OKPO for an individual entrepreneur: how to get it and where to find out

Any enterprise has a considerable number of different designations and codes assigned upon registration. Their functions are very different, and they are used in different documents. One of the most necessary and frequently encountered identifiers is the OKPO code.

• What is its peculiarity?
• Where can an entrepreneur get it?
• What information about the activity does it carry?
• In what documents is OKPO indicated?

Is it necessary to indicate OKPO in the employee’s personal card ?

Deciphering OKPO

The OKPO code is one of the most significant for a businessman, because it is on its basis that he receives other types of encodings. Without OKPO, an enterprise cannot legally carry out its activities; this combination of numbers is necessary for many important papers necessary for the operation of the enterprise.

The abbreviation “OKPO” means “All-Russian Classifier of Enterprises and Organizations”.

According to this classifier, an entrepreneur is registered in the Rosstat database for one or another type of activity specified by him.

What is the All-Russian Classifier of Enterprises and Organizations (OKPO) intended ?

Once in the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs or the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the entrepreneur receives this number in his first registration extract from this register. As long as he is listed as an entrepreneur, this OKPO number will be assigned to him; it can only be changed if he changes his type of activity.

REFERENCE! The OKPO classifier was put into effect by Decree of the State Standard of the Russian Federation No. 297 of December 30, 1993, and statistical authorities received the obligation to assign it to individual entrepreneurs only in 1999.

How long is the OKPO code valid?

The OKPO code is retained by the organization throughout the entire period of its activity. It does not change when the legal form is transformed. After liquidation or reorganization of the company, the code is deleted. At the same time, the code of a liquidated organization cannot be assigned to another company for five years (clauses 4.8.2, 4.8.3 Instructions on the procedure for registering legal entities and their separate divisions in the Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations. Part I", approved by the State Statistics Committee of Russia 22.12. 1999 No. AS-1-24/6483 (hereinafter referred to as the Instructions).

OKPO - why?

The OKPO code allows you to find out almost all the basic information about an entrepreneur as a business entity, since it gives access to the Rosstat statistical database. Thanks to this code, it is possible to simplify communication between various government bodies, as well as between entrepreneurs and certain departments, because OKPO is universal.

The OKPO identifier performs the following functions :

• collection of statistical data on all entrepreneurs doing business in Russia;
• identification of the enterprise by type of activity;
• systematization of business data in a single information field;
• automation of incoming business information;
• details of various business documents.

IMPORTANT! OKPO is in no way connected with the tax system, so it does not contain taxation data. This identification code is for statistical purposes only.

How to find out your code

Statistical authorities assign this detail automatically based on information about the state registration of a legal entity or individual entrepreneur. As soon as information about the entrepreneur is entered into the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, it is transferred to statistics and a code is generated. If the type of activity changes, changes are also made to OKPO. The entrepreneur does not need to submit any applications for assignment or change of details.

The code remains with the business entity for the entire period of its activity. Each of them is individual, they cannot be repeated. If an organization is liquidated or an individual entrepreneur ceases activity, the code is excluded from the Classifier, and it cannot be assigned to another object for the next 5 years.

In accordance with the Instruction approved by Rosstat on December 22, 1999, statistical authorities are required to send legal entities an information letter about the assignment of the appropriate codes. But the Instructions say nothing about individual entrepreneurs, so you will have to find out information on OKPO yourself.

You can get them in several ways.

Apply in person

You can contact the Rosstat office or the tax authority for information. To obtain information, you must write an application and indicate your TIN. An official response must be provided within 5 working days after the request. Information can be handed out to you, but to do this you will need to come again, or send it by registered mail to the address specified in the application.

Send a request by mail

If there is no Rosstat branch in the locality where the individual entrepreneur lives, he can send a request by mail. In this case, the answer can be provided to him not only in the form of a regular letter, but also by e-mail or fax.

Get it on the Rosstat website

Information from OKPO and details from other classifiers are posted both on the official website of Rosstat and on other Internet resources. Obtaining an OKPO code on the Rosstat website for individual entrepreneurs will not be difficult. To do this, you need to follow the link above and enter your TIN. The system will provide not only information from OKPO, but also a list of reports that the individual entrepreneur is obliged to provide to the statistical authorities. The generated information can be printed as a notification. A paper notice is issued only once. Additional copies can be obtained only on the official website of Rosstat.

