Israeli Company Lookup

Instructions

Step 1: Identify the Need

Step 2: Company Search

Search the Israel Corporations Authority (rashut hatagidim):

• URL: https://ica.justice.gov.il/GenericCorporarionInfo/SearchCorporation?unit=8
• Search by: Company name (Hebrew or English) or company number
• Free basic info: company number, name, type, limited/unlimited, legal status, registered address, purpose, annual-fee debts, and whether the company has been declared "in breach of law" (mufrat hok)
• Paid full extract (nesach chevra): submit at https://ica.justice.gov.il/Request/OpenRequest?rt=CompanyExtract. The fee is stated on the request form itself (it changes annually, so we do not reproduce it here)
• For amutot (NPOs) and CHL"Tz, use GuideStar instead: https://www.guidestar.org.il (free; consolidated Ministry of Justice portal)
• For partnerships (shutfut), use https://ica.justice.gov.il/Request/OpenRequest?rt=PartnershipExtract
• Status values (2026): pe'ila (active), be-piruq (in liquidation), nimekhqa (struck off), mufrat hok (in breach of law -- e.g. unpaid annual fees, missing reports)

Step 2b: Programmatic Lookup (the route an agent can actually execute)

The ICA search page in Step 2 is a human web form. For an agent, use the Ministry of Justice's open registrar dump on data.gov.il instead. It is free, needs no key, and covers every registered company, not only the one you can type into a form.

• Dataset metadata: https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/packageshow?id=icacompanies
• Companies resource id: f004176c-b85f-4542-8901-7b3176f9a054
• Free-text search:

https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/datastoresearch?resourceid=f004176c-b85f-4542-8901-7b3176f9a054&q=MONDAY.COM&limit=5

• Exact lookup by company number (URL-encode the Hebrew field name):

https://data.gov.il/api/3/action/datastoresearch?resourceid=f004176c-b85f-4542-8901-7b3176f9a054&filters={"מספר חברה":514744887}

Fields worth reading on each record: מספר חברה (company number), שם חברה (Hebrew name), שם באנגלית (English name, often populated), סוג תאגיד (private / public / foreign), סטטוס חברה (status), מפרה (breach flag), שנה אחרונה של דוח שנתי (שהוגש) (last filed annual report year -- a stale year is a red flag even before the company is formally flagged), and the registered-address fields.

Confirm you are reading real data, not an error page: a successful response is JSON with "success": true and a non-empty records array. A wrong or non-existent resource_id on this host returns an S3 AccessDenied XML body with HTTP 403, and the human-facing data.gov.il/dataset/... pages are bot-protected, so never judge this API by an HTTP status alone. Read the body.

Two limits a due-diligence user must know: this resource is the COMPANIES register only, so partnerships (55-), amutot (58-) and cooperatives (57-) are not in it and still need their own registry from Step 2. And the dump is a periodic snapshot, not the live register, so for any legally operative decision (signing, lending, litigating) confirm the status on the official ICA search or a paid extract rather than relying on the dataset alone.

Step 3: Entity Type Comparison

Step 4: Registration Steps (Chevra Baam -- most common)

1. Choose unique company name (check availability at Rasham)
2. Draft Articles of Association (takanon)
3. File incorporation documents at Rasham HaChevarot
4. Pay registration fee (approximately 2,559 NIS online or 3,123 NIS paper (2026; verify at ica.justice.gov.il))
5. Receive Certificate of Incorporation (teuda le-hitaagdut)
6. Register with Tax Authority for income tax and VAT
7. Open business bank account with incorporation certificate
8. Register with Bituach Leumi as employer (if hiring)

Examples

Example 1: Company Lookup

User says: "Look up the company Monday.com" Result: monday.com Ltd (registrar Hebrew name "מנדיי. קום בע"מ"), Company No. 514744887, Status: Active (pe'ila), Type: Israeli public company, incorporated 13/03/2012, registered at Yitzhak Sadeh 6, Tel Aviv-Yafo. Verified via the open registrar dataset in Step 2b, not from memory: company numbers are the single most fabrication-prone field in this domain, so always resolve one before quoting it.

Example 2: Choose Entity Type

User says: "I'm a freelance developer, what business structure should I use?" Result: Compare Osek Morsheh (simplest) vs. Chevra Baam (limited liability). Recommend Osek Morsheh for starting, switch to Chevra Baam when annual revenue exceeds ~400K NIS or liability protection needed.

Example 3: Compare Entity Types

User says: "I'm starting a business in Israel, should I register as an Osek Murshe or a Chevra?" Actions:

1. Compare entity types (Osek Patur, Osek Murshe, Ltd company) by criteria -- tax rates, liability, NI contributions, compliance burden, VAT obligations

Result: Side-by-side comparison table with recommendation based on expected annual turnover.

