British Virgin Islands

This guide is outdated and will be removed on 1 November 2026. The up-to-date British Virgin Islands reference is on the British Virgin Islands country page.

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This guide contains public integration notes for British Virgin Islands. Use it for identifier formats, search behavior, and country-specific caveats. The live source of truth for coverage, pricing, data sources, documents, legal forms, roles, and status values is the pricing page.

British Virgin Islands coverage, pricing, and sources

Open the current catalog for supported datapoints, documents, sources, identifiers, and availability.

Country details below are preserved as integration notes. If a table or example conflicts with the live pricing page, use the pricing page as the source of truth and contact support.

Current coverage limitationDocument-based verification is temporarily unavailable for the British Virgin Islands. Only the FSC public search is currently supported.Only the public search is available today. In prefill mode the company datapoint returns the current legal name and company number. Company status and legal form are no longer published in the public search (the FSC moved them to its paid profile report, which is currently unavailable), and directors, shareholders, registered address and capital are not available either. Full verification depends on access to FSC profile documents.Concretely: pass "mode": "prefill" on every request. /v2/company uses verification when you omit mode, and with no authoritative lane available the datapoint comes back failed with the error code authoritative_source_unavailable. See Modes.

Data Sources

BVI company data comes from the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission (FSC), the autonomous regulatory authority that operates the Registry of Corporate Affairs.

BVI FSC Public Search (publicsearch.bvifsc.vg). Provides the legal name, company number and any previous names in search results. This is currently the only active source for BVI data. The prefill profile returns the current legal name and number; it does not include previous names.

Company Identifiers

Query Identifiers

We have found no check digit and no internal structure in BVI company numbers. The FSC has assigned identifiers across several historical registers, which is why two different formats coexist today.

Format	Regex	Example	Applies To
Pure numeric	`^\d+$`	`17195`, `587145`, `1567724`	BVI Business Companies (type 1), International Business Companies (type 5)
Letter-prefixed	`^[A-Z]\d+$`	`L658`, `L732`, `L7805`	Local Companies (type 7), pre-existing under the old Companies Act

Both formats are validated before we hit the register. In the records we have seen there is no check digit, no leading zero and no embedded year, and no structural meaning beyond the optional letter prefix indicating a legacy Local Company. In the records we have seen, numeric company numbers have 5 to 7 digits.

Identifiers in API Response

Identifier Type	Format	Example	Notes
`companyNumber`	Numeric or letter-prefixed	`587145` or `L658`	Official registration number assigned by the BVI FSC

The BVI register does not publish VAT numbers, tax IDs, or other secondary identifiers. An optional LEI may be returned from GLEIF as described below.

Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)

GLEIF is the supplementary data source for this identifier. company.identifiers.lei is optional. It is returned when the BVI company number matches a registration or validation reference in GLEIF and identifies a single LEI. The LEI has 20 uppercase letters and digits, ending in two digits. Coverage varies by entity; a missing LEI does not establish that the company has none. Lapsed or retired LEIs can still be returned. Annulled LEIs are excluded, so the presence of this identifier does not establish current LEI registration status.

Search Capabilities

Search Type	Pattern	Example	Match Type
By company number (numeric)	Digits only	`587145`	Exact
By company number (prefixed)	Letter + digits	`L658`	Exact
By name	Text string (min 2 chars)	`"BANKIM"`	Fuzzy

Both name and ID searches query the BVI FSC public search API in real time. There is no deduplicated index for BVI.

Active companies only

Search can return companies that are no longer active, but their status is not known at search time, so activeOnly=true has no effect. The current prefill profile normally has no company.status either.

Company Status

The BVI FSC public search no longer returns company status, so the prefill profile normally has no status. The mapping below applies only when the register includes a status for an entity.

The BVI FSC status is a free-text string. We map known values deterministically and fall back to keyword inference for unrecognized values.

Local Status	Standardized	Active
Active	Active	Yes
In Good Standing	Active	Yes
In Penalty - Non filing of Beneficial Ownership	Inactive	No
In Liquidation (insolvent)	Under Insolvency Proceeding	No
In Liquidation (solvent)	In Liquidation	No
Dissolved	Closed	No
Dissolved (10 year non-pmt)	Closed	No
Dissolved (7 year non-pmt)	Closed	No
Struck off - Dissolved	Closed	No
Struck off - Non Pmt A/Fee	Closed	No

Legal Forms

The BVI FSC public search no longer returns the entity type, so the prefill profile normally has no legalForm. The mapping below applies only when the register includes a type for an entity.

