Alongside a variety of benefit you are entitled from business-friendly systems in offshore jurisdictions, such as tax advantages, asset protection, minimal annual reporting, high level of confidentiality and many more, ease of incorporation is among the key driving forces that make up the dominance of offshore company.

Offshore company incorporation process is very straightforward and easy. Albeit the possible difference in requirements from specific offshore jurisdiction, you can enfold the process with 4 fundamental steps as followings:

Step 1: Decide which jurisdiction best suits your needs

Due to the fact that there are so many choices, you often get in a muddle over which offshore jurisdictions are well-matched for your company. Since each offshore financial centre carries its own set of advantages, you are advised to come to the final decision after many parameters have been taken into consideration. Below are several basic factors that you should closely examine for your best jurisdiction:

- Jurisdiction reputation

- Taxation

- Compliance requirements

- Company structure

- Business review - i.e. business activities and location of clients and suppliers

- Residency situation

- Banking needs

There are a diversity of modern offshore jurisdictions that may be of your interest. Here we suggest some of most widely chosen jurisdictions for doing business that you can take into account:

Belize, British Virgin Island (BVI), Panama, Seychelles, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong and Singapore

Step 2: Decide on company name

Below are some of naming requirements for an offshore company formation that you need to know:

Some countries do not allow certain words being included as part of a company name - i.e, Bank, Assurance, Insurance, Royal, University, Trust, Building Society, Cooperative, Foundation, Casino, Fund, Securities, Pharmacy and so one. Note that prohibited words on the company name can be different in each offshore jurisdiction.  

When it comes to limited liability company name, it is a must to include a suffix at the end of the name. These wordings are “Limited”, “LTD.”, “Corporation”, “Corp.”, “Incorporated”, “Inc.”, “LLC”“Société Anonyme”, “S.A.”, “Gmb”,“Namloze Vennootschap”, “Berhad” etc. Both full word or its simplified version (abbreviations) are acceptable.

In addition, your proposed company name would be rejected if it is the same as any registered company name. Therefore, you should check with the Company Registry of the offshore jurisdiction to see whether those names are available for incorporation or not.

Step 3: Fulfil due diligence requirements

Fortunately, offshore company generally has fewer requirement than other companies. One thing that is equally important for your offshore company setup is to fulfil due diligence requirements, aka KYC process, including:

- A certified copy of your passport

- An original or certified copy of a document for residential address confirmation

- Details of the company’s business activities

If a corporate body is going to be the company’s shareholder, additional documents would be requested as follows:

- Certified copy of the Certificate of Incorporation or equivalent

- Certified copy Memorandum of Association

- Certified copy Registers of Directors and Members

Step 4: Submit documents

Once you have collected sufficient documents as requested, what to do is submit them to the Company Registry of your chosen jurisdiction to initiate the offshore company incorporation.

You can find BBCIncorp for this service or click here: offshore company formation service.