Dutch Company Register: How to Search the KVK Business Register and Verify Dutch Companies (2026)

1. How the Dutch company register works

The Netherlands runs one national Handelsregister (Business Register), maintained by the Chamber of Commerce, the KVK. Registration is mandatory for virtually every business, including sole traders, which makes the Dutch index more complete than most European registers. Every business gets an 8-digit KVK number; every location a 12-digit branch number (vestigingsnummer).

What the register does not hold sits in three other places: bankruptcies in the free Central Insolvency Register (rechtspraak.nl), beneficial owners in the UBO register (shielded from the public since November 2022), and VAT validation at EU VIES.

Legal entities also carry an RSIN (tax identifier) and a VAT id. The KVK number is the key that joins everything.

2. How to search the KVK register step by step

Searching is free, no account needed, and kvk.nl has a full English interface.

1. Open the kvk.nl search

   Enter a company name, KVK number or keyword. Filter by Business Register to hide advisory articles from the results. A search for "asml" shows each entity's KVK number, legal form, branch number and address, plus the trade name versus the name given in the articles.

   

2. Pick the right result

   Two traps: trade name versus statutory name (they often differ), and main branch versus branch, which share a KVK number but differ by branch number. Contract on the KVK number.

3. Read the free basics

   Name, address, KVK number, branch number, legal form and business activity. Enough for many checks.

4. Order an extract when you need directors

   The extract shows directors and signing authority: €2.95 to view online, €9.60 digitally certified (suitable for official use and available in English), or €19.20 on certified paper.

   

5. Check accounts and insolvency

   Filed annual accounts are ordered per business, per year, from KVK. Bankruptcies are checked separately, and free, in the Central Insolvency Register at rechtspraak.nl.

3. What data is public and what it costs

The Dutch model: free index, paid documents, per business, per document, per year.

What KVK never gives you: revenue and employee counts as searchable fields, contact details, and any financial picture of the large majority filing abridged accounts or none at all.

4. Dutch legal forms, briefly

The suffix tells you the structure, and whether accounts exist:

5. How to verify a Dutch company: a practical checklist

1. Confirm the registration

   Match name, KVK number, legal form and address against the invoice or contract. Status "dissolved"? Walk away. For a quick first pass with revenue data included, use our free company lookup.

2. Verify directors and signing authority

   The extract (€2.95 to view) shows who may sign, alone or jointly. Confirm your contact actually appears on it.

3. Check the insolvency register, separately

   Bankruptcy is not in the Business Register. A business can look active at KVK while in suspension of payments. Free at insolventies.rechtspraak.nl.

4. Read the accounts, and their age

   Filing is allowed up to twelve months after year end, so the freshest figures are usually over a year old. Missing mandatory filings are a signal in themselves.

5. Validate the VAT number

   For invoicing, check the VAT id via EU VIES. A valid KVK registration does not guarantee an active VAT registration.

6. Limitations of the official register

For single checks, kvk.nl works fine. The limits are structural:

• Everything is per document, per business. Screening a hundred suppliers means a hundred orders; filtering by revenue, industry or region is impossible at KVK.
• No revenue as a field. Most businesses file abridged accounts or none; revenue must be modelled from other signals.
• UBOs shielded. Public access closed since November 2022.
• Bankruptcy lives elsewhere. The most important risk signal needs a second register.
• Freshness varies. Changes are due within a week but lag in practice.

One Dutch counterparty costs ten minutes and a few euros. A market view of Dutch businesses, with revenue you can filter on, is where the official sources stop.

7. Access Dutch register data programmatically

KVK offers official APIs for search and base profiles. They are solid for autocomplete and registration checks, but carry no revenue, employees or contact details, and profile data requires a paid connection contract.

CompanyData maintains enriched records for all 3,860,251 Dutch registrations, sourced from the Business Register and other official sources, with revenue and employee figures as structured fields. The KVK API serves them by KVK number, name or address as structured JSON, with free trial credits, and the same Company Data API covers 200+ other countries, from Companies House to the German Handelsregister.

GET /api/company/search?nationalId=17085815

{
  "name": "ASML Holding N.V.",
  "legalForm": "Naamloze Vennootschap",
  "kvkNumber": "17085815",
  "city": "Veldhoven, Netherlands",
  "status": "Active",
  "sbi": "6420 · Financial holdings",
  "employees": "10,000+",
  "revenueRange": "> €1B"
}

8. Netherlands vs other company registers

The Dutch register is complete but metered, Europe's middle ground: