Business Registers in Latvia: Uzņēmumu reģistrs (the Enterprise Register)

Overview

Latvia keeps its company information in the Uzņēmumu reģistrs (UR), the Enterprise Register of the Republic of Latvia, a state institution under the Ministry of Justice. The UR registers every kind of entity in the country, from commercial companies to sole traders, associations, foundations, and political parties, and provides official company information for free.

Latvia is one of the most transparent jurisdictions in Europe for KYB work. Alongside its register, the UR publishes company data as open data under a CC0 licence, refreshed daily, covering not only the company register and officers but also shareholders and beneficial owners. So directors, ownership, and beneficial ownership are all part of the public record. The data is free, though there is a practical wrinkle: company-level data is visible without logging in, while seeing the individual people behind a company, including its beneficial owners, takes a quick authenticated login. Latvia is in the EU and the euro area, so entities carry an EU VAT number; older records may still show share capital in the former Latvian lats, which gave way to the euro on January 1, 2014.

Official Registers

Enterprise Register (Uzņēmumu reģistrs)

The Enterprise Register is the single source of company data in Latvia. A free public search at ur.gov.lv accepts the registration number or a company name and returns the company's status, legal form, address, officers, shareholders, and beneficial owners. Certified extracts and document copies are available for a fee. The same data is also published as a daily open-data release, which is how Latvia makes the full register, including ownership and beneficial ownership, openly available at scale.

Each entity is identified by its registration number, a 9 to 11 digit number. A `40` prefix is common for commercial companies, `50` appears on older registrations, and shorter nine-digit numbers belong to legacy entities. VAT-registered companies also carry an EU VAT number, the registration number prefixed with `LV`.

The register records the legal name, legal form, status, registered address, share capital, incorporation date, activity codes, the board and other officers, the shareholders, and the beneficial owners. Activity is classified with NACE codes; older companies may carry pre-2008 NACE revisions that describe different activities than today's codes, so the revision matters when reading a historic record.

Beneficial Ownership

Latvia's beneficial ownership data sits inside the Enterprise Register and is free to access. Company-level data is visible without logging in, but viewing the natural persons, which includes beneficial owners, requires authentication on the portal with a Latvian eID, an e-signature, bank identification, or an eIDAS login for other EU citizens. There is no purchase fee. Each beneficial owner is recorded with the nature of control, such as ownership of shares or voting rights, and the percentage where declared. This still makes Latvia unusually direct to verify compared with jurisdictions that keep beneficial ownership behind a permission wall.

Looking ahead, the EU's incoming anti-money-laundering framework introduces beneficial-ownership access based on legitimate interest. Latvia kept its register open after the 2022 EU court ruling on public beneficial ownership and committed to keeping it open, but the new rules could require it to narrow that fully open model in the coming years. KYB workflows should not assume today's level of access is permanent.

Financial Statements

Companies file annual reports with the Enterprise Register, and these are available as documents covering the filed years. The annual report carries the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow, so financial data is part of the public record.

Registration and Publication Requirements

Companies

The sabiedrība ar ierobežotu atbildību (SIA) is Latvia's limited liability company and the most common form. Its shareholders (members) and their holdings are recorded in the register, as are its beneficial owners. The akciju sabiedrība (AS) is the public limited company, used for larger and listed businesses; its stockholders are also recorded. Both are governed by an executive board (valde) and may have a supervisory board (padome), with roles such as valdes priekšsēdētājs (chairman of the board), valdes loceklis (board member), and prokūrists (commercial proxy).

Partnerships and Cooperatives

The pilnsabiedrība (PS, general partnership), the komandītsabiedrība (KS, limited partnership), and the kooperatīvā sabiedrība (cooperative society) register with the UR. Partnerships record their partners; they do not carry the share-based shareholder data that SIA and AS companies do.

Sole Traders and Farms

The individuālais komersants (IK, sole trader), the individual undertaking, and the zemnieku saimniecība (farm) register with the UR under the individual operating them. They have no share capital or shareholder structure.

Non-profits

Associations (biedrība), foundations (nodibinājums), religious organisations, and political parties all register with the UR and appear in the public register. They carry their governing officers but no shareholders, and may use a non-profit activity classification rather than NACE.

Summary

With Topograph

Topograph retrieves Latvian company data from the Enterprise Register, with a fast onboarding profile from the open data and a full profile from the register itself.

Available Data

Company Profile

• Legal name with the registration number and EU VAT number
• Legal form in Latvian, with a standardized English category and ISO 20275 code
• Status, including registered, in liquidation, removed, and annulled, with the closure reason
• Registered address, share capital, incorporation date, and previous names
• Activity codes in NACE, with older revisions converted forward, and ISIC derived from them

Legal Representatives and Other Key Persons

• Board members, directors, liquidators, and commercial proxies, with standardized roles and, where the register provides it, whether they sign alone or jointly
• Supervisory board members and auditors as other key persons

Shareholders

• Members of limited liability companies and stockholders of public limited companies, with share percentage, number of shares, and nominal capital held; both individual and corporate shareholders, including foreign ones

Beneficial Owners

• Ultimate beneficial owners from the register's own data, with the nature of control and the share or voting percentage where declared

Available Documents

Latvia is covered for EU VIES VAT validation through its `LV` VAT number. Beneficial ownership and shareholders are part of the public register, which makes Latvia one of the most complete jurisdictions to verify end to end.

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