The business register in Belarus is the Единый государственный регистр юридических лиц и индивидуальных предпринимателей — ЕГР (Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs), published online at egr.gov.by. It is owned and administered by the Министерство юстиции Республики Беларусь (Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus), while registration itself is carried out by a network of registering bodies. Companies and individual entrepreneurs sit in the same register, and each receives a payer’s account number (УНП) that serves as its permanent identifier.

The company registry in Belarus

The register was established by Постановление Совета Министров № 229 от 23.02.2009 «О Едином государственном регистре юридических лиц и индивидуальных предпринимателей» (Resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 229 of 23 February 2009), and registration is governed by Декрет Президента № 1 от 16.01.2009 «О государственной регистрации и ликвидации (прекращении деятельности) субъектов хозяйствования» (Presidential Decree No. 1 of 16 January 2009) together with the Regulation on state registration annexed to it. Article 47 of the Civil Code makes state registration a condition of a legal entity’s existence.

A multi-level registration structure

Belarus does not have a single registrar. Registration is performed by several categories of регистрирующие органы (registering bodies):

  • Районные и городские исполнительные комитеты (district and city executive committees) — individual entrepreneurs, most commercial organisations and non-commercial organisations.
  • Областные исполнительные комитеты и главные управления юстиции (oblast executive committees and their main justice departments) — commercial organisations with foreign or international participation; in the capital, the Main Justice Department of the Minsk City Executive Committee.
  • Национальный банк (National Bank) — banks and non-bank credit and financial organisations, for which it also issues register information.
  • Администрации свободных экономических зон и Китайско-Белорусского индустриального парка «Великий камень» (administrations of free economic zones and of the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone) — entities located in those zones.
  • Министерство юстиции (Ministry of Justice) — methodological guidance and administration of the register, plus registration of certain non-commercial forms such as political parties and republican public associations.

The High-Tech Park is not a registering body: its Supervisory Board grants resident status to entities that are already registered.

One register for companies and individual entrepreneurs

The register’s statutory name reflects its scope: legal entities, both commercial and non-commercial, and индивидуальные предприниматели — ИП (individual entrepreneurs) are entered in the same database. Representative offices of foreign organisations are the exception: they are permitted by the justice departments and recorded in a separate register of representative offices, not in the ЕГР.

A reform is under way. Закон № 150-З от 01.06.2026 «О государственной регистрации и ликвидации (прекращении деятельности) субъектов хозяйствования» (Law No. 150-З of 1 June 2026) has been adopted to replace Decree No. 1, and among the announced changes is the abolition of the registration certificate for legal entities using a model charter. Its date of entry into force could not be confirmed on an official source, and the justice authorities still refer to Decree No. 1 as the operative instrument.

Legal forms that can be registered in Belarus

Legal forms follow the Гражданский кодекс Республики Беларусь (Civil Code of the Republic of Belarus) and the national classifier of organisational and legal forms.

  • Общество с ограниченной ответственностью — ООО (Limited liability company) — Article 86 of the Civil Code and the Law on Economic Companies. Up to fifty participants; liability limited to contributions. The most common form.
  • Общество с дополнительной ответственностью — ОДО (Company with additional liability) — Articles 94 and 95. Participants bear subsidiary liability with their own property in a multiple of their contributions fixed in the charter. Unlike in several neighbouring states, this form remains in force in Belarus.
  • Закрытое акционерное общество — ЗАО (Closed joint-stock company) — Articles 96 and 97. Shares are distributed only among existing or predetermined shareholders.
  • Открытое акционерное общество — ОАО (Open joint-stock company) — Articles 96 and 97. Shares may be placed publicly; shareholders are liable only to the extent of their shareholding.
  • Унитарное предприятие — УП, частное унитарное предприятие — ЧУП (Unitary enterprise, private unitary enterprise) — Articles 113 to 115. Property is indivisible and belongs to a single owner; the enterprise holds it on the right of economic management, or of operative management in the case of a казённое предприятие (state-owned enterprise). Widely used by single founders.
  • Полное товарищество (General partnership) — Article 66. Partners bear unlimited joint subsidiary liability for the partnership’s obligations.
  • Коммандитное товарищество (Limited partnership) — Article 81. General partners are unlimitedly liable; contributors risk only their contribution.
  • Производственный кооператив (Production cooperative) — Article 107. Members participate personally in the cooperative’s activity and bear subsidiary liability as fixed by its charter.
  • Крестьянское (фермерское) хозяйство (Peasant or farming holding) — Article 115-1. A family-based agricultural legal entity.
  • Индивидуальный предприниматель — ИП (Individual entrepreneur) — Article 22. Not a legal person; the entrepreneur is liable with all personal property. Registered in the same register as companies.
  • Некоммерческие организации (Non-commercial organisations) — потребительский кооператив (consumer cooperative, Article 116), общественные и религиозные организации (public and religious organisations, Article 117), фонды (foundations, Article 118), учреждения (institutions, Article 120) and ассоциации и союзы (associations and unions of legal persons and entrepreneurs, Article 121), alongside gardening partnerships, homeowners’ associations, bar associations and permanent arbitration institutions.

