Before you sign with a new partner, ship on account or extend payment terms, a quarter of an hour spent on what the public registers say about them is time well spent. In Greece a lot of it is public, and free.

1. Find the company in ΓΕΜΗ

Start from the Αριθμός ΓΕΜΗ — the nine- to twelve-digit number a business receives when it is entered in the General Commercial Registry. It is its primary identifier, it does not change, and it is not reissued to anyone else after the company is struck off. If you only have a name, search on that and make sure you have the right company: similar names are common.

Look at three things: whether the company is active or in liquidation, when it was incorporated, and its legal form. A company founded yesterday is not a bad sign in itself, but it does mean you have no history to judge it on.

2. See who stands behind it

ΓΕΜΗ publishes administrators, board members, partners and shareholders, each with the dates its role ran. Two questions matter: whether the person negotiating with you actually has authority to act for the company, and whether management has changed recently. A change on its own says nothing — a change immediately before a large transaction is worth asking about.

3. Check the solvency register

The Electronic Solvency Register publishes restructuring and bankruptcy applications and decisions. An open proceeding changes everything: payments can later be challenged, and your claim joins a queue.

4. Check the ΑΦΜ

If a partner invoices you with VAT, their ΑΦΜ must be active. Check it —EL plus nine digits — in the European Commission's VIES system. VIES answers for the whole EU and tells you whether the number is valid right now; it also returns the name and address the member state holds, which is a second way to confirm you are dealing with the company you think you are.

5. Look at the public contracts

Every Greek public contract is published in ΚΗΜΔΗΣ with the supplier's ΑΦΜ. If the company supplies the state, that is a public record: which contracting authorities, for what, for how much, and when. It is not revenue — it is awards — but it shows the company genuinely operates, and at what.

6. Read the annual accounts

Annual financial statements are published through ΓΕΜΗ. Look at turnover, at the result for the period, and above all at equity: if it is negative, liabilities exceed assets.

Be careful what the absence of accounts means. Personal companies (ΟΕ, ΕΕ) no longer have a publication obligation at all, so for them absence is a legal fact rather than a gap. For a trading ΑΕ or ΙΚΕ that has filed nothing for years, it is a question worth asking.

What it adds up to

No single one of these is a decision. Together they give a picture clear enough to decide whether to ask for payment up front, shorten the terms, or simply go ahead. And all of them are public — you need nobody's permission to look.