The Companies
Register is the official public register of Italian companies and is maintained
and managed by the Chamber of Commerce.
It contains
the main legal, administrative and economic information relating to companies
operating within Italy. Self-employed professionals and organisations without a
predominant business activity are not registered.
The
Register ensures transparency and enables anyone to verify the existence of a
company, to find out its date of registration, its corporate purpose, its legal
form, its operational status (whether in normal operation, in liquidation or in
bankruptcy), its share capital, its registered office and local branches, its
directors and shareholders, etc.
It also
allows users to view certain documents, such as the articles of association,
the financial statements of limited companies, and amendments resulting from
transfers, mergers, contributions of assets, dissolution or transfer of
ownership.
Other
ancillary services offered include:
- Monitoring of changes. Users can select one or more companies to receive email notifications whenever a change to their details is recorded.
- You can request lists of registered entities based on pre-selected criteria: e.g. geographical, economic, size-related, activity-related or legal form criteria
- Searches for natural persons. You can check for any current or past corporate roles held (e.g. director, auditor, liquidator, etc.)
The
Register is divided into two sections:
Ordinary Section
- Sole traders
- Partnerships, companies and co-operatives
- Consortia engaged in external activities
- European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs)
- Public bodies engaged in commercial activities
- Foreign companies with branches in Italy
Special Section
- Farmers and smallholders
- Small business owners
- Craft businesses
- Unincorporated partnerships
- Start-ups and innovative SMEs
- Social enterprises
- Professional partnerships (STP) and law firms
- Cultural and recreational enterprises (ICC)
- Miscellaneous entries (e.g. groups of companies)
REA (Economic and Administrative Register)
There is
also a section known as the REA, or ‘Economic and Administrative Register’,
which supplements the information contained in the Companies Register.
Every
business entered in the Register is also assigned an REA number, consisting of
the province code and a sequential number. The REA may also include entities or
associations that carry out economic activities on a non-predominant or
secondary basis and which are not entered in the standard Companies Register.
It also
contains data such as the start or cessation of business, the main business
activity, the opening of local branches, the number of employees, the business
name and the appointment of technical managers.
Annual Chamber of Commerce Fee
The Chamber
of Commerce Annual Fee is the compulsory levy that all businesses registered or
listed in the Register of Companies pay each year to their relevant Chamber of
Commerce simply by virtue of
being registered.
The payment deadline coincides with the deadline for paying income tax.
Any extensions to this deadline also apply to the Chamber of Commerce fee.
For entities registered in the ordinary section, the
amount is generally calculated on the basis of the previous year’s IRAP
turnover by applying graduated percentages. For other entities, a fixed amount
applies. The amount calculated in this way must be increased by 20 per cent for
each local unit registered in the Companies Register (up to a maximum of
€120.00 per local unit).
What does InfoCamere’s TELEMACO mean?
Telemaco is the name of the official service and web
portal created by InfoCamere (the organisation of
the Italian Chambers of Commerce) which allows users to access, consult and
manage data from the Business Register. Put simply, it is the digital ‘bridge’
that enables citizens, professionals and businesses to use the Chambers of
Commerce’s official archive.
Ordinary citizens and occasional users do not normally
access the service via TELEMACO but via the homepage at www.registroimprese.it,
from which, however, they can only access a limited and basic set of functions.