As for obtaining details on third-party sites, the information on them may be out of date, for example, if the entrepreneur changes the type of activity. Therefore, it is not safe to use such information.

Receive from the counterparty verification service

By registering in our free service https://proverka.1c-start.biz/, you can receive a detailed report about your company, which indicates your OKPO code. The service will also prepare reports on the reputation of potential business partners, from which you will learn:

• current company details, connections and reputation of the management team, OKVED codes;
• financial indicators of the counterparty for the last 3 years, participation in tenders, availability of licenses and declarations;
• data on arbitration cases in which the counterparty participated, inspections conducted, and bankruptcy claims.

Is it possible to find out the code from the IP documents?

The official document for individual entrepreneurs is an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, where OKPO information is not indicated. In primary documents: invoices, acts of completed work, the entrepreneur enters his code based on already available information. Therefore, OKPO cannot be viewed in the individual entrepreneur’s documents; it must be obtained on the Rosstat website.

Who is assigned OKPO?

Any business entity, regardless of its legal status, receives an OKPO code upon registration, which is subject to inclusion in the unified state register. These include:

• individuals - individual entrepreneurs;
• legal entities, including their representative offices and branches;
• organizations that do not have legal entity status.

IMPORTANT! If an entrepreneur carries out any activity without having an OKPO code, he will not escape penalties as soon as the inspection body establishes this serious violation.

Linking OKPO with other codes assigned by Rosstat

The OKPO code - unlike OGRN or OGRNIP, which are a set of encrypted data - is simply a serial number with a certain number of characters in it, but this number is associated with the name of the person registered in the register and the statistical codes associated with it from the classifiers:

• bodies of state power and administration (OKOGU);
• administrative-territorial (OKATO);
• municipalities (OKTMO);
• types of activities (OKVED);
• forms of ownership (OKFS);
• organizational and legal forms (OKOPF).

That is, a reference to an OKPO code actually means an indication of a set of ciphers that specifically describe the object designated by this code, and this makes it possible to group the data related to it in a certain way in the context of information that is of interest to Rosstat when carrying out the analysis.

That is why the indication of the code in question acquires special significance, and the requirement for its inclusion in documents subject to processing by Rosstat is mandatory. For individual entrepreneurs, it is needed when generating statistical reporting intended for this department.

Features of the OKPO number

The OKPO digital identifier for a particular business entity differs in the number of characters:

• for legal entities – 8 digits;
• for individual entrepreneurs – 10 digits.

If the individual entrepreneur was registered before 1999, that is, before OKPO began to be assigned to individual entrepreneurs, this code can be obtained from the Rosstat Office.

This number is unique and cannot be repeated. An individual entrepreneur and a legal entity cannot have identical OKPO; this is prohibited by law.

NOTE! The only exception when two organizations can be assigned the same OKPO is the situation when the company was liquidated and more than 5 years have passed since then: then the number is considered free.

Free Internet services

In addition to the official Rosstat portal, there are many services on the Internet that make it easy to check OKPO using the organization’s TIN.

KonturAccounting

Convenient service based on the large Kontur portal. Here we have implemented a small form where you just need to enter your Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and instantly get the result.

In addition to the required parameter, the system will issue a OGRN and a checkpoint.

ClassInform.Ru

Another convenient service is ClassInform.Ru, here you also just need to enter your TIN and press “Enter” to get the result. For example, here's how easy it is to find an OKPO real estate agency:

ScreenContractor

Another service for searching organization codes is ScreenConragent. Instructions on how to find, for example, OKPO kindergarten on this service are as follows:

Step 1. Go to the main page and go to the “Legal Entities” tab.

Step 2. In the search bar that appears, enter the TIN and click “Find.”

Step 3. Review the result.

The service allows you not only to find OKPO for free using the organization’s tax identification number, but also to obtain other legal information about it, for example, address, last name, first name and patronymic of the head, OGRN.

This is not a complete list of Internet services where any user can find an OKPO legal entity quickly and free of charge.

OKPO code structure

In the national register, the OKPO identifier has two independent sections: the first is reserved for legal entities and organizations without this status, and the second is for individual entrepreneurs.

Each section consists of 3 parts.

