What we do
How the Companies Office administers New Zealand's statutory registers
How businesses meet their legal obligations
The Companies Office contributes to an efficient and transparent New Zealand business environment.
Businesses can meet their legal obligations simply and cost-effectively, and anyone can have access to publicly available information.
The Companies Office delivers regulatory services digitally, enabling business efficiency, and making it easy to do business in New Zealand.
Our registers
The core role of the Companies Office is to operate statutory registers. These registers fall into 3 broad categories.
| Registry categories | Register |
|---|---|
| Business registers |
Companies Register Charitable Trusts Register Insolvency Practitioners Register |
| Capital markets registers | Auditors Register Disclose Register Financial Service Providers Register (FSPR) |
| Secured transaction register | Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) |
The Companies Office is the authoritative source of information about New Zealand businesses. We're focused on making New Zealand a fair and easy place to do business by:
- providing easy-to-use business registers and accessible information
- protecting the integrity of the information we hold
- taking enforcement action where necessary.
The continuing development of our registers online will provide even greater connectivity and flexibility — making it simpler for businesses to fulfill their obligations, and to find the information they need.
Key to this enhanced usability will be the adoption by businesses of the New Zealand Business Number .
Our role
Our purpose is to enable businesses to operate easily, to ensure transparency and to prevent the abuse of corporate structures.
We do this by:
- helping businesses to know, understand and comply with the law
- providing online systems to make it easy for businesses to manage and update their records
- making access to our public data freely available
- ensuring registered entities meet their regulatory obligations
- reducing government duplication in data collection and record keeping
- supporting counterpart agencies in other jurisdictions.