Directors and company secretaries in ASIC data

A company director is a person appointed to manage the business of an Australian company, and a company secretary is the officer responsible for its administrative and reporting obligations. Both must be notified to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) within 28 days of appointment or cessation, so the ASIC register is the authoritative public record of who is on the board of any company registered under the Corporations Act 2001. Searching a company by ACN and reading its director list is the most common reason people order a company extract, and checking one person's directorships across many companies is the most common reason people order a person extract.

The four management roles

Director (DR). Section 201A of the Corporations Act requires a proprietary company to have at least one director who ordinarily resides in Australia, and a public company to have at least three, two of whom ordinarily reside in Australia. Directors owe the statutory duties in sections 180 to 184 (care and diligence, good faith, proper use of position and information) and are the people ASIC pursues when a company trades while insolvent.

Alternate director (LD). Section 201K allows a director, with the other directors' approval, to appoint an alternate to exercise some or all of their powers for a specified period. ASIC records the alternate as a separate office holder with their own appointment and cessation dates, so an alternate appears in the list alongside the director they stand in for.

Secretary (SR). Section 204A requires a public company to have at least one secretary who ordinarily resides in Australia. For proprietary companies a secretary is optional; when none is appointed the directors carry the secretary's responsibilities under section 188. Many small companies therefore have no SR record at all, and ASIC's printed extract notes that "Appointment of secretary is optional."

Previous executive officer (EO). Older company law required companies to notify their principal executive officer. ASIC still holds those records for companies registered before the requirement was removed, and they appear as ceased EO office holders in historical extracts.

What ASIC records

Appointment and cessation notifications

Two ASIC forms create almost every director and secretary record. Form 484, Change to company details, is lodged by the company to notify an appointment, a cessation, or a change to an officer's name or address. Its sub-form 484B covers officeholder changes. Form 370, Notification of resignation or retirement of officeholder, is different: it is lodged by the officeholder personally, usually when they have resigned and want the register updated whether or not the company cooperates. When you see a Form 370 as the source document on a ceased director record, the director rather than the company notified ASIC.

Two edge cases matter for compliance work. A director's cessation may be recorded with an effective date earlier than the date ASIC received the form; the API exposes both on the source document via effectiveAt and receivedAt. And a cessation can also result from a court order, an ASIC disqualification or the person's death or bankruptcy, in which case the cessationDocuments array and the court object carry the supporting documents.

Directors are identified by name and birth details

ASIC does not publish a director identification number in extracts. A director is identified by their name plus their date and place of birth. Where ASIC holds no birth details for a name, records belonging to several different people can be merged under one entry, and ASIC's printed person extract carries this notice under the name:

Note: This information may relate to more than one person. Where birth details are not recorded for persons with the same name, their information may be displayed under a single name entry.

The API exposes the same condition as birth.date being null. Treat a person record without birth details as a possible composite and confirm identity from the address and the companies involved before relying on it.

Verifying a director across companies

Charities and the ACNC notice

Companies registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) report changes to their responsible persons to the ACNC rather than to ASIC, so ASIC's director list for a charity may be stale. When a person is a director of a registered charity, the company summary on their role has registeredCharity: true and ASIC requires this text to be shown:

This company is registered as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC). To find out if the person is a current director of this company, search the company on the Charities register at www.acnc.gov.au.

Example records

A director from the company side, read from a purchased historical company extract by GET /v1/companies/{id}/officeholders:

{
  "object": "officeholder",
  "role": { "code": "DR", "label": "Director" },
  "status": { "code": "E", "label": "Ceased/Former" },
  "appointedAt": "2009-06-15",
  "ceasedAt": "2023-11-30",
  "party": {
    "type": "person",
    "person": { "familyName": "NGUYEN", "givenNames": ["DAVID", "MINH"], "formatted": "DAVID MINH NGUYEN" },
    "birth": { "date": "1968-09-21", "locality": "SYDNEY", "stateOrCountry": "NSW" },
    "organisation": null
  },
  "address": { "careOf": null, "line1": null, "street": "8 HARBOUR VIEW ROAD", "locality": "MOSMAN", "state": "NSW", "postcode": "2088", "country": "AUSTRALIA" },
  "sourceDocument": { "documentNumber": "7E8812345", "qualifier": null },
  "cessationDocuments": [
    { "documentNumber": "7E8812345", "receivedAt": "2023-12-04", "formCode": "370", "pageCount": 2, "description": null }
  ],
  "court": null
}

The same person from the people side, read from a purchased person extract by GET /v1/people/{personId}/roles:

{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    {
      "object": "role",
      "role": { "code": "DR", "label": "Director" },
      "status": { "code": "C", "label": "Current" },
      "appointedAt": "2018-03-01",
      "ceasedAt": null,
      "company": {
        "acn": "004249987",
        "formatted": "004 249 987",
        "numberType": { "code": "ACN", "label": "Australian Company Number" },
        "name": "HARBOUR LOGISTICS PTY LTD",
        "type": { "code": "APTY", "label": "Australian Proprietary Company" },
        "status": { "code": "REGD", "label": "Registered" },
        "abn": "27004249987",
        "registeredCharity": false
      },
      "address": { "careOf": null, "line1": null, "street": "8 HARBOUR VIEW ROAD", "locality": "MOSMAN", "state": "NSW", "postcode": "2088", "country": "AUSTRALIA" },
      "sourceDocument": { "documentNumber": "7E2201987", "qualifier": null }
    },
    {
      "object": "role",
      "role": { "code": "DR", "label": "Director" },
      "status": { "code": "E", "label": "Ceased/Former" },
      "appointedAt": "2009-06-15",
      "ceasedAt": "2023-11-30",
      "company": {
        "acn": "004085616",
        "formatted": "004 085 616",
        "numberType": { "code": "ACN", "label": "Australian Company Number" },
        "name": "ACME WIDGETS PTY LTD",
        "type": { "code": "APTY", "label": "Australian Proprietary Company" },
        "status": { "code": "REGD", "label": "Registered" },
        "abn": "53004085616",
        "registeredCharity": false
      },
      "address": { "careOf": null, "line1": null, "street": "8 HARBOUR VIEW ROAD", "locality": "MOSMAN", "state": "NSW", "postcode": "2088", "country": "AUSTRALIA" },
      "sourceDocument": { "documentNumber": "7E8812345", "qualifier": null }
    }
  ],
  "hasMore": false,
  "nextCursor": null,
  "totalCount": null,
  "extract": { "id": "ext_01J9A2M3H5P9Q7", "type": "historical", "purchasedAt": "2026-09-04T01:40:12Z", "asOf": "2026-09-04T01:40:09Z" },
  "meta": { "billable": false, "product": null, "requestId": "req_01J9A2M4K7Q0N3" }
}