In brief
- Since 1 August 2022, register extracts and filed documents can be retrieved free of charge and without logging in – one by one, not as a complete dataset; the portal’s terms of use prohibit building parallel registers.
- The commercial register contains the company name, registered office, business address, representation and legal form. Phone, email, website and industry code are not in it.
- Freelancers, farmers and small traders are generally not registered.
- Three different things are called, or are referred to as, a “register of companies”.
Three registers that are often confused
Scroll the table sideways.
| Register | Who keeps it? | What does it contain? | Public? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial register (Handelsregister) | Local courts (register courts) | Entries on merchants and commercial partnerships and companies, filed documents | yes, anyone may inspect it for information purposes (§ 9 HGB) |
| Company register (Unternehmensregister) | Federal Ministry of Justice, electronically (§ 8b HGB) | Access to register entries, financial statements, announcements | yes, via unternehmensregister.de; § 9(1), first sentence, HGB applies to inspection accordingly (§ 9(6) HGB) |
| Statistical business register | Federal and state statistical offices | Database of legal units, enterprises and local units for statistics | no, only aggregated results |
The frequently quoted total number of businesses in Germany – 3,543,865 in reference year 2024 – comes from the third register (Destatis, Unternehmensregister 2024). It is therefore not the number of commercial register entries: the statistics also count freelancers and sole proprietorships that are not in any commercial register.
What has been free since 1 August 2022
The act implementing the EU Digitalisation Directive (DiRUG) abolished retrieval fees. The Federal Government summarises this in Bundestag printed paper 20/4502 of 15 November 2022: since 1 August 2022, register extracts and documents filed with the commercial register can be retrieved free of charge; until 31 July 2022, each document retrieval cost 1.50 euros and a register extract 4.50 euros. No login is required for inspection.
Retrieval runs through the federal states’ joint register portal, handelsregister.de. According to the portal, it covers the commercial, cooperative, partnership and civil-law partnership registers as well as the registers of associations of all federal states.
What the register portal’s terms of use specify
The register portal publishes terms of use under “Informationen”. For anyone who wants to work with register data on a larger scale, three points are decisive (terms of use retrieved on 11 October 2026):
- No parallel register. The terms state verbatim: “Systematic retrievals in order to build, expand or update parallel full or partial registers are not permitted.”
- No more than 60 retrievals per hour. More than 60 searches or views of legal entities per hour are not permitted. Anyone who can demonstrate a legitimate need for a higher retrieval frequency can apply to the register portal’s service desk to register an IP address; they must state the scope and purpose of the retrievals and remain bound by the terms of use.
- Blocking. The portal blocks IP addresses and terminates sessions if it suspects a breach of the statutory requirements or the terms of use. Its home page points out that high retrieval volumes have repeatedly caused overloads.
Something similar applies to the company register: under its general terms of use, users undertake not to use retrieved register data to build or maintain their own register parallel to the commercial register. We did not find a freely accessible bulk download of commercial register data on the official websites.
What the commercial register contains
The register has two divisions (§ 3 HRV):
- Division A (HRA): registered merchants (sole traders), general partnerships (OHG) and limited partnerships (KG) – including the GmbH & Co. KG.
- Division B (HRB): stock corporations (AG), limited liability companies (GmbH) including the UG (haftungsbeschränkt), partnerships limited by shares (KGaA), European companies (SE) and mutual insurance associations.
For a GmbH, § 43 HRV requires the following to be registered, among other things:
- company name, registered office and domestic business address, branches,
- the object of the company,
- the amount of the share capital,
- the general rules of representation and the managing directors with surname, first name, date of birth and place of residence,
- authorised signatories (Prokuristen),
- legal form, date of the articles of association and later amendments, dissolution and deletion.
Entries in division A are briefer; the object of the business is not registered there for sole traders and commercial partnerships (§ 40 HRV).
What the commercial register does not contain
- Phone number, email address, website. There is no register field for them.
- An industry code. The object of the company is free text. Classification under the German classification of economic activities is done by other bodies – see WZ 2008: Using Industry Codes for Target Group Lists.
