Is Your Builder Actually Registered? The Official Register to Check in Every European Country

The uncomfortable truth about hiring in a country you did not grow up in: anyone can paint 'licensed and insured' on the side of a van. The words are free. What is not free, and what a rogue trader cannot fake, is a place on a public register - a list held by the state or a trade chamber that says this business legally exists, is allowed to do this work, and can be found later. In most of Europe the question that protects you is not 'are you licensed?' but 'what register are you on, and what is your number?' This is the register to check in every major European country, what it actually proves, and the one trade-specific licence that sits on top of it.

Registered, licensed, insured: three different words

These three get thrown around as if they mean the same thing. They do not, and the gap between them is where people get hurt. Registered means the business legally exists and sits on the public commercial record - it can be traced, taxed, and taken to court. Licensed or qualified means a person or firm has cleared a specific competence bar for a regulated trade, such as gas, electrical, or structural work. Insured means there is a live liability policy that would actually pay out if the job went wrong. A business can be registered but unqualified for the work in front of you, or qualified but uninsured. You want all three, and you check them separately. Our guide to what registered, verified, and vetted each prove goes deeper on the distinction.

The register to check in every country

The German-speaking countries: the chamber runs the register

In Germany the skilled crafts sit on the Handwerksrolle, the roll held by the regional Handwerkskammer (chamber of skilled crafts), and for the regulated crafts the entry must be backed by a Meister - a master craftsman. There is no single one-click public search of the roll, so you confirm the company in the Handelsregister at handelsregister.de and, for anything touching gas or the electrical grid, check the firm appears in the local network operator's installer directory (Installateurverzeichnis), which is the register that actually authorises that work. Austria runs the same logic through GISA, the national trade register you can search at gisa.gv.at, where regulated trades such as electrical and gas work need a Befahigungsnachweis - proof of competence, usually the master exam - and every trade business belongs to the WKO. Switzerland registers companies cantonally but indexes them nationally at Zefix; electrical work additionally needs an installation permit from ESTI, and the commercial-register entry alone tells you nothing about that right.

France, Belgium, and the countries where insurance is the law

France changed its system in 2023: the old Repertoire des Metiers is gone, and the legal register is now the Registre National des Entreprises (RNE) held by INPI, though artisans still handle their formalities through the Chambre de Metiers et de l'Artisanat. Every business carries a SIREN and SIRET number, and you can confirm any of it free at annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr. Two French-specific checks matter: the RGE label (Reconnu Garant de l'Environnement), which the tradesperson needs for your energy work to qualify for state subsidies and which is worth verifying on the official annuaire because RGE fraud exists, and the assurance decennale, the ten-year structural-liability cover that genuinely binds individual artisans by law. Belgium keeps every business in the KBO/BCE database, searchable at kbopub.economie.fgov.be, and since the loi Peeters, decennial insurance is compulsory for construction actors. One Belgian quirk: proof of trade competence was abolished in Flanders in 2019 but still applies in Wallonia and Brussels, so the region of the job changes what is required.

Southern Europe: chambers, alvaras, and certified installers

Italy runs on the Registro delle Imprese held by each Camera di Commercio, and the public extract - the visura camerale - is the single best document to ask for; you can also verify a Partita IVA with the Agenzia delle Entrate. Work on electrical, gas, heating, and water systems falls under D.M. 37/2008, which requires the firm to hold a qualified responsabile tecnico and to issue a dichiarazione di conformita on completion. Spain has no national trades roll: most tradespeople are autonomos registered only with the tax office and social security, so you confirm the business exists and then, for gas, electrical, or heating work, check it is an empresa instaladora habilitada listed in the Registro Integrado Industrial. Portugal is the strictest at the top end - real construction work needs an alvara from IMPIC, graded in classes by contract value, and you should confirm the class actually covers the size of your job; gas installers are certified separately by DGEG.

The Nordics and the Netherlands: one clean database each

These are the easiest countries to check, because each has one authoritative database. The Netherlands keeps every business in the KVK Handelsregister, searchable at kvk.nl; note that since 2023 any work on gas-fired appliances legally requires a CO-certified firm, which replaced the old voluntary-only approach. Sweden lists companies at Bolagsverket, but the check locals actually run is F-skatt (F-tax) approval with Skatteverket - a legitimate business has it - and electricians must be authorised through Elsakerhetsverket. Denmark's CVR register covers every business, and authorised electricians and plumbers (autoriseret el- and VVS-installator) are on the Sikkerhedsstyrelsen register; a 2026 reorganisation folded that authority into the Danish Business Authority, but the register still runs under the sik.dk name. In all three, a trade that cannot be found in the national database is a hard stop.

Poland and the thread that runs through all of it

Poland lists sole traders in CEIDG and companies in KRS, both searchable online, and the biala lista (the VAT white list) confirms a firm's tax status and its official bank account in one place - worth doing before you send a deposit. Anyone doing electrical, heating, or gas work needs a current SEP qualification certificate, in the G1, G2, and G3 categories, and a business being registered does not prove the person holds one. That is the thread running through every country here: the national register proves the business is real, and a separate authorisation proves it is competent and allowed near your gas, wiring, or structure. The two are not the same check.

How to run the check in five minutes

• Find the register - use the national database in the table above for the country you are hiring in.
• Search the number or name - match the legal name and address to the quote exactly, not approximately.
• Confirm the status is active - a dissolved or struck-off company is the clearest red flag there is.
• Check the trade licence separately - for gas, electrical, or structural work, the business entry is not enough; find the specific authorisation.
• Confirm insurance is in force today - ask for the certificate and check the dates, because a lapsed policy protects no one. Our guide on verifying contractor insurance shows what to look for.

None of this needs a lawyer, a local, or the language - most of these registers are searchable in minutes, and the few that are not can be settled with a single call to the chamber. It is the difference between hiring a business and hiring a name on a van.

Veted does the half of this that is tedious to do by hand: we read a firm's entire public review history rather than its star average, summarise what customers actually and repeatedly said, and rank on that rather than on who paid. The register check in this guide is the half that stays yours, and it is worth the five minutes precisely because it is the only one that definitively proves a business is entitled to do the work. Checking registrations for you, country by country, is what we are building next.