🇮🇳How to verify a supplier in India

Registry

MCA21, Ministry of Corporate Affairs

Company ID

CIN (Corporate Identity Number, 21 chars) / LLPIN

Cost

Free basic lookup

Active status

Status reads Active, Strike Off, Under Liquidation or Amalgamated, and only Active is safe to transact with. The CIN is self-describing: character 1 is L (listed) or U (unlisted), characters 2 to 6 are the NIC activity code (divisions 10 to 33 mean the firm may manufacture, 45 to 47 mean trade only), so you can read maker versus trader from the number itself.

• For food, agri, spices or pharma the strongest free proof is the sector Export Promotion Council register: APEDA for agri and processed food (https://agriexchange.apeda.gov.in/AgriDirectory/Exporter/Exporters), the Spices Board for spices (https://www.indianspices.com/), Pharmexcil for pharma (https://pharmexcil.com/members). Appearing there means a genuinely registered RCMC-holding exporter in that commodity.
• Tax identity: confirm the 15-digit GSTIN on the GST portal Search Taxpayer tool (https://services.gst.gov.in/services/searchtp), which returns the legal name, trade name and Active or Cancelled status. Characters 3 to 12 of the GSTIN are the firm's PAN, and since 2017 the 10-digit IEC also equals the PAN, so a real exporter's GSTIN and IEC must share the same embedded PAN; a mismatch is a red flag you can catch with no lookup.
• Export eligibility and blacklist: validate the IEC and its Denied Entity List status on the DGFT common portal (https://www.dgft.gov.in/CP/?opt=view-any-iec) using the IEC plus the first three letters of the firm name. A company on the Denied Entity List is barred from export, do not transact.
• Udyam (MSME) cannot be used to vet a third party: it has no public directory and its verify flow sends a one-time code to the registrant's own phone.

Before you sign: five asks no registry can answer

The register proves the company exists and who signs. It says nothing about whether the supplier survives a bad quarter, a fire or a key person leaving. Serious suppliers answer these five asks without friction; hesitation on any of them is information too.

• Business continuity: what happens to your order if their plant loses power, a strike hits or their systems go down? Ask for the plan, not a reassurance.
• Liability insurance: is product or professional liability insured, with which insurer and to what ceiling? A certificate of insurance is a one-page email for a real firm.
• Exit terms: how do you terminate if it goes wrong, what notice and fees apply, and how do you get your tooling, molds or data back?
• Support in numbers: ask for response and resolution times as figures, not adjectives. A supplier who commits to hours in writing has a support process; one who writes fast support does not.
• Named people: who exactly runs production and who owns your account? Continuity of a named team matters more than a polished sales deck, and employee-review sites often show whether that team stays.

General commercial hygiene, not legal advice.