1. Name of the property . This block records the full name of the business entity, as well as its abbreviated name. The name must be indicated in Russian, but if there is a foreign language version, it is entered as additional information. For individual entrepreneurs, the name is the full name in the nominative case.
2. Identifier. The numbers themselves that make up the OKPO code: 8 for enterprises, 10 for individual entrepreneurs. The first and second digits encode the direction of the activity; there can be 4 of them:
   • resources (natural and labor);

   goods and other products of labor and production;

3. National economy;
4. documentation and management.

The remaining positions, except the last one, represent the serial number received during the registration process. The final sign is a control sign; it can be calculated according to a special scheme described in the Standardization Rules.

5. Additional codes. In addition to OKPO, the entrepreneur also receives membership in other classifiers recorded in his statistical records, such as:
   OKATO;
6. OKFS;
7. OKOGU;
8. OKOPF;
9. OKVED;
10. OKTMO.

Data on other possible classifiers other than the 6 listed are not provided in this block.

Is it necessary to indicate OKPO in the staffing table ?

What is the meaning of the OKPO code and does the individual entrepreneur have it or not?

The abbreviation OKPO stands for All-Russian Classifier of Enterprises and Organizations.
The rules for using this classifier are set out in the Regulations on OKPO, approved by Rosstat order No. 211 dated March 29, 2017. And it is Rosstat that maintains this list, assigns codes to newly created enterprises and deletes them when liquidating objects. However, from the name of the classifier it is not clear whether an individual entrepreneur has an OKPO. The answer to the question “Does an individual entrepreneur have OKPO or not?” - contains clause 2 of section II of the Regulations on OKPO, which lists all persons subject to classification:

• legal;
• their branches and representative offices;
• being an organization, but not a legal entity (mutual investment funds, simple partnerships and investment partnerships);
• IP.

That is, OKPO is a code, the assignment of which is most directly related to the individual entrepreneur. Such a code appears in the directory when registering the fact of the occurrence of an object subject to accounting, along with other codes assigned by Rosstat. But why do we need such a classifier if there is a Unified State Register of Legal Entities and a Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, the purpose of which is also to create lists of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, respectively?

The Rosstat directory - unlike the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, maintained by the tax service and taking into account taxpayers - is intended for coding enterprises and organizations for the purpose of statistical monitoring of them. Since it also includes organizations that do not form a legal entity, the list created by Rosstat is more complete than the combined lists for which the Federal Tax Service is responsible, but the code reflected in it is also unique for each of the objects taken into account (as well as OGRN or OGRNIP numbers appearing in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities or Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs).

What purposes does the OKPO code assigned by Rosstat serve? It allows when working with statistical information (clause 1 of section II of the Regulations on OKPO):

• ensure compatibility and comparability of data in government information resources;
• simplify information exchange;
• process the received statistical information in an automated manner.

It is assigned by OKPO in the same way as other statistical codes, automatically upon state registration of an accounting object, does not require the submission of any applications for its assignment and does not change throughout the entire existence of the object. Exclusion from the list occurs upon the liquidation of the accounted entity, and the released OKPO can be used for another created object, but not earlier than 5 years from the date of liquidation (clause 2 of Section III of the Regulations on OKPO).

OKPO is indicated in the details of various individual entrepreneur documents. For example, in personnel matters, incl. in orders for hiring or dismissal.

If you encounter difficulties in indicating OKPO in the dismissal order, use the explanations of ConsultantPlus experts. If you don't have access yet, get a free trial online.

Where to get OKPO

We list all possible ways to obtain information about OKPO.

1. Letter from Statistics . When registering, legal entities, organizations and individual entrepreneurs need to obtain an extract from Rosstat data, which contains all the basic statistical information about the new business entity, including the OKPO code. If this letter is lost, it can be requested again in person or online (repeated information is available for a fee). To do this, you need a TIN and an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs or the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
2. Various documents . The OKPO code is indicated on a large number of various documentation on the company’s office work: payment orders, accounting and tax papers, agreements, acceptance certificates or completed work, reports from regulatory authorities.
3. Service of the Federal Tax Service . The OKPO code can be found online if the TIN of the entrepreneur or legal entity is known. On the website you can find out the address at which the organization is registered, and you can find out OKPO itself in the district administration.
4. Tax Inspectorate . By writing a written application, you can ask for a repeat extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities or the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs. To do this, you need an identity card, TIN and constituent documents of the company. You should receive an official response within 5 days.
5. Official sites . Many enterprises, especially large ones, make no secret of their OKPO and publish it on their Internet pages, where they can be easily found using the “Search” function.