The entity type is a coarse numeric type code indicating one of 5 broad categories. Detailed BVI Business Companies Act 2004 subtypes (Company Limited by Shares, Company Limited by Guarantee, Unlimited Company, Restricted Purpose Company, Segregated Portfolio Company) only appear in the trade register extract document, which is not reachable today.

Type Code	Local Name	Standardized	Notes
`1`	BVI Business Company	`Limited Liability Company`	Most common, incorporated under BCA 2004
`3`	Limited Partnership	`Partnership`	Limited and general partners
`4`	Foreign Company	`Other`	Foreign entity registered in BVI
`5`	International Business Company	`Limited Liability Company`	Legacy type, pre-BCA 2004, grandfathered
`7`	Local Company	`Limited Liability Company`	Incorporated under the old Companies Act, uses letter-prefixed numbers

Quirks & Gotchas

Quirk	Details
Document retrieve deactivated	The BVI FSC register document service is broken on their side. We deactivated the document-based verification flow in March 2026 and will reactivate it once the FSC restores retrieval.
High document fees	Even when the gateway works, BVI document fees are among the highest of any jurisdiction we cover.
Privacy jurisdiction	BVI is a well-known privacy jurisdiction. Even when documents are accessible, directors and shareholders visible on them are frequently nominees rather than beneficial owners.
No UBO register	BVI does not have a public UBO register. Beneficial ownership data sits in the BOSS (Beneficial Ownership Secure Search) system, which is restricted to competent authorities.
No registration date in search	The public search API does not expose incorporation or registration dates. These only appear in the trade register extract document (currently unreachable).
No address in search	Registered addresses are not available in the public search API.
No status or legal form in search	Company status and entity type are published only in the FSC’s paid profile report, which is currently unavailable. When the register does include a `type`, it gives only a broad category; detailed BCA 2004 subtypes are not exposed.
No activity codes	BVI has no national industry classification system in its registry. Many holding companies and SPVs have no stated business description.

Data Availability

Data Type	Prefill Profile	Verification Mode	Notes
Company Name	Available	Not available
Company Number	Available	Not available
Company Status	Not available	Not available	Published only in the FSC’s paid profile report, currently unavailable
Legal Form	Not available	Not available	Published only in the FSC’s paid profile report, currently unavailable
Previous Company Names	Not available	Not available	Not returned in the `company` datapoint
Registration Date	Not available	Not available	Would come from document
Legal Address	Not available	Not available	Would come from document
Share Capital	Not available	Not available	Would come from document
Legal Representatives	Not available	Not available	Would come from document
Shareholders	Not available	Not available	Would come from document
Ultimate Beneficial Owners	Not available	Not available	BVI has no public UBO register
Activity Codes	Not available	Not available	BVI has no classification system

Verification mode is listed as unavailable because document retrieve is deactivated. We will update this table as soon as the FSC register document service is fixed.

Example API Response

Query: POST /v2/company with { "id": "1987245", "countryCode": "VG", "mode": "prefill", "dataPoints": ["company"] }

{
  "company": {
    "id": "1987245",
    "countryCode": "VG",
    "identifiers": {
      "companyNumber": "1987245"
    },
    "legalName": "PACIFIC VENTURES INC."
  }
}

This is the complete shape of the prefill response. No status, no legal form, no address, no directors, no shareholders, no registration date, no capital.

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British Virgin Islands

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British Virgin Islands coverage, pricing, and sources

Data Sources

Company Identifiers

Query Identifiers

Identifiers in API Response

Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)

Search Capabilities

Active companies only

Company Status

Legal Forms

Quirks & Gotchas

Data Availability

Example API Response

​Start here

British Virgin Islands coverage, pricing, and sources

​Data Sources

​Company Identifiers

​Query Identifiers

​Identifiers in API Response

​Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)

​Search Capabilities

​Active companies only

​Company Status

​Legal Forms

​Quirks & Gotchas

​Data Availability

​Example API Response

Start here

Data Sources

Company Identifiers

Query Identifiers

Identifiers in API Response

Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)

Search Capabilities

Active companies only

Company Status

Legal Forms

Quirks & Gotchas

Data Availability

Example API Response