guaranteed visa, backed only by a CAC certificate, is still immigration fraud. Run both register checks — see how to verify a visa agent — before you treat “the company is registered” as proof you are safe.

The account-name test: who you are actually paying

In short: a company that passes the CAC check should invoice and receive payment through its own company account, not a personal account under a different name. Nigerians who lost ₦2.5m–₦8.1m to fake agencies describe paying into an account with no company name attached. Source: Nairaland fraud reports, community-sourced.

Run this after the CAC check, not instead of it. Ask for the account name before you pay. Confirm it matches the name that came back Active. One Nairaland victim put it plainly: “N2.5m only, I paid N8.1million” to an Abuja agency (onadana, Nairaland, 2023). Another lost ₦2.8 million “under the guise of securing foreign work visas” (Nairaland, 2025). Neither payment traced back to a real company account. This is the upfront-fee red flag in its clearest form: a personal account taking a company’s fee. Already paid? Go straight to reporting a visa agent scam.

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