Instructions on how to find out OKPO through the FSGS website

1. Go to a special section of the website of the Federal State Statistics Service - https://websbor.gks.ru/webstat/#!/gs/statistic-codes.
2. Enter the TIN or OGRN/OGRNIP of the organization, as well as, if necessary, the name of the organization and click the “Get” button.
3. In the query results in the data block about statistics codes, the first place will be the OKPO value.

Screenshot for easier understanding:

Information about OKPO is mainly for reference; it is not often needed in the normal course of business; it is required by regulatory authorities only in special situations. Often individual entrepreneurs are not aware of their own OKPO code, because this information is not mandatory.

Where can I get OKPO

It is indicated in the notification that Rosstat issues free of charge when registering a company, its branch, representative office or individual entrepreneur. There is no need to specifically request a notification; it is required to be provided to all newly registered entities.

Submit all reports for a newly created or reorganized company via the Internet for free

If the notification is lost, you cannot obtain a duplicate from the statistical authorities. But there is another opportunity - to print it yourself using the “Rosstat Codes of the Russian Federation” service. You should select your region from the list, and then follow the link “Generate and print a notification with statistics codes of all-Russian classifiers” for legal entities or individual entrepreneurs. Next, you should enter your TIN or OGRN, and the document will be available for printing.

IMPORTANT. A notification about statistics codes printed on plain paper (and not on the organization’s letterhead), without the signature of an official and without a seal is a valid document. It can be presented to the bank, customs or other authority.

Unfortunately, this service is currently operating in test mode and does not always allow you to generate the required document.

We use electronic services of the Federal Tax Service

Since the Federal Tax Service is responsible for registering business entities, the first question that arises is whether it is possible to find out OKPO by the organization’s TIN on the tax website.

It is not possible to find out such information on the website of the Federal Tax Service of Russia. Extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, which are publicly available on the website nalog.ru, do not contain such information. An extract can be obtained by TIN or name.

Why is OKPO needed?

This classifier is one of the most important identifiers assigned to registered organizations and individuals conducting business activities. Why do government agencies and commercial structures need OKPO?

• maintaining lists of enterprises and individual entrepreneurs in databases;
• exchange of information about legal entities and private entrepreneurs between various departments;
• ensuring statistical accounting in relation to subjects;
• increasing the efficiency of organizing information communication between legal entities and individual entrepreneurs.

The OKPO number is one of the basic details. It must be indicated in reporting, financial, payment and other documentation. In addition, based on its structure, the number is used as an important source of information about an organization or private entrepreneur. With its help, you can find out the year of registration of the entity, its line of activity, territorial affiliation and other data. This allows you to use the identifier to check potential partners and counterparties.

Usually the code is issued once and for life

OKPO will be changed only if the organization radically changes its economic sector. For example, it will extract oil, and not produce tables, as before. This way Rosstat will correctly compile statistics by industry.

If an organization or individual entrepreneur is liquidated, after five years Rosstat will issue the released codes to another enterprise or entrepreneur. If you find two companies with the same OKPO code, check their status using the TIN in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities - one of the legal entities will be liquidated.

In all other cases, OKPO is not changed. Even if the company is reorganized or the legal address is changed.

What does OKPO consist of?

The classifier itself is divided into two parts and each, in turn, into three blocks. The first part is intended for legal entities, their branches, representative offices and organizations without forming a legal entity. The second part of the classifier is for individual entrepreneurs.

Structurally, the OKPO code has three blocks:

• identification (coded for organizations with a set of 8 characters, where the first seven are a serial number, the eighth is a check digit. For individual entrepreneurs, a 10-digit code is used, with nine serial numbers and a tenth check digit);
• name, which contains the full and abbreviated name of the business entity (for individual entrepreneurs, the full name is indicated);
• classification information (classifier codes OKOGU, OKATO, OKTMO, OKVED, OKFS, OKOPF).

An example of the OKPO classifier position for individual entrepreneurs: