Iraq Company & Beneficial Ownership Directory
Company register search for 1,277 Iraq companies, plus shareholder, officer and beneficial ownership records sourced directly from official government registries.
Iraq company register data sits with the Commercial Register kept by the Companies Registration Directorate at the Ministry of Trade. Local company records can be requested for a fee, typically returned in three to five business days, but shareholder details for foreign-owned companies are not released publicly. No dedicated UBO register exists; beneficial-ownership obligations run instead through Anti-Money Laundering Law No. 39 of 2015, with reporting captured on the goAML platform used by regulated banks and lawyers rather than published for public search. Foreign shareholders face an added step: Ministry of Interior security clearance before they can hold shares, a jurisdiction-specific access tier the general register does not apply to domestic holders.
Iraq beneficial ownership guideTop Companies in Iraq
Live from the register. Every row opens the full record — officers, shareholders and resolved group structure.
Data Coverage
Record counts by data layer for Iraq, as of the last reconciliation.
Analysis
What this data actually tells you about Iraq
Iraq’s economy is one of the most oil-dependent in the world. Nominal GDP was approximately $280 billion in 2024 (World Bank), with GDP per capita around $5,800-$6,100 depending on the year and source. The currency is the Iraqi dinar (IQD), officially pegged at roughly 1,310 IQD per US dollar as of September 2025-2026 (Central Bank of Iraq/Trading Economics), though a persistent gap with the parallel/black-market rate has existed for years amid US Treasury/Federal Reserve scrutiny of dollar flows. Per the IMF’s 2025 Article IV consultation, oil accounted for an estimated 53% of real GDP, 88% of government revenue, and roughly 91% of merchandise exports in 2025; GDP contracted 2.4% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2025 as OPEC+ quotas cut oil output by 5.7% and non-oil growth slowed to 1.5% amid water/electricity shortages and an oil-revenue-driven liquidity crunch. Companies are registered with the Companies Registrar (Companies Registration Directorate) under the Ministry of Trade; a new digital registration platform and an ILO/Italy-backed Business Registration Guide for MSMEs both launched in 2025, though LLC registration still typically takes 6-12 weeks. The World Bank’s old “Ease of Doing Business” index (discontinued in 2021) last ranked Iraq 172nd of 190 economies; its replacement, the B-READY index, gave Iraq a Pillar I (Regulatory Framework) score of 49/100 in its first 2024 report. Counterparties verify a specific Iraqi counterparty’s actual current Companies Registrar registration status directly.
Iraq’s fiscal position is acutely exposed to OPEC+ policy: its 2025 quota was roughly 4.4 million bpd (rising toward approximately 4.11 million bpd allowed base by late 2025), and the IMF put Iraq’s fiscal breakeven oil price at about $92/barrel in 2025 — among the highest in OPEC — meaning most 2025 oil-price levels implied a structural budget deficit; Iraq ran an 8.8 trillion dinar deficit in the first three quarters of 2025 (Ministry of Finance). The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region (KRG) has fought a long-running dispute with Baghdad over oil exports and budget payments; the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey, shut since March 2023 after an ICC ruling against Turkey, resumed flows on September 27, 2025 under a federal-KRG-producer agreement (~230,000 bpd committed to state marketer SOMO, ~180,000-230,000 bpd reaching Ceyhan). China is Iraq’s largest single investor and trading partner in the energy space: Chinese total direct investment reached roughly $34 billion by 2023, Chinese firms operate or co-manage around a third of Iraq’s proven reserves and a majority of current output, and China took about 10% of its crude imports (over 1 million bpd) from Iraq in 2024. Reconstruction financing needs are estimated by the World Bank at around $57 billion. Counterparties verify a specific counterparty’s actual current KRG-Baghdad payment-flow exposure and China-financing linkage directly.
