Verify a supplier's ABN and GST registration

Before you pay a new supplier you want the ABN to be real, the name to match the invoice and the GST charge to be justified. Here is the manual check, the automated one and where each stops.

Why the check matters

An Australian invoice that claims GST should show the supplier's ABN, and a business that has not given its ABN to a supplier can have tax withheld from payments under the "no ABN" rules. Both are things the ATO publishes guidance on; read it on the ATO website for the current wording. For an accounts-payable team the practical questions are narrower: is this ABN valid, does it belong to the entity named on the invoice, is that entity a company that still exists, and is it registered for GST.

The manual check

• Look the ABN up on ABN Lookup (abr.business.gov.au), the Australian Business Register's public site. It shows the entity name, the entity type, the ABN status and the GST registration with its dates.
• Compare the entity name and the state with the invoice and the contract.
• For a company, search the ACN to see whether ASIC still lists it as registered.

This is the authoritative route and it is free. It does not scale past a few suppliers a day, and it leaves no record you can attach to the payment run.

The automated check

For a supplier master file, call the API with the ABN from the invoice. A company with that ABN comes back with its registered name, its type, its status and its state and postcode, and the vat_number field is the ABN again when the ABN is active and registered for GST.

Result	What it tells you
400 validation_error	The ABN fails its check digit: a typo or an invented number.
No match	No registered company holds that ABN. It may belong to a sole trader, a trust, a partnership or an association, which are not served, so this is "not a company we can confirm", not "fraud".
status active, vat_number present	A registered company whose ABN is active and registered for GST at the last weekly read.
status active, vat_number null	Registered, but not on the GST list at the last read: ask about the GST charged on its invoices.
status active_strike_off_pending, in_administration or deregistered	The company is being struck off, is in external administration or has been deregistered. Pause and ask.

Run a whole supplier file with POST /companies/lookup (up to 100 items per call) and put the result in your ERP. To hear about a change afterwards, add the company to POST /monitor.

What a snapshot cannot tell you

The data is a current weekly snapshot. It does not tell you whether an ABN was active, or the supplier registered for GST, on the date of a past supply: for a dispute about a specific tax period go to ABN Lookup's GST history, which we do not replace. The match also proves a company holds the ABN, not that the person asking to be paid is its authorised representative, so keep your bank-detail verification step.

• Companies only. A sole trader supplier will not appear; check the ABN on ABN Lookup.
• State and postcode, not a street address.
• No officers, so no check on who runs the company.

Australia is included in every plan at no upcharge. The 14-day free trial includes 500 credits, needs a card and charges nothing; Starter (EUR 9.99 a month, 1,000 credits) follows unless you cancel. A company record costs 1 credit; an error response costs nothing. See pricing for the plans.

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Contains data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Company Dataset and the Australian Business Register (ABN Bulk Extract), licensed CC BY 3.0 AU (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/). Adapted by Prometiam (joined, normalised, status derived).