Supplier Due Diligence in Africa: A Practical Buyer Checklist

You have a named supplier, a quotation and a payment decision coming. This is the checklist to work through before you sign or transfer anything — in the order the decisions actually arrive.

We verify African suppliers on the ground — legal identity, ownership, capacity and site visits — before you transfer any money. supplier verification in Africa.

This article is written for a specific moment: you have a named supplier, a quotation in your inbox and a decision about a contract or a first payment coming within days or weeks.

It is deliberately a checklist rather than an explanation. Each item below is something you can either confirm or not confirm before you commit, in roughly the order the decisions arrive.

If you are earlier in the process and want the reasoning behind each check rather than the checklist itself, start with our pillar guide on how to verify an African supplier and return here when you have a specific counterparty to assess.

Two rules apply throughout. Confirm every item from a source that is independent of the person selling to you. And write down what you could not confirm — the gaps, not the completed items, are what should drive the payment terms.

Stage 1 — Identity and authority

1. The legal entity

• Registered legal name in full, exactly as registered — not the trading or brand name.
• Registration number, confirmed against the national company registry or competent authority.
• Registered address, and whether it matches the address on the quotation.
• Legal form and current standing (active, dormant, struck off, in liquidation).
• Date of incorporation — a company registered weeks ago is not a supplier with ten years of export history.
• Tax identification number where the jurisdiction issues one.

Outcome to record: confirmed / partially confirmed / not confirmed, with the source used.

2. Ownership and control

• Directors and, where available on the register, shareholders or beneficial owners.
• Whether any named owner or director appears on the EU consolidated sanctions list.
• Whether the same individuals appear behind other companies you have been offered.
• Whether the ownership picture matches what the supplier has told you verbally.

3. The people you are dealing with

• Full name, position and stated authority of your contact.
• A company-domain email address, not a free webmail account, for anything contractual.
• A telephone number you sourced independently — from the register, the bank or the company's own published contact page — and which you have actually used.
• Written confirmation of who is authorised to sign on behalf of the entity.
• Any power of attorney or agency agreement, if your contact represents the producer rather than working for it.

"If a single individual is your only channel to the company, you have verified an individual, not a supplier."

Stage 2 — Licences, certifications and references

4. Licences and permits

• Export licence or registration, where the product or country requires one.
• Sector permits: agriculture, mining, forestry, fisheries, pharmaceuticals, chemicals.
• Phytosanitary or veterinary registration where the goods require official health certification.
• Validity dates — an expired licence is a delay at the port, not a formality.

Confirm on the destination side as well as the origin side. The European Commission's Access2Markets service sets out the import requirements, duties and rules of origin that apply to your specific product and country of origin.

5. Certifications

• Certificate number, holder name, scope, covered products and covered production site.
• Issue and expiry dates, and current status in the issuing body's own register.
• Whether the certified site is the site that will produce your goods.
• Whether the certificate holder is the entity that will invoice you — frequently it is not.

Check the status with the certification body directly rather than accepting a PDF. A certificate that covers a different site, a different product group or a lapsed period is a common and easily missed discrepancy.

6. References

• Two or three named previous buyers, ideally in Europe, with company names and contactable people.
• Destination markets already served, and whether shipments cleared customs there without incident.
• Copies of past export documentation — bills of lading, invoices, certificates of origin — with commercially sensitive detail redacted.
• Whether the referee, when contacted independently, confirms the volumes and product the supplier claims.

A supplier who cannot name a single previous export customer is not necessarily dishonest, but they are unproven for export, and that belongs in your risk assessment.

Stage 3 — Can they deliver this order?

7. Operational capability against your specific order

• Production or supply capacity per month, and how much of it is uncommitted.
• Lead time for your quantity, and the seasonal window if the product is agricultural.
• Whether the supplier produces, processes, aggregates or simply resells — stated explicitly in writing.
• Where raw material comes from, and whether that source is contracted or opportunistic.
• Quality control at intake and at dispatch, and who signs off.
• Packaging, labelling and loading capability for your destination market.
• Who arranges freight, and whether they have worked with a forwarder before.

Test the arithmetic. Claimed monthly volume, stated workforce, storage capacity and lead time should be mutually consistent. When they are not, ask which figure is wrong rather than assuming the most favourable one is right.

Where the order is large enough that documents are not sufficient, the next step is on-site verification of exactly these claims — see what to check during a factory inspection.

Stage 4 — Contracting party, invoice and money

This stage is where verified suppliers and unverified payments most often part company. The entity you checked, the entity that signs, the entity that invoices and the account that receives the money must all be the same entity.

8. Contracting and invoicing entity

• The contract names the registered legal entity and registration number you verified.
• The commercial invoice is issued by that same entity, at the same registered address.
• Any intermediary, agent or trading company in the chain is disclosed and its role is defined in writing.
• The contract states product specification, quantity, tolerance, Incoterm, delivery window, documentation and inspection rights.
• Governing law, dispute resolution and remedies for non-delivery are stated — not left to good intentions.

9. Banking details and payment instructions

• The account holder name matches the contracting entity exactly — no personal accounts, no third-party names.
• The bank is located in the supplier's country of registration; an unexplained third-country account requires an explanation before payment.
• Bank details were confirmed on a call to a number you sourced independently, not accepted from an email or a revised PDF.
• Any change of bank details mid-transaction is treated as a security incident and re-verified from scratch by voice.
• Payment structure limits exposure: staged payments, documentary credit, or payment against documents rather than full prepayment on a first order.

"Changed bank details late in a negotiation are the single most common point of loss in international trade. Verify by voice, on a number you found yourself."

Final checks before contract or payment

Immediately before signing or transferring, confirm the following as a single pass:

1. The entity on the contract is the entity you verified on the register.
2. The signatory is authorised to bind that entity.
3. The invoice entity and the bank account holder are the same verified entity.
4. Product specification and tolerance are written down, not implied by samples.
5. The Incoterm and delivery window are agreed and understood by both sides.
6. Required certificates and documents are listed as contractual deliverables.
7. Inspection rights before shipment are written into the contract.
8. First-order exposure is capped at an amount your company can absorb.
9. Every unresolved gap from the checks above is documented and accepted deliberately at management level.

If any of those nine cannot be answered, the correct action is not to abandon the supplier. It is to reduce the size of the first transaction until the remaining uncertainty is affordable.

What this checklist does not do

Completing every item does not guarantee performance. It establishes that the counterparty exists, is who it claims to be, is legally able to export, and is being paid through its own verified account. Delivery quality, weather, port congestion and market prices remain commercial risks you manage through contract terms and follow-up.

Once the supplier is approved and shipping, the relevant discipline changes from verification to managing the supplier relationship over time.