# Verification record — `za/cipc/private-company-incorporation` v1.0.0 This file is the **source-review record** for this document version, per the [`manual-source-review-v1`](../../../../../practices/manual-source-review-v1.md) practice. ## Current claim - **`status`:** `draft` - **`verification.method`:** `manual-source-review-v1` - **`verification.lastVerifiedAt`:** `2026-07-05` ## Why this schema and why now (GOV-1181) GOV-1181 ("GovSchema Standard Research") is the same recurring research-cycle issue as GOV-1136/GOV-1157/GOV-1160/GOV-1174. GOV-1174's own closing note records that South Africa was opened as the registry's 13th jurisdiction with exactly one schema published — `za/dha/passport-application-first-adult` — and that every other ZA vertical (DMV, Business Formation, Visa, Taxes, National ID) remained unopened for "a future cycle". This document is that cycle: it opens **Business Formation** for South Africa, following the same true-limited-liability-company-formation pattern the GOV-1136 cycle established for DE/FR/NL/SG (each closing the gap between a mere sole-trader registration and a genuine separate-legal-personality company). A repeat catalog audit of `discovery/catalog.json`'s `candidates[]` (per the lesson recorded from the GOV-1174 cycle) found the same two dead ends as before — `ca/on/mto/vehicle-permit-renewal` (blocked on a live plate/permit eligibility lookup) and `eu/etias` (still pre-launch, per GOV-276) — and no other open candidates within the six focus verticals. With the standing backlog dry and South Africa freshly opened but nearly empty, the productive move (per the memory recorded from GOV-1174) is to expand the new jurisdiction rather than re-litigate known dead ends. ## Sources examined - **Document `(id, version)`:** `za/cipc/private-company-incorporation` / `1.0.0` - **Spec version:** GovSchema `0.3.0` - **Authority:** Companies and Intellectual Property Commission ("CIPC"), Republic of South Africa. - **Primary sources** (all fetched directly from `cipc.co.za`, each a genuine text-layer PDF, not a scan — read and transcribed in full, including every sidebar instruction, not just the fillable-field labels): - — Form CoR14.1, "Notice of Incorporation": all 7 numbered paragraphs, the incorporator "From:" box, the declaration/signature block, and the full sidebar (fee schedule, annexure conditions, "form is issued in terms of section 13 ... and Regulation 14"). - — Form CoR14.1A, Annexure A, "Initial Directors of the Company": the full per-director field list and the sidebar's minimum-director-count rules per company type. - — Form CoR9.1, "Application to Reserve a Name": the up-to-4-ordered-names structure and the four name-conflict disclosure questions (out of scope here, see below). - — Form CoR15.1A, "Memorandum of Incorporation — Short Standard Form for Private Companies" (all 5 pages): the cover-sheet blanks (director count, authorised share ceiling) and the full boilerplate Articles 1–4, read to confirm the standard form imposes no section 15(2)(b)/(c) ring-fencing provision (Article 1.2(1)) and no par value on shares (Article 2.1(1)). - — "Contact details, forms & supporting documents required when transacting with CIPC" (v2.0, April 2017; still hosted at the current `cipc.co.za` domain under a 2022 upload path, and cross-checked against a live `WebFetch` of , "Company forms and fees", which lists the same form numbers and confirms no newer version supersedes it). The "Registration of companies" section, "Private company short form" row, supplied: the e-Services filing channel and e-mail address, the required supporting documents (certified ID of applicant, certified ID of all incorporators and directors, power of attorney if applicable), the citizen-vs-foreign-national ID-type note, and the fee schedule (R175, reduced by any name-reservation fee already paid: R125 if reserved electronically, R100 if reserved manually). - ("Enterprise registration") and a `WebSearch`-surfaced secondary summary of BizPortal's turnaround/fee claims — used only as corroborating context (the R175/immediate-turnaround figures cross-check against the primary CoR14.1 sidebar and the supporting-documents PDF), never as the sole source for any field. - **Field extraction method:** each PDF above is a genuine AcroForm-style text-layer document (confirmed legible on direct read, unlike `za/dha/passport-application-first-adult`'s scanned BI-73), so field labels, paragraph numbers, and sidebar instructions were transcribed verbatim page-by-page rather than paraphrased from a summary. - **Retrieved / reviewed:** 2026-07-05. - **Reviewer:** GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer — initial authoring source review). ## What was confirmed against the source | Source element | Field(s) | |---|---| | CoR14.1, "Customer Code" | `cipcCustomerCode` | | CoR14.1 ¶6 — three name-determination options | `companyNameMethod`, `reservationOrRegistrationNumber`, `reservedNameHolder` | | CoR14.1 ¶6 option 3 / CoR9.1 up-to-4-names list | `proposedCompanyNamePrimary`, `proposedCompanyNameAlternate2`/`3`/`4` | | CoR14.1 ¶2 — incorporation effective date | `incorporationEffectiveDateOption`, `incorporationEffectiveSpecifiedDate` | | CoR14.1 ¶3 — first financial year end | `firstFinancialYearEnd` | | CoR14.1 ¶4 — registered office address | `registeredOfficeAddress` | | CoR15.1A cover sheet — authorised share ceiling, no-par-value shares | `authorisedShareCount` | | CoR14.1 "From:" box + CoR14.1A Annexure A — incorporator/director identity fields | `founderFullName`, `founderFormerName`, `founderIdentityOrRegistrationNumber`, `founderIsSouthAfricanCitizen`, `founderNationality`, `founderPassportNumber`, `founderDateOfAppointment`, `founderDesignation`, `founderResidentialAddress`, `founderBusinessAddress`, `founderPostalAddress`, `founderOccupation`, `founderIsSouthAfricanResident` | | CoR14.1 declaration/signature block | `noticeOfIncorporationDeclaration` document (verbatim `statement`) | | CoR14.1 ¶5 / CoR14.1A sidebar | `initialDirectorsAnnexureA` document | | CoR14.1 sidebar / CoR15.1A sidebar | `memorandumOfIncorporationStandardForm` document | | CoR14.1 ¶6 option 3 / CIPC form list ("Cor14.1 App B") | `alternativeNamesAnnexureB` document, gated by `companyNameMethod` | | Supporting-documents PDF, "Private company short form" row | `founderIdentityDocument` document (citizen smart-ID vs. foreign passport) | | CoR14.1 sidebar fee note + supporting-documents PDF fee schedule | `registrationFee` document (R175 base fee) | ## What is NOT independently confirmed / out of scope - **Exact fee net of a paid name reservation.** The schema's `registrationFee` document states the R175 base fee (no prior reservation); the reduced R125/R100 figures when a name was already paid for at reservation are documented in the `sourceRef` text but not modelled as a second amount, since GSP-0014's `documents[]` shape supports only one fixed `amount` per entry, not a condition-dependent one. A future schema version could add a `crossFieldValidation`-adjacent convention for this if the pattern recurs elsewhere in the registry. - **BizPortal's own screen-by-screen field list.** BizPortal (bizportal.gov.za) is CIPC's newer consumer-facing online front-end for this same "private company short form" filing, and a `WebFetch` of `cipc.co.za`'s own enterprise-registration page describes it as offering "immediate" processing upon payment — but this document's field list is sourced from the underlying prescribed statutory forms (CoR14.1/14.1A/ 15.1A) rather than a BizPortal screen walkthrough, since BizPortal itself was not independently browsed in this pass (unlike, e.g., `nl/denhaag/voter-registration-abroad`'s Playwright-captured wizard). The prescribed forms are the authoritative field set regardless of which front-end channel generates them, per CIPC's own documentation ("Forms have been developed into an online application"). - **CoR9.1's four name-conflict disclosure questions.** Paragraph 1(a)–(d) of CoR9.1 (language, trade mark conflict, restricted-name category, similarity to an existing entity) governs the stand-alone name-reservation filing, which this document treats as already resolved by the time of incorporation (either a prior reservation is cited, or up to four names are proposed for the Commission itself to check at incorporation) — modelling those four yes/no disclosures would only be correct for the CoR9.1 filing itself, not this Notice of Incorporation. - **Multiple incorporators, trust/juristic-person incorporators.** CoR14.1's "From:" box instructs "If there are multiple incorporators, each must be listed. Use a separate sheet" — out of scope by this document's single-founder scoping, consistent with every sibling schema in this quartet (`de/handelsregister/gmbh-formation-musterprotokoll`, `fr/inpi/sasu-or-eurl-formation`, `nl/kvk/bv-formation`, `sg/acra/private-limited-company-incorporation`). - **Ring-fencing provisions (CoR14.1 ¶7 / Annexure C).** The standard MOI (CoR15.1A) fixes this to "no provision of the type contemplated in section 15(2)(b) or (c)" (Article 1.2(1)) — always the first tick-box option for this document's scope, so no field is needed; Annexure C (the alternative) is genuinely inapplicable, not an unresearched gap. - **Manual/paper lodgement and its certified-ID/power-of-attorney handling.** The supporting-documents PDF's "Private company short form" row describes both an e-Services electronic path (documents required) and Banking Channel/Self Service Terminal/Third Party Channel paths (fully automated, no documents submitted); this schema models the e-Services electronic path only, matching its single-founder self-filing scope. - **Company secretary and auditor appointment.