Iraq’s population reached 46,118,793 in the November 2024 national census (results announced February 2025) — the country’s first full census in decades. Labor force estimates vary by source (roughly 11.7-15 million depending on methodology/year); overall unemployment is around 13.5% with labor force participation near 38%, both weaker than regional peers. Youth unemployment (ages 15-24) was about 32% in 2024, with some reports citing over 36% for the 18-35 cohort. The public sector remains oversized: roughly 42% of the labor force works in government jobs, with ministries/agencies employing more than 3.7 million people and salary/pension obligations exceeding $48 billion/year (approximately 40% of the federal budget). The informal economy is very large — the 2021 ILO Labour Force Survey found 66.6% of employed Iraqis (5.73 million people) in informal jobs, concentrated in construction, agriculture and manufacturing. Notable current dynamics: the US ended its sanctions waiver permitting Iraqi electricity imports from Iran on March 8, 2025 (gas-waiver status separately in flux), and roughly 43% of Iraq’s electricity has historically depended on Iranian gas; the Central Bank shut its dollar-auction system by end-2024 amid a US-driven anti-money-laundering/anti-Iran-smuggling crackdown; and financial inclusion reportedly rose from about 10% to over 40% within two years per World Bank/IMF-cited figures tied to CBI digital-payments reforms. Counterparties verify a specific counterparty’s actual current informal/formal employment status and Iran-sanctions-linked exposure directly rather than assume uniform national labor conditions.
Iraq company base, broken down
Charts render from live counts. Where coverage is partial, the excluded population is stated on the chart.
Company size, by disclosed headcount
By number of employees on file. Entities with no disclosed headcount are not counted in any band.
Enterprises by size category
From the Central Statistical Organization (CSO, Ministry of Planning), in partnership with UNDP and USAID funding: a 2021 MSME survey covering only three governorates (Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh) found 89% of surveyed SMEs were classified as small enterprises and 11% as medium enterprises. This is a genuinely narrow figure — a 2021 survey limited to three of Iraq’s eighteen governorates, not a national census, and it does not include a separate “micro” or “large” enterprise breakout, so the two rows above sum to 100% of surveyed SMEs only, not of all Iraqi businesses. Treat as directional evidence of SME size composition in these three governorates, not a comprehensive national size distribution. Source: Central Statistical Organization (CSO, Ministry of Planning) / UNDP / USAID, MSME Survey, three governorates (Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh), published ~2021-2022.
Who uses Iraq ownership data
The three checks this page's data is most often run for.
KYB onboarding
Verifying a Iraq counterparty means confirming the beneficial owner behind the entity and evidencing where that answer came from, not just pulling the registered name.
AML and sanctions screening
Sanctions exposure often sits above the operating company, in a holding layer registered elsewhere. Screening the local entity alone will not surface it; screening the resolved ownership chain will.
Supplier and credit risk
Filed accounts cover a limited share of the register in most jurisdictions, so group membership is often a better solvency signal than a standalone balance sheet.
Get complete shareholder and officer records, ultimate beneficial owner resolution, and ongoing ownership monitoring for Iraq companies — via API or a bulk data feed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many companies does Zavia have on record for Iraq?
Zavia holds 1,277 company records for Iraq, of which 1,277 (100%) are currently active on the register.
Is beneficial ownership (UBO) data public in Iraq?
Iraq company register data sits with the Commercial Register kept by the Companies Registration Directorate at the Ministry of Trade. Local company records can be requested for a fee, typically returned in three to five business days, but shareholder details for foreign-owned companies are not released publicly. No dedicated UBO register exists; beneficial-ownership obligations run instead through Anti-Money Laundering Law No. 39 of 2015, with reporting captured on the goAML platform used by regulated banks and lawyers rather than published for public search. Foreign shareholders face an added step: Ministry of Interior security clearance before they can hold shares, a jurisdiction-specific access tier the general register does not apply to domestic holders.
Does Zavia have shareholder and group structure data for Iraq companies?
Yes. Zavia holds 0 shareholder records for Iraq companies, with 482 ultimate parent relationships resolved for group-structure and ownership-chain mapping.
Can I access Iraq's company data through an API?
Yes. Zavia's API connects directly to official government ownership registries across 195 countries and territories, including Iraq, so company registration, shareholder, UBO, officer, and group-structure records can be queried programmatically instead of browsed one page at a time.
Where can I read more about how UBO verification works in Iraq?
Zavia's Iraq beneficial ownership guide covers the register, the UBO threshold, and how to verify a company's ownership chain in more depth than this directory page.