Recital 24

(24) In the internal market, companies should be able to prove that their company is legally incorporated in a Member State through simple and reliable means, which are recognised in a cross-border context by other Member States. Therefore, a harmonised EU Company Certificate should be established. Companies could apply for such an EU Company Certificate, to national business registers or through the system of interconnection of registers, to use it for different purposes, including in administrative procedures before national authorities or Union institutions and bodies and in judicial proceedings in other Member States. Such an EU Company Certificate should be issued and certified by national business registers, should be available in all official languages of the Union and should include essential company information used by companies in cross-border situations, including, for instance, the company name, its registered office, legal representatives or the object of the company. The EU Company Certificate should be without prejudice to national extracts and certificates. The electronic EU Company Certificate should be authenticated by using trust services as referred to in Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council (11). To facilitate the cross-border activities of companies and reduce their costs as much as possible, it should be ensured in all Member States that a company can obtain its own EU Company Certificate free of charge. At the same time, given the diversity of the financing models of business registers, including registers that are fully self-financed, it is important to ensure that any measure resulting from this Directive does not cause serious prejudice to the financing of the registers. Therefore, Member States should be allowed to charge a fee for providing EU Company Certificates if providing them free of charge would result in a significant negative impact on the revenues of their business registers. In any case, each company should be able to obtain its EU Company Certificate free of charge at least once per calendar year. Third parties, including authorities, which need reliable, essential company information should also be able to apply for the EU Company Certificate of a particular company. The origin and authenticity of an EU Company Certificate in paper format should be able to be verified electronically, for example, through a protocol number corresponding to the original document in the register or by verifying the digital signature of the issuing authority stored in the quick-response code (QR code) borne by this document. Registers and authorities in other Member States should accept an EU Company Certificate in accordance with this Directive.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-14 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.