Each enterprise, organization or private entrepreneur uses different ciphers and codes to conduct accounting for conducting its activities. One of these ciphers is the organization code for OKPO. Despite the fact that this number is used when filling out various contracts, agreements and other documents, some entrepreneurs do not have a clue whether their company has such a number, much less know how to find it. What is an OKPO organization, what does it mean and how to find it? This is the topic of today's article.
What a beast - OKPO
Quite often, when filling out various documents, it is required to fill in the “OKPO code” column. This is a necessary requisite, without which the compilation of a document is simply impossible. So what is an OKPO organization? This abbreviation stands for "All-Russian Classifier of Enterprises and Organizations." Each officially registered company has this code. In the Russian Federation, OKPO looks like a serial number.
Cipher Assignment
So, what is an OKPO organization, more or less clear, but why is it needed? This code characterizes the type of industry activity to which the enterprise belongs, with the help of it you can easily transfer information about any business entity between different departments. It should be borne in mind that if an enterprise changes the type of its activity, then the property we are considering will also change.
If you know the OKPO code, you can get a fairly large amount of information about almost any business entity. Also, the presence of this cipher greatly simplifies the interaction between various government agencies.
As already mentioned, the OKPO code is intended to determine the business sector in which a particular enterprise operates, and is needed to:
- the maximum simplification and automation of processing information about the company;
- identification of business entities in the country;
- ensuring the exchange of information between various departments;
- creating a single information space, ensuring compatibility of data on various enterprises in state information systems.
The OKPO code is used for statistics and has no relation to the tax authorities. Nevertheless, an enterprise that does not have such a code is illegal and cannot function legally.
Decoding OKPO
For legal entities, the code is an eight-digit number, and for individual entrepreneurs, this is a ten-digit number, which is indicated in the EGRIP statement and can be removed from there only after the liquidation of the IP.
Now let's look at the All-Russian Classifier of Enterprises and Organizations (OKPO). What do the constituent signs mean?
The first two digits in the code are used to determine the scope of activity. There are four sections in total:
- labor and natural resources;
- National economy;
- goods (products created through production and labor);
- documents and management.
The next five or seven (for IP) digits make up the serial number of the enterprise in the classifier. But the eighth (or tenth in the IP) is called the control. The calculation of this position is carried out in accordance with the algorithm presented in the Rules of standardization of the Russian Federation (PR 50.1.024-2005).
As you can see, the OKPO codes for individuals (IP) and legal entities differ only in the number of digits. Functional purpose remains unchanged.
How to find out the code of your company
Now let's talk about how to find out an OKPO organization.As practice shows, this question is quite relevant, because not everyone can even find their own OKPO code.
After the official registration of an individual entrepreneur or legal entity, statistical authorities are obliged to issue an informational letter to the entrepreneur, which lists all the codes of the classifiers. OKPO code is also indicated in the same document, most often it is even written out as a separate line.
If you forgot or did not manage to receive such a letter in your hands, it will be sent by mail to the tax registration address of the company. If you receive such a letter, be sure to keep it in a safe place, it may well be useful, for example, to open an account or other needs. However, do not forget to monitor its relevance - when changing or expanding the activities of the company, the code will change. Each branch of the enterprise will have its own OKPO.
So, with your company it’s more or less clear, but how do you know the code of a third-party organization? There are several ways, each of which has its advantages.
Very reliable, but for the money
To get absolutely reliable information about any enterprise, as well as if there is a need for documentary confirmation of such information, it is worth contacting a lawyer. They know for sure what OKPO organizations are and how to find it with a 100% guarantee. Such a service is usually inexpensive, and it doesn’t take much time, usually a couple of hours is quite enough.
If you don’t feel like paying, or just doesn’t make sense, you can search for the information yourself. You can do this in different ways, the choice will depend on how quickly you need to get the necessary information and whether you need to have documentary evidence of them.
Officially and free
To learn the codes of enterprises and organizations (OKPO) yourself is very easy. To do this, just contact any of the three organizations at the place of registration of the company you are interested in:
- district administration;
- tax service;
- social insurance fund (local branch).
There you will have to submit your passport, TIN and certificate of registration of the enterprise, as well as write a statement. In five days you will receive the necessary information on the official letterhead of the organization with all the necessary seals. The only caveat is that you need to contact these bodies personally, you will most likely not receive a response to a letter asking for data.
Long, hard but reliable
Knowing what OKPO organizations are, you can use the services of the World Wide Web, and more specifically, the Rosstat databases on their official website. You can use them for free, all functions are available even without registration.
You can do it easier and send an official request to the site administration. They simply owe you an answer, though not the fact that this will happen quickly.
The information obtained in this way is quite reliable, because the data is taken from the original source. Similarly, you can search the FSS sites or official portals of the local municipality.
Quick and easy, but no guarantees
The easiest way is to get any accounting document of the organization you are interested in. That's where the OKPO code will be indicated. 
If you didn’t find such a cipher, you should think carefully before working with this company, most likely, you are a one-day company. The OKPO code is usually located in the right corner of any document, and this code can sometimes be found in the press of the organization.
The Internet will help us
Now let's talk about how to find out OKPO organizations by TIN. This is not difficult to do, especially for those who know how to search for information on the Web.
Having visited the official site of the Federal Tax Service, in a special window we enter the TIN of the required organization. Thus you can find out the official address of the company you are interested in. Then it remains only to call the local branch of the Federal Tax Service (or contact in person) and find out the OKPO code of the object registered at this address.
You can also find out the OKPO code by TIN organization on another Internet resource - “Incorporated.com”. True, here you have to pay for the information. This can be done via SMS, Sberbank of the Russian Federation or online payment. After payment you will receive an extract, the validity of which is 30 days.
Another site where you can get information about OKPO organizations by TIN is Skrin.ru. 
In the header of the site you can find sections related to legal entities, as well as individual entrepreneurs. Going to the appropriate section, we will see a rather large questionnaire (request form). There is no need to fill in all the fields; you can enter only the data that you know, for example, TIN. We press the button “Find” and we see the result - the name of the required company. After registration, you can go to the next page by clicking directly on the name of the company. It is there that the OKPO code of the desired company is discovered.
Is it possible vice versa
If obtaining information about the OKPO of the enterprise, knowing its individual tax number, is quite simple, then performing the reverse operation is sometimes problematic. Why it happens?
The fact is that the individual tax payer number is therefore called that it exists in a single copy and is unique to each business entity. The OKPO code, however, depends on the type of activity of the company, so it can be repeated for two, three, and even much more organizations. Although it’s forbidden by the rules, such incidents sometimes do happen. This can happen if one of the enterprises with the same code was liquidated more than five years ago, and the data about it somehow remained in the registry (the notorious human factor). That is why it can be argued that finding an organization for OKPO without any additional data will often be difficult.
Nevertheless, it is still worth a try. To do this, you can use, for example, the OKPO.ru website, there even exists a corresponding section for this. In addition, there are other services that provide a similar service.
The paper version of the OKPO handbooks most likely does not exist. The fact is that new business codes appear so often that the updated edition would have to be published daily, so Internet resources in this case are ideal.
