How to check a foreign company before a deal

To check a foreign company before a deal, confirm four things: that it legally exists in an official register, that it and its owners are not on sanctions lists, that it really trades the product you are discussing, and that its bank details, documents and contacts match the registered entity. Registers and sanctions lists answer the first two questions; foreign trade shipment data answers the third, which is the one most often skipped.

The checklist below works for both directions: when you are buying from a new supplier and when you are selling to a new buyer on deferred payment. A routine check takes about an hour; before a large first contract, allow a few days.

Step 1. Identify the exact legal entity

Most mistakes start here. A brand, a trading name and a legal entity are different things, and a group often has several companies with similar names in different countries.

1. Ask the counterparty for its full legal name, legal form (LLC, GmbH, Co., Ltd., S.A. de C.V. and so on), registration number, tax ID and registered address. A serious company sends these in one email without hesitation.
2. Check that the same details appear on the draft contract, the pro forma invoice (the preliminary invoice for the order) and the bank account you are asked to pay. The account holder must be the company you are contracting with, not a "partner" or an individual.
3. Note whether you are dealing with the manufacturer, a distributor or an agent. An agent is not a problem in itself, but you need to know who owns the goods and who is responsible if something goes wrong.

Step 2. Confirm registration in an official source

Use the government register of the company's country, not a screenshot sent by the company. Useful starting points:

• National company registers, for example Companies House in the UK, the commercial registers of EU states (searchable through the European e-Justice portal), state business registries in the US, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities in Russia or the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System in China.
• VIES to validate an EU VAT number, and GLEIF to look up a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), a 20-character ID that banks and larger companies use, if the company has one.
• OpenCorporates and similar aggregators for a quick first look across many countries; confirm the result in the official register.

Check the status (active, in liquidation, removed from the register), the date of incorporation, the registered address and the directors. A company registered a few months ago that claims ten years of export experience needs an explanation.

Step 3. Check sanctions lists

Check the company, its directors and, where you can find them, its beneficial owners (the people who actually own or control it). Which lists matter depends on the currency, the banks and the countries involved in your deal, but most companies check at least:

• the US OFAC Sanctions List Search (SDN and other lists);
• the EU consolidated list of financial sanctions;
• the UK Sanctions List;
• the UN Security Council consolidated list;
• for dual-use goods (products that can also have military use, such as some electronics or chemicals), export control lists such as the US Consolidated Screening List.

Remember ownership rules: a company owned about half or more by a sanctioned person can be restricted even if its own name is on no list (exact rules differ between the US, the EU and the UK). Also check the product: some goods are restricted for certain destinations regardless of who the buyer is. A possible match is not a verdict. It is a reason to check by hand and, for a large deal, to ask a lawyer who deals with sanctions.

Step 4. Check the real trading history

A registration certificate proves that a company exists, not that it can deliver. Foreign trade shipment data shows what a company has actually imported or exported: which products, from or to which countries, how often and since when. This is where you check whether what you were told is true.

1. Does it trade your product? Look at the product groups (HS codes) it imports or exports in its profile. The HS code is the international product code used in foreign trade; its first 6 digits mean the same in almost every country. A supplier offering steel pipes that trades only textiles is either a trader without a track record in your goods or something worse.
2. Is the activity regular? Shipments spread over many months are a better sign than a single burst. If a company traded for a few weeks and then disappeared, ask why.
3. Do the countries fit? If a buyer says it imports from Europe but its shipments come only from one other region, ask why.
4. Is the scale plausible? Compare the number of shipments and partners with what the company claims about its size.
5. Who are its partners? Long-term suppliers or buyers show stability; a single partner means the company depends on one customer or supplier.

On Orion Markets you can search a company by name or tax ID on the Company profiles page. Profiles are built from foreign trade shipment data for 14 covered countries, including Russia (from 2012), Kazakhstan (from April 2021) and Uzbekistan (from 2022); the full list with periods is on the data coverage page. Companies from other countries appear in the profiles as suppliers and buyers of these markets.

Example: what a profile shows

Take the public profile of Mobis LLC, Armenia. Even before signing in, its "In brief" block answers the basic questions:

• the company is an importer, with no export shipments in the data;
• from October 2025 to May 2026 over 3,800 foreign trade shipments were recorded;
• its main goods by HS code are 8708 (parts and accessories of motor vehicles), 8536 (electrical apparatus for switching and protecting circuits) and 4016 (other articles of vulcanised rubber);
• its main partner countries are South Korea, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia and France.

If this company wants to buy car parts from you, the profile backs it up: it imports exactly this product group regularly, from suppliers in many countries. If the same company asked you for fertiliser, the history would not support it, and that is worth a question.

After free registration you see the full profile structure with some figures masked. With a plan, the profile opens in full: counterparties with registration details, volumes, products, delivery terms and how they change over time. An open profile also has a Due Diligence Checklist: signals for a match in public sanctions lists, for whether the company has real shipments and partners, for its stability and for whether the product has already been shipped to your destination country. They are hints, not conclusions: check them yourself.

Step 5. Verify contacts, documents and references

• Domain and email. Corporate email on the company's own domain is the norm. Check when the domain was registered; a site created last month for a "long-established" exporter is a warning sign.
• Phone call to a number from an independent source. Call the number in the register or on an old version of the website, not the one in the email signature.
• Trade references. Ask for two or three customers or suppliers you can contact. Shipment data helps you see whether such partners plausibly exist.
• Certificates and licences. Verify them with the issuing body: many certification bodies have a public lookup.
• Site visit or third-party inspection for a large first order, especially for production capacity and quality.

Red flags

• Payment to an account in a third country or in the name of a different company or a private person.
• Bank details "updated" by email shortly before payment: confirm any change by phone using a known number.
• A price well below the market, combined with insistent demands to pay 100% in advance.
• No shipment history in the product, or activity in only one short period.
• Registration very recent, an address where hundreds of other companies are also registered, free email domains.
• Reluctance to give the registration number or to sign a contract in the company's own name.
• A shipping route that makes no commercial sense, or a request to change the destination country.

Limits of each source

• Registers show legal status but not business activity, and how much they show differs a lot between countries.
• Sanctions checks depend on spelling and transliteration; check name variants in Latin and local scripts.
• Shipment data is not available for every country. If a company trades mainly with countries outside coverage, a short history does not mean it is inactive.
• No check replaces protection in the contract. For a new partner, use payment terms that limit your risk: a letter of credit (the buyer's bank guarantees payment once shipping documents are presented) or documentary collection (documents for the goods are released only against payment). If you sell on deferred payment, consider trade credit insurance (it pays you if the buyer does not).

Where to start

Start with the trade history: find the company on the Company profiles page. To compare it with other suppliers of the same product, run a search on Find suppliers.