Colombia company data API: look up and validate a NIT

A customer types a Colombian NIT or the first letters of a company name; your form fills in the legal name, legal form, status, department and activity code from the RUES. One key, and the same response shape as every other country the API covers.

What you get, and what you do not

Company records from Confecámaras (RUES, the Colombian chambers of commerce): legal name, legal form, status, founding date, the department of the chamber and the CIIU activity code, with the NIT written with its check digit. Companies of the commercial register only: S.A.S., Ltda., S.A., S. en C., S.C.A., collective companies, single-person companies (E.U.) and branches (sucursales) of foreign companies. Natural persons, non-profit entities, cooperatives, public bodies and establecimientos de comercio are never served. The register has no street address (only the department), share capital, contact data or VAT number (a vat search is refused), and no officers or legal representatives. It has no liquidation state either: liquidation, judicial liquidation and reorganisation are read from the company name and served as the status, and a cancelled registration is deregistered or merged. The activity code is CIIU Rev.4 A.C. (four digits), not a NACE code. No registry-compliance signal and no insolvency notices. Updated monthly. The Colombian records are offered under CC BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike). Register-change events (name, status and legal form changes, dated when first seen in the register data, none before the first load in October 2026) and company monitoring are available.

That is the record of a Colombian company as an onboarding form, an invoice check or a CRM row needs it. If you need an address, capital or legal representatives for Colombia, this is not the API for it. To learn what the register is, start with What is the RUES? (also en español).

What the Colombian record gives your product

• Exact match on the NIT. company_number=900843898-9 with country=CO; the check digit is optional. A NIT that carries a digit that does not match, or that is not a company NIT, is a 400 validation error.
• Autocomplete by name. ?name= is a normalised, partial match that understands the legal-form words (S.A.S., LTDA) and ignores the status markers. Each call is one request.
• The fields a form needs. The legal name; the legal form; the status; the founding date; the department in region; the CIIU activity code.
• A status that is not naive. status includes in_liquidation, in_liquidation_insolvent and in_restructuring, read from the name because the register has no liquidation field, and deregistered or merged for a cancelled registration.
• The renewal year. registry_details.last_renewal_year shows when the registration was last renewed, so a company that reads active but has not renewed for years can be flagged.
• One schema for every country. The same response shape as the other countries, selected with country=CO.

• company_number: The NIT with its check digit: 900843898-9.
• company_name, registry_details.name_as_registered: The name without the status markers, and the name as published.
• legal_form: The legal form (S.A.S., Ltda., S.A. and so on).
• status, local_status: The standard reading of the register's state; the register's own text is in local_status.
• founding_date, dissolution_date: The date of registration and, for a cancelled one, of cancellation.
• region: The department of the chamber's seat. There is no address, city or postal code.
• activity_code, activity_code_scheme: The CIIU Rev.4 A.C. code (four digits), scheme CO-CIIU-REV4-AC; nace_code stays empty.
• registry_details.last_renewal_year: The last year the registration was renewed.

An abridged answer for Rappi (illustrative; the real object has the full standard company fields):

Validate before you call

The check digit is strict when given, so a form can reject a mistyped NIT before it costs a call. The identifier validator runs the same arithmetic in the browser:

A passing check says the NIT is well formed, never that the company exists or is still registered. That is what the lookup is for.

Two calls and a list

The search returns the record's id; pass it to the detail endpoint, GET /companies/ followed by the id.

What Colombia does not carry

• Officers and legal representatives. Not part of the Colombian record.
• An address, share capital and contacts. The register data has none; only the department is given.
• A VAT number. None is given for Colombia and a vat search is refused.
• Insolvency notices. Colombia is not one of the twelve insolvency markets. Liquidation and reorganisation show in status.
• Natural persons, non-profit entities, cooperatives, public bodies and establecimientos de comercio. Never served, so a lookup of one returns nothing even though it exists.
• A registry-compliance signal. Not served for Colombia.

The Colombian records are offered under CC BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike); keep the credit line with them.

FAQ

How do I look up a Colombian company by NIT from an API?
Call GET /companies/search?company_number=900843898-9&country=CO. The check digit is optional; if you pass one it must match, otherwise the answer is a 400 validation error.

Can I search by name?
Yes. The name search is a normalised, partial match, so S.A.S. and LTDA are understood and the markers EN LIQUIDACIÓN and EN REORGANIZACIÓN are ignored.

Does the record show whether a company is in liquidation?
Yes, through the status: in_liquidation, in_liquidation_insolvent (judicial liquidation) or in_restructuring. The register has no such field, so they are read from the company name.

How do I know whether a company that reads active is current?
Use registry_details.last_renewal_year. The register keeps a company as active after a missed renewal, so a company last renewed years ago is not current.

Which activity code does it carry?
CIIU Rev.4 A.C., four digits, with scheme CO-CIIU-REV4-AC. It is not mapped to NACE.

Does it have an address, capital or a VAT number?
No. The record gives the department only, and no share capital or VAT number; a vat search is refused.

Which Colombian entities are covered?
Companies of the commercial register and branches of foreign companies. Natural persons, non-profit entities, cooperatives, public bodies and establecimientos de comercio are never served.

Under what licence are the records?
CC BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike). The credit line has to accompany the records.

Does it have register-change events and monitoring?
Yes. Register-change events (name, status and legal form changes, dated when first seen in the register data, none before the first load in October 2026) and company monitoring are available.

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Official sources: RUES · Confecámaras · Portal de Datos Abiertos.

Contains data from Confecámaras (Registro Único Empresarial y Social, RUES), via the Portal de Datos Abiertos www.datos.gov.co, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Modified by Prometiam; the Colombian records are offered under CC BY-SA 4.0.