The status of individual entrepreneurs has changed materially. Under Закон № 365-З от 22.04.2024 (Law No. 365-З of 22 April 2024), in force from 1 October 2024, newly registered individual entrepreneurs may operate only within a closed list of permitted activities fixed by the Council of Ministers, while entrepreneurs registered earlier were given a transition period to the end of 2025. Since October 2024 an individual entrepreneur may convert into a commercial organisation under a simplified, duty-free procedure.

Information available from the Belarusian business register

The ЕГР portal offers several free services to anyone: verification of the status of a legal entity or individual entrepreneur, a check of the availability of a proposed company name, lists of entities in liquidation, and automated access to register data as open data. The fields shown are the payer’s account number (УНП), the full, short and trade names, the date of registration, the registering body, the current status — active, in liquidation, in bankruptcy, excluded from the register or ceased — and the date of exclusion where applicable.

What is restricted

By comparison with most European registers, the publicly available data set is narrow. Founders, participants, shareholders and directors are not shown in the free public search and do not form part of the standard extract, whose contents are limited to the identification and status fields listed above. This follows from the prescribed content of the extract rather than from an express secrecy rule.

There is no public register of beneficial owners. Beneficial ownership information is collected by obliged entities and by the financial monitoring authority under Закон № 165-З от 30.06.2014 «О мерах по предотвращению легализации доходов, полученных преступным путём…» (Law No. 165-З of 30 June 2014 on measures to prevent the legalisation of criminally obtained income); it is not a data set of the ЕГР.

Financial statements are likewise not held in the register. Only open joint-stock companies are subject to a general disclosure duty, under the Law on Economic Companies and securities legislation, rather than through the register. Separate public data sets on tax arrears and on high-risk taxpayers are published by the tax authorities.

Documents that can be obtained from the register

  • Выписка из ЕГР (Extract from the Unified State Register) — the principal register document, containing the payer’s account number, full and short names, the date of registration, the registering body, the current status and, where relevant, the date of exclusion from the register. Issued on paper or as an electronic file, including by e-mail. Used as proof of existence and legal status for banks, tenders, courts, notaries and counterparties.
  • Информационное письмо (Information letter) — issued where the requested entity or data is not present in the register; it serves as evidence that an entity does not exist or has been struck off.
  • Справка о согласовании наименования (Certificate of approval of a company name) — issued before registration and reserves the proposed name of the future legal entity.
  • Копия устава с отметкой регистрирующего органа (Copy of the charter bearing the registering body’s mark) — the constitutive document as filed and stamped by the registering body, used for banks, notaries and corporate changes.
  • Дубликат свидетельства о государственной регистрации (Duplicate of the certificate of state registration) — issued by the registering body where the original certificate is lost or damaged. Note that the certificate is being abolished for entities using a model charter under the 2026 reform.
  • Сведения из ЕГР о банках и небанковских кредитно-финансовых организациях (Register information on banks and non-bank credit and financial organisations) — issued by the National Bank as its own administrative procedure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the business register in Belarus called?

It is the Единый государственный регистр юридических лиц и индивидуальных предпринимателей (Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs), administered by the Ministry of Justice and published at egr.gov.by.

Are companies and individual entrepreneurs in the same register?

Yes. Both are entered in the same register, as its statutory name indicates. Representative offices of foreign organisations are the exception and are recorded in a separate register.

Who registers companies in Belarus?

Registration is decentralised. District and city executive committees register most entities, oblast executive committees and justice departments handle companies with foreign participation, the National Bank registers banks, and free economic zone administrations register entities in their zones.

Can I see the owners and directors of a Belarusian company?

Not through the register. The free search and the standard extract show identification and status data only; founders, participants and directors are not part of the published data set.

Is there a beneficial ownership register in Belarus?

There is no public one. Beneficial ownership information is handled by obliged entities and the financial monitoring authority under the 2014 anti-money-laundering law and is not part of the register.

What is a УНП?

The учётный номер плательщика — УНП (payer’s account number) is the unique identifier assigned on registration and shown in the register and in every extract. It is the number used to look an entity up.

Sources

Keywords

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