Colombia

How to use Kausate in Colombia — what you can call, and which identifiers it uses

New to the API? Start with the jurisdictions overview, which explains how ordering, identifiers and documents work everywhere.

Operations

5 callable

Documents

None yet

Your own registry account

Not needed

Company data here comes directly from Registro Único Empresarial y Social (RUES).

What you can call here

What each operation does is the same everywhere and is explained on the jurisdictions overview.

Operation	Status
Autocomplete	Live
Company search	Live
Company report Includes: Registered details and Legal representatives.	Live
Financials	Live
Prefill	Live

Start with company search and jurisdictionCode: "co". Pass the name as companyName, a registration number as companyNumber, or both to narrow the result. Here companyNumber is read as ruesId.

Fields

To say exactly what you mean, send an advancedQuery instead. Colombia understands these fields:

Field	What it does
`name`	Company name (razón social) to search for.
`nit`	Colombian NIT to look up. Accepted with or without the check digit (890903938 or 890903938-8).
`ruesId`	RUES record id — the two-digit chamber code followed by the matrícula zero-padded to ten digits, e.g. 210008396404.

Examples

{  "jurisdictionCode": "co",  "advancedQuery": {    "name": "BANCOLOMBIA"  }}

Colombia also accepts nit and ruesId.

Company identifiers

Search by passing the registration number as companyNumber — it is matched against the schemes this register can search on, so you do not name the scheme yourself. Not every scheme below is searchable; the rest label the values returned in a company’s identifiers.

Identifier	Appears as	Format
RUES Record ID RUES register record identifier — the two-digit chamber code (codigo_camara) followed by the matrícula mercantil zero-padded to ten digits (Bancolombia: chamber 21 + matrícula 0008396404 = 210008396404). The matrícula alone is unique only within its chamber, so this concatenation is the register's own national primary key.	`co_rues_id`	`^\d{12}$`
Cédula de ciudadanía Colombian national identity number as published by RUES, including its zero-padded representation.	`co_cedula`	No fixed format
Colombian NIT Número de Identificación Tributaria (NIT) — Colombia's DIAN-issued tax identifier, stored without its check digit (dígito de verificación), which RUES exposes separately as dv. Displayed as 890903938-8, stored as 890903938. Nine digits in 99.8% of registered legal entities; a small legacy long tail runs shorter or longer. Present on roughly 1.46M of the 1.97M active legal entities, so it cannot serve as the register's primary key — see CO_RUES_ID.	`co_nit`	`^\d{8,10}$`
Bogota Commercial Registration Number	`co_bogota_commercial_registration_number`	No fixed format

Local notes

Gotchas

Trap	What happens
Filing year is not fiscal year	The year label on financial history is the matrícula renewal filing year, not the fiscal year it describes — the fiscal year is one year earlier, so a period labeled 2024 reports fiscal year 2023.
Cancelled can mean relocated	A cancelled registration doesn't always mean dissolved: a company relocating to a new Cámara de Comercio gets its old registration cancelled while a new active one appears at the new chamber. Check the cancellation reason.
Most registrations are cancelled	Over half of registered companies carry a cancelled status, so unfiltered results skew mostly inactive. Filter on the active/status field for operating companies only.
Representatives, not directors	People returned are legal representatives authorized to sign on the company's behalf, not board directors. No board membership, date of birth, or address is available for them.
One search criterion at a time	Company search takes exactly one of name, NIT (tax id), or registry record id — they're alternatives, not combinable filters.
Audited and consolidated are empty	The financial summary's audited and consolidated fields come back empty, not "false" — the filing form doesn't report on either, so empty isn't confirmation of unaudited.
No registered address	Company reports never include a registered address — the registry suppresses it for privacy. Search results give department and municipality only; the full report has neither.
Figures are whole pesos	Financial figures are reported in whole pesos, not thousands — a company showing trillions in assets reflects that scale, not a units error.
Missing year versus real zero	A missing yearly figure usually means it wasn't filed that year, common for a small company's earliest years on record. A real zero is preserved as zero, not blanked — the two differ.
No pre-tax profit figure	Financial data has no pre-tax profit figure. Don't reconstruct one by adding tax expense back to the reported result — the filing form doesn't reconcile that way.

Glossary

Term	Meaning
`MATRÍCULA CANCELADA POR TRASLADO DE DOMICILIO`	The company's matrícula (registration) was cancelled because the company relocated to a different regional Cámara de Comercio. The company is still operating — it simply holds a new, active registration at its new chamber now — so don't read this status as the company going out of business.
`MATRÍCULA NUEVA, CONSTITUCIÓN POR TRASLADO`	The fresh, active registration a company receives at its new Cámara de Comercio after relocating — the other half of a MATRÍCULA CANCELADA POR TRASLADO DE DOMICILIO recorded at its previous chamber. Together the two records describe one company that moved, not two separate companies.
`MATRÍCULA CANCELADA POR FUSIÓN`	The company's registration was cancelled because it was absorbed by another company in a merger. Unlike a relocation, this means the company no longer exists as a separate legal entity.
`MATRÍCULA CANCELADA LEY 1429`	The registration was cancelled under a 2010 Colombian law that lets the registry administratively strike long-dormant registrations. Treat a company carrying this status as dissolved.
`Representante Legal - Principal / Representante Legal - Suplente`	The two roles Colombia's registry reports for people authorized to sign on a company's behalf: the "Principal" signs in the ordinary course of business, and the "Suplente" is an alternate who signs only when the principal is unavailable. Neither corresponds to a director or board member — Colombia's registry does not publish board composition.
`CIIU`	Colombia's own national system for classifying business activity, adapted from the international ISIC standard. It is not the same code system as Europe's NACE, so don't expect NACE-style codes or descriptions on a Colombian company's activity classification.