Company Registrations – A Simple 3-Step Guide

27.02.2023 by Adrien Marchand

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There are very little to no limits in becoming a successful entrepreneur. Certainly there is no need for higher education, no need for a lot of capital in the beginning or even tons of business experience when setting up a company and becoming successful (whatever this might mean to you). However, earlier or later, you will need your own legal entity, a functioning bank account that fits your business endeavors and often, a business license (crypto, forex, investment, gambling, payment, to name a few), to realize your long term goals.

In order to get your company incorporated, you have a few options:

  1. Do the whole process yourself. This includes understanding what jurisdiction suits your business model best for the beginning as well as in the future (consider the scalability aspect), file the paper work, find employees such as accountants or others, employ those, find a suitable office space and understand industry- and jurisdiction-specific regulatory frameworks.
  2. Have a professional do this for you. The range of what can be done by corporate service providers such as LegalBison is fairly broad. In order not to run into problems with laws on the national and transnational level and find yourself spending a lot of money on the wrong things, better have your company incorporation and prior consultation done by a licensed services provider. For this, you obviously would need to compare which jurisdiction suits you best. We recommend you to do this first by comparing the different jurisdictions on the services part of this website to get a feeling of what questions you should ask yourself, and then speak to a consultant of LegalBison for free.

If you have challenges choosing the best legal framework for your business idea – submit this form and a legal professional will consult you for free.

How to register a company to kick-start your business idea?

In short:

  1. Choose a continent
  2. Decide on a jurisdiction
  3. Register your company and do the document filing

Yes, your goal is the formation of a company in the ideal jurisdiction. But the term ‘ideal’ is quite stretchable in this context. We will assume here you’ve done your research and wrote a business plan, or at least know who your clients are (both, B2B or B2C).

1. Choose a continent

Keep in mind: Your clients do NOT have to be from the same continent in which you set up your company, nor do you have to be based in the same country or continent yourself.

Different continents have different approaches to important topics such as taxation, accounting, licensing requirements and legal systems (Civil Law vs. Common Law). In case of disputes, the last part might be especially relevant. So, do you want your company to be onshore or offshore?

Speak to the professionals of LegalBison to find out what suits you best!

2. Decide on a jurisdiction

Keep in mind: Each jurisdiction has its advantages and disadvantages. Ease of doing business seems to be often one of the more fundamental aspects our clients tend to look at when starting the registration process with us.

Without a doubt, low taxes and benefits are important, but don’t let political stability, economic reputation and the legal framework out of sight. Some jurisdictions tend to create company laws in a way to attract outside investments, make it simple and foreigner friendly, while others have a focus on specific licenses. For example, Curaçao is known for gambling (onshore and offshore), Singapore has comparably simple to obtain licenses for becoming a money broker, and Estonia has a great Cryptocurrency License framework.

If we speak about ‘regular’ companies, another important aspect should be on your radar: What are others doing, and what is the current trend? Why not learn from mistakes of other businessmen who already spend money on setting up a software company in Germany, instead of doing it (for example) in Estonia, which is one of the go-to jurisdictions by digital nomads, eCommerce or online businesses, due to its e-residency program and digital signatures.

If you have no time for research, our experts on company formations are happy to consult you.

3. Register your company

Keep in mind: The process of incorporating a company is normally fairly simple. Read up the requirements on each page describing the jurisdiction, or speak to us directly.

This is the part where our dedicated account manager works with and assists to collect all the needed documents for a smooth company formation. You can be almost sure – in the case of a remote company registration – that you will need to prepare a high resolution coloured copy of your passport (notarized or not depends on your country of citizenship and the jurisdiction to be incorporated in), a proof of your identity in the form of a utility bill, and a ‘Power of Attorney’ (PoA), granting us the right to actually do the process on behalf of you. Your account manager is there to help and answer questions if you are not sure.

This means, no need for you to worry about the frequently asked questions such as “So, how do I register my company in …”, “What documents do I need?”, “How long will it take?”, “Where can I open now a corporate bank account?” or similar. You focus on your business, while we are your legal backbone and do the whole incorporation of your company and services around it for you.

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