** Not required at incorporation for a private company under the Companies Act, 2008 (a post-incorporation compliance step, per `CoR44`'s separate listing in the supporting-documents PDF); out of scope, consistent with the equivalent scoping decision in `sg/acra/private-limited-company-incorporation`. - **Customised/long-form MOI (CoR15.1B) and non-private company types.** CoR14.1 ¶1 also covers State Owned, Public, Personal Liability, and Non Profit companies, each requiring a different MOI form and (per the supporting-documents PDF) a materially higher R475 fee; out of scope by this document's private-company/standard-MOI scoping. - **Exact South African ID number validation pattern.** As with other registry schemas modelling a national ID number without a confirmed check-digit algorithm published in the primary source reviewed, `founderIdentityOrRegistrationNumber` is bounded only by a generous `maxLength`, not a `pattern`, to avoid asserting an unconfirmed format rule. ## Scope and jurisdiction notes - This is South Africa's **first** Business Formation schema, and the registry's **tenth** true-limited-liability-company-formation jurisdiction/entity pair, after `gb/companies-house/company-incorporation-in01`, `us/ca/sos/business-entity-llc-formation`, `ie/cro/company-incorporation`, `ca/on/registration/business-incorporation`, `de/handelsregister/gmbh-formation-musterprotokoll`, `fr/inpi/sasu-or-eurl-formation`, `au/asic/proprietary-company-registration`, `nl/kvk/bv-formation`, `in/mca/company-incorporation-spice-plus`, and `sg/acra/private-limited-company-incorporation`. - Unlike the DE/FR/NL/SG quartet (each requiring a minimum or nominal paid-up capital contribution at formation), South Africa's Companies Act, 2008 sets **no minimum share capital** and issues no-par-value shares — the Notice of Incorporation and standard MOI require only an authorised-share-count ceiling, not a paid-up-capital figure. This is a genuine jurisdictional difference recorded here rather than a sourcing gap: no field for an initial capital contribution amount exists because the primary sources never require one at this stage. - Addresses are modelled as flat strings (`registeredOfficeAddress`, `founderResidentialAddress`, etc.), matching every form's own free-text blank layout — none of the four primary forms decomposes an address into structured sub-fields (street/city/postal code), unlike, e.g., `sg/acra/private-limited-company-incorporation`'s Bizfile-derived `addressLine`/`unitNumber`/`postalCode` triples. ## Test run A mock `conformance/za/cipc/private-company-incorporation/1.0.0/application-packet.json` scenario (Naledi Mokoena, a South African citizen incorporating a single-founder private company by proposing two candidate names — "Karoo Ridge Logistics" and "Sunbird Freight Solutions" — rather than citing a prior name reservation, with incorporation to take effect on the registration certificate's own date and 1,000 authorised no-par-value shares) was checked with a from-scratch script (`/tmp/conformance-check.mjs`, re-implementing this document's own `required`/`requiredWhen` `Condition` grammar per GSP-0013). Result: **0 violations** across 26 fields (19 collected, 7 correctly not-applicable). Mutation tests confirmed: (1) switching `companyNameMethod` to `previously_reserved_or_registered_name` with no reservation number given correctly flags `reservationOrRegistrationNumber` and `reservedNameHolder` as missing, and correctly drops `proposedCompanyNamePrimary`'s requiredness; (2) setting `founderIsSouthAfricanCitizen` to `false` with no passport number given correctly flags `founderPassportNumber` as missing; (3) setting `incorporationEffectiveDateOption` to `specified_later_date` with no date given correctly flags `incorporationEffectiveSpecifiedDate` as missing; (4) the `alternativeNamesAnnexureB` document's `requiredWhen` correctly evaluates to required in the baseline (propose-names) branch and not required in the reserved-name branch. The schema was also validated against the GovSchema v0.3 meta-schema with `tools/validate-ajv.mjs` (pass). ## Path to a `verified` claim (next step) To advance to `status: verified`, a reviewer should independently re-fetch all five CIPC PDFs and the supporting-documents reference table, confirm no newer form revision has been published (CoR15.1A carries a `v1_3` filename suffix, suggesting prior revisions exist), and — ideally — walk the live CIPC e-Services or BizPortal registration flow with a real (test) CIPC customer account to confirm the online screen sequence matches the prescribed paper form's field order, recording the outcome here per VERSIONING.md §3 (immutability; a new version if discrepancies are found). ## Re-verification Per the practice's Cadence, `nextReviewBy` is set to **2027-01-05** (6 months).