Hello,
In the area I live there are a lot of ?businesses?doing all kind of things. I only want to do business with legal companies but how can I find out if a company is registered or not? I tried to go to the Spanish Chamber of Comerce but that was a bit complicated for me. maybe anyone knows an easy way to find out which businesses are legal and which are not. And I know I can ask the company for their papers but I don?t want to do that.
Many thanks, Isabel

Isabel town hall should know as there one that hand out paper work , as in you loacl police station

if you know company do a google on them that help aswell

Jurdy

any more help please pm me here

I?d presume all legal businesses must be registered with their local Registro Mercantil which they say it?s a public database? But i don?t think they have an online search function so you?ll probably have to ask in person.

The only real way is to ask for their CIF number (company registration number) and check that.  If you have a lawyer they should be able to check it for you.  This site actually has some good info: http://www.spainexpat.com/spain/information/id_numbers_in_spain/

If the company you want to check does any form of buying from outside Spain, there’s a good chance they have an EU VAT registration.  You can check that here: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/ (the number is ES followed by their CIF number).

You’ll need their CIF because the legal name of the company may be different from the trading name.