On January 1, 2007 the British Virgin Islands Business Companies Act 2004 became the sole Business Companies Act.

The BVI BC Act removed the differences between BVI ‘offshore’ and ‘onshore’ legal entities. The term ‘International Business Company (IBC)’ was replaced by the term ‘Business Company (BC)’.

The Act cancelled restrictions on doing business in the BVI, which existed for BVI IBCs. BVI BC is allowed to conduct business with BVI residents and buy real estate property in the BVI.

On January 1st, 2019 The Economic Substance (Companies and Limited Partnership) Act 2018 (“ES Act”) came into force in the BVI to address tax system concerns of the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Your BVI company name needs to end with one of the following legal endings: Limited, Corporation, Incorporated, Societe Anonyme , Sociedad Anonima or their abbreviations Ltd., Corp., Inc. or S.A.

Company names cannot contain restricted words that the Registry may consider to be misleading. For example: bank, financial, trust, insurance, stock exchange, etc.

A registered office address and registered agent in BVI are mandatory. Our fees include both of these services for the current year of formation.

An individual or legal entity of any country may be a shareholder.

A minimum of one shareholder is required and a minimum of one share for US$1.00 must be issued.

If you need a nominee shareholder , our company provides such services.

Any individual or legal entity of any country may be appointed as a director and officer.

One person may hold all positions, such as director, president, secretary, and treasurer. If you would like to have several directors, we could appoint any number of directors from a minimum of one to a maximum of ten.

If you need nominee director and officers, our company is able to provide such services. However, in most cases it’s preferable to be appointed as a director and officers of your own BVI BC as it simplifies dealing with banks, suppliers, and customers. It also makes the annual renewal fee cheaper.

British Virgin Islands Business Companies Act 2004 has abolished the idea of authorized capital of the company and replaced it with a maximum number of shares, which the company is authorized to issue.

The number of shares a BVI company is authorized to issue affects the government fees and annual fees. Fees listed on our website are for a standard BVI company that is able to issue 50,000 ordinary shares of a single class with a par value of US$1.00 each. If you would like to issue more than 50,000 shares please contact our company to find out what the fees would be.

BVI BC may be authorized to issue shares with or without a par value.

Bearer shares are not available.

Each BVI company must pay an annual renewal fee starting from the second year. Our annual fees are listed in the Fee Schedule.

Directors information is filed with the BVI Registry. However, this information is not available to the public.

Shareholders’ information is not filed with the BVI Registry. However, each registered agent must upload information about beneficial owners of BVI business companies to the Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System (BOSS System). BVI law enforcement is able to search the BOSS System at the request of UK authorities only.

As an extra layer of privacy protection, our company offers Nominee services .

Owners of a BVI company are required to provide the address where accounting records are stored; records may be kept in any country.

Recently, the BVI Business Companies Act has been amended to include filing an annual return/financial statement annually. The filing window for Annual Returns is 9 months (between January 1 and September 30) for the previous financial year of January 1 to December 31.

For entities that fall under the scope of the Economic Substance Act that are not a tax resident in any jurisdiction are required to become tax residents in BVI. Directors of such entities do not have to reside in BVI but an adequate number of meetings of the directors must be held in BVI.

We incorporate BVI BCs in 2 to 3 business days. Preparation of all internal documents takes an additional 5 to 7 business days.

Shelf companies are available immediately. If you require corporate documents to be legalized with Apostille, it takes an additional 1 to 3 business days.

All shelf companies do not have any previous business activity, transactions, and/or owners.

To select a shelf company please view our Shelf Company List .

Our company offers BVI mail forwarding services and other tailored office services.