- Number of employees and turnover. At most, these can be derived from published annual financial statements available via the company register – in very different depth depending on the size class.
- Premises that are not registered branches. Warehouses, shops and plants have no entries of their own.
Who is not in the commercial register at all
The register is a directory of merchants, not of everyone who is economically active. Three large groups are generally missing:
- Small traders. A merchant is anyone who carries on a commercial business; there is no commercial business if, by its nature or scope, the business does not require commercially organised operations (§ 1 HGB).
- Liberal professions. Doctors, lawyers, architects and tax advisers do not carry on a commercial business. If they join forces, they can form a partnership company (Partnerschaftsgesellschaft, § 1 PartGG), which is entered in the partnership register.
- Farmers and foresters. § 1 HGB does not apply to their businesses (§ 3 HGB).
For target groups such as tradespeople, medical practices, architects or farmers, the commercial register is therefore only a small part of the picture.
What about the trade register?
Anyone who starts a trade notifies the competent local authority (§ 14 GewO). Under subsection 5, data from the trade notification may only be processed to supervise the exercise of the trade and for statistical surveys. Name, business name, business address and the notified activity may be made generally accessible – this is a power of the authority, not a right to obtain lists. Non-public bodies only receive further data if they can credibly show a legal interest. The notification goes to the competent local authority; the provision does not provide for a nationwide portal like the one for the commercial register.
Public does not mean free to use
The fact that information can be inspected publicly says nothing about what it may be used for:
- Purpose and form of inspection. § 9(1) HGB permits inspection “for information purposes by means of individual retrievals”; the portal’s terms of use rule out building parallel registers.
- Personal data. Names, dates of birth and places of residence of managing directors and registered merchants are personal data. Further processing requires a legal basis under the GDPR, and the data subjects must be informed.
- Advertising. Regardless of the data source, § 7 UWG governs how you may contact businesses – see B2B Cold Outreach in Germany: What § 7 UWG Allows.
When a ready-made list makes sense – and when it does not
If you want to check a dozen business partners, you do not need a list: the register portal answers that free of charge and more up to date than any copy. A prepared company list is worthwhile when you need many businesses of one industry and region in a single table, plus information the register does not hold: phone number, website, industry classification.
firmenkontaktdaten.de compiles such lists per request as a one-off export. Which sources we use for this on a lasting basis is under legal review; we do not plan any bulk transfer of register data without a legal basis. What applies to each source is set out in our methodology, the file structure under Export and sample file and the target groups under Company addresses by industry.
Frequently asked questions
Is retrieving data from the German commercial register free?
Yes. Since 1 August 2022, register extracts and the documents filed with the commercial register can be retrieved free of charge and without registration via the federal states’ joint register portal. Before that, a register extract cost 4.50 euros and a document 1.50 euros (Bundestag printed paper 20/4502).
Can I download the whole commercial register?
No. The law permits inspection “by means of individual retrievals” (§ 9(1) HGB), and under § 52 HRV it must be technically ensured that each register sheet can only be retrieved individually. The register portal’s terms of use prohibit systematic retrievals for building parallel full or partial registers and allow no more than 60 searches or views of legal entities per hour.
Does the commercial register contain phone numbers and email addresses?
No. The Commercial Register Ordinance does not provide for such entries. What is registered includes the company name, registered office, domestic business address, authorised representatives and legal form. Businesses publish contact details themselves – typically in the legal notice (Impressum) on their website.
Are freelancers and small traders in the commercial register?
As a rule, no. Merchants and commercial partnerships and companies are registered. Anyone who does not carry on a commercial business within the meaning of § 1 HGB – because the business does not require commercially organised operations, or because a liberal profession is practised – is not obliged to register.
What is the difference between the Handelsregister and the Unternehmensregister?
The commercial register (Handelsregister) is kept by the local courts; it contains the entries themselves. The company register (Unternehmensregister) under § 8b HGB is a central online access point through which, besides register entries, financial statements and announcements can be retrieved. The “business register” of official statistics is a third, separate thing and cannot be inspected by the public.
As of 11 October 2026. Statutory texts from gesetze-im-internet.de, retrieved on the same day. Not legal advice.
