Free tool
RUC lookup
Type an Ecuadorian RUC or a company name and get the company from the company directory of the Superintendencia de Compañías, Valores y Seguros (SCVS) joined to the Catastro RUC of the Servicio de Rentas Internas (SRI): legal name, legal form, status, canton and activity code, live. The RUC and its advisory check digit are verified in your browser first.
The same lookup with curl
curl "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?company_number=1790016919001&country=EC" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_your_api_key"
What a RUC is
The RUC (Registro Único de Contribuyentes) of a company has 13 digits: a province code (01 to 24, or 30), a third digit 9 for a private company or 6 for a public entity, a serial, a check digit and the ending 001, for example 1790016919001 for Corporación Favorita. An ending of 002 or more is an establishment of the company and is refused; a third digit from 0 to 5 is a natural person's RUC (the identity number plus 001) and is refused. A 12-digit number is read with the zero of the province restored.
The check digit is module 11: for a private company the first nine digits are weighted 4, 3, 2, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and the check is 11 minus the sum modulo 11 (11 reads as 0). For 1790016919001 the sum is 101, 101 modulo 11 is 2 and the tenth digit is 11 − 2 = 9. The check is advisory because the numbers issued to simplified joint-stock companies (SAS) are plain serials that often fail it: a mismatch is a warning and the RUC is still looked up. The RUC is also the tax number, so no VAT number is served.
What the lookup returns
The lookup sends the RUC to the Prometiam API and returns the name, legal form, status, canton and activity code of the record. Company records from the company directory of the SCVS joined on the RUC with the SRI's Catastro RUC (open data), updated monthly: legal name, legal form, status (the state of the RUC with the SRI: active, suspended or deregistered, or in liquidation), start of activities, the canton as the city, the province and the CIIU Rev. 4 activity code, with register-change events (name, status, legal form and canton; none before Ecuador's launch on 28 October 2026) and company monitoring. A company the SRI file does not list yet has no status yet. No street address, share capital, officers or contacts, no registry-compliance signal, no VAT number, no financial statements and no insolvency notices. Only the companies of the SCVS list, in its nine company forms; associations or consortia and every natural person are never served, and banks, insurers, cooperatives and public enterprises are not in the list.
The full record is one call away. The 14-day trial needs a card, and nothing is charged for 14 days. Subscribing keeps the same key working.
FAQ
Is the RUC the VAT number?
The RUC is the company's tax number and there is no separate VAT number: the answer carries none, and a VAT search for Ecuador is refused.
Why is my RUC flagged?
The check digit is advisory: simplified joint-stock companies hold plain serial numbers that often fail it, so a mismatch is a warning and the RUC is still looked up. A RUC that does not end in 001, has a third digit from 0 to 5 or is not 13 digits is refused.
Why does a valid RUC return nothing?
Only the companies of the SCVS list are served. A natural person, an association, a consortium, a bank, an insurer, a cooperative or a public enterprise returns nothing even though it exists, and neither does a company whose RUC the SRI gives to a taxpayer of another name. Try the name search.
Can I do this in code?
Yes: GET /companies/search?company_number=1790016919001&country=EC with an API key returns the same record as JSON.