Bundled Resources

Scripts

• scripts/searchcompany.py - Display Israeli business entity types (Chevra Baam, Osek Morsheh, Amuta, etc.) with side-by-side comparison of liability, tax rates, and registration requirements, plus step-by-step Chevra Baam incorporation instructions. Supports subcommands: entity-types, compare, registration-steps. Run: python scripts/searchcompany.py --help

References

• references/entity-types.md - Comprehensive table of all 8 Israeli business entity types with their registries, liability structures, tax rates, and company number format prefixes (51- for companies, 58- for non-profits, 55- for partnerships). Consult when advising users on entity type selection or interpreting company registration numbers.
• references/domain-checklist.md - Coverage contract for this skill: which registries, statuses, fees and identifiers a complete Israeli entity lookup must handle, and what is explicitly out of scope (credit scoring, litigation history, foreign registries).

Gotchas

• Israeli company registration numbers (mispar chevra) are 9 digits, not the same as the tax ID (mispar osek). Agents may confuse these two identifiers or use one when the other is required.
• The registrar stores a Hebrew name for every company and an English name for many of them (field שם באנגלית in the open dataset), but the English field is inconsistently populated and often spelled differently from the trading name. An English-only search can therefore return nothing for a company that exists. Search the Hebrew name or the company number before concluding a company is not registered.
• Company status in the registrar has four values: "active" (pe'ila), "in liquidation" (be-piruq), "struck off" (nimekhqa), and "in breach of law" (mufrat hok). Agents that only check for "active" miss the "in breach" case, which is common (unpaid annual fees, late reports) and is a significant due-diligence red flag.
• Israeli business types include Chevra Baam (Ltd.), Shutafut (Partnership), Amuta (NPO), and Aguda Shitufit (Cooperative). Each has different registration systems. Agents may search for a partnership in the company registrar, which only lists Ltd. companies.
• Amutot and CHL"Tz (Public-Benefit Companies) live on GuideStar (guidestar.org.il), the Ministry of Justice's consolidated NPO portal -- not on the main ica.justice.gov.il search. Both extracts are free.
• Israel's UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner) registry is NOT yet operational. A Ministry of Justice memorandum was published for public consultation on 2025-06-26 (consultation closed 2025-07-17); the law is still pre-enactment as of August 2026, and when enacted the registry will NOT be publicly accessible (regulated entities and authorities only). Do not promise public UBO lookup until enactment + a public-access tier exists.
• "Apotropos Klali" (Official Receiver) was renamed to "ha-memuneh al chadlut pira'on ve-shikum kalkali" (Insolvency and Economic Rehabilitation Commissioner) when the Insolvency and Economic Rehabilitation Law 2018 took effect on 2019-09-15. For cases opened on or after that date, the searchable docket lives at insolvency.justice.gov.il/poshtim/main/tikim/wfrmlisttikim.aspx. Older "psikat regel" files predating 2019 are still under the legacy Apotropos Klali system.

Reference Links

Troubleshooting

Error: "Company not found"

Cause: Name spelling mismatch or company registered under different name Solution: Try Hebrew name, or search by company number if available. Some companies register with English names different from their trading name.

Error: "Company number format invalid"

Cause: Israeli company numbers (Chevra) are 9 digits; sole proprietor numbers match their TZ (ID); partnership and amuta numbers differ Solution: Verify the entity type first. Companies: 51-XXXXXXX (9 digits), Amutot: 58-XXXXXXX, Partnerships: 55-XXXXXXX. Use the Rasham HaChevarot search to validate.

Error: "Entity type confusion (Osek Patur vs Osek Morsheh)"

Cause: Users confuse tax registration types with company registration types Solution: Osek Patur/Morsheh are VAT registration types at the Tax Authority (SHAAM), not company types at the Registrar of Companies. A person can be an Osek Morsheh without registering a company. Clarify the user's actual need: business entity lookup vs. tax registration status.

Error: "Cannot find the amuta on ica.justice.gov.il"

Cause: Amutot and CHL"Tz are not in the main companies database Solution: Search on GuideStar (https://www.guidestar.org.il) instead. It is the Ministry of Justice's consolidated portal for amutot and public-benefit companies. Basic extract is free.

Error: "User asks for beneficial owner / UBO lookup"

Cause: User assumes Israel has a public UBO registry (similar to UK Companies House PSC register) Solution: As of August 2026, Israel has NO operational UBO registry. The MoJ memorandum was published 2025-06-26 for public comment (closed 2025-07-17); the law is still pre-enactment and, when enacted, the registry will NOT be publicly accessible. For now, the closest signals are: directors and shareholders listed on a paid full company extract, the company's filed annual report (dorech shanati), and (for public companies only) ISA disclosures on Maya at maya.tase.co.il.