General questions

Frequently asked questions

General questions

What is a search?

A search provides you with information kept on ASIC registers about a company, person or professional role (such as an auditor, liquidator or licensee) which is available to the public. Some basic information is available for free, but other information must be purchased.

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Why would I use an information broker to perform a search?

Searching for an organisation with our online service will provide you with all information contained on the ASIC registers.  Information brokers may also provide a variety of additional search products from various organisations as well as different services and payment options - including casual user and account facilities. For further information on the services provided by information brokers, visit our information brokers page.

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Is there a replacement for the National Names Index (NNI) search?

The NNI has been replaced with the Organisations & Business Names search. The Organisation & Business Names search will allow you to search the same information and provide you with additional information available for purchase.

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 Why do my search results look different to the results from the NNI?

You may notice the volume of search results has increased. This is because our new search service returns all results (e.g.   registered and deregistered organisation names and also all relevant business names, schemes, trusts and non registered entities) when you search a particular name.

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How can I find my company’s BPAY reference number for ASIC payments?

You can now search for your company's BPAY reference number on the Payments page. 

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Is there a replacement for the Identical Names Check search?

If you used to use the Identical Names Check, you can now use the Check Name Availability search. The Check Name Availability search will also display organisations with similar names as well as identical names.

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Do I need to provide personal details to search the ASIC registers?

You don’t need to provide any personal details to search for free, publicly available information.  When purchasing paid products, you will need to provide your credit card details to process the payment. If you are purchasing products that will be sent by email you will need to provide a valid email address. For certified documents, which are sent by mail, you will need to provide a valid postal address.

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What can I do if my search produces no results?

There may not be any results for your search, or you may need to perform another search using different search criteria.
However, if you are unable to find any results when searching for a company, you can obtain a certificate that states that no company is registered with a particular name at a certain date. This can be done by filling out an Application for copy of certificate which can be downloaded from the ASIC website.

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Why are my details publicly available?

We are required by law to make certain details available to the searching public. The information available from ASIC has been provided by authorised parties under the requirements of the law. There is no change being made to the information that is publicly available under our new service.

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