Anguilla Anguilla Thinking of an Anguilla IBC? Our specialists advise on how your International Business Company in Anguilla should be shaped, then prepare and guide every step of its incorporation, with year one inside the package.
Requirements
Nine things must be in place to set up an Anguilla IBC, and this is who provides each. Two come with our package, one is optional, and the other six are decisions we make with you.
One director is enough for a private company and there is no maximum. Directors may live anywhere in the world, and a director consents in writing before taking office. Where one individual is both the only member and the only director, that director may name a reserve director to step in on their death.
The people who ultimately own or control the company are identified before it is formed, looked through every holding company until a person is reached. Their details are filed by the registered agent on the electronic filing system within fourteen days, and the filing is not on a public search.
Anguilla law does not require a private company to have a secretary, it only encourages one. The directors may appoint a president, a treasurer or a secretary by resolution when a counterparty expects a title, and a director may hold the office as well.
Anguilla sets no minimum capital and no minimum paid up amount. The articles state the greatest number of shares that may be issued, or state that the number is unlimited. Most are set up at 50,000 shares, the band the yearly government fee is priced on.
Every Anguilla company must have a registered agent on the island at all times, and the agent is its channel to the authorities. It holds the registers the law requires and is the address the authorities write to. It comes with every package.
There must be a physical address on the island, where anything served on the company is delivered. In practice it is the office of the registered agent, so it comes with the agent and you lease nothing. Meetings may be held and records kept anywhere in the world.
A limited company’s name must end in Limited, Corporation, Incorporated, Societe Anonyme or Sociedad Anonima, or the short form of one of those. It cannot match or too closely resemble a name already taken in Anguilla. We check availability and reserve it before anything is lodged.
Anguilla does not use a memorandum. The articles name the company, say which of the five kinds it is, name the first registered office and agent, and set the shares it may issue. The by-laws run the inside of it. We draft both, and the articles are what bring it into being.
KYC
From the first call, your specialist lists what is needed from your side, helps you organise it and checks each item on arrival, so the process runs from start to finish without a snag.
See the full checklistEntity Subtypes
Most owners incorporate the first, and for most plans it is the right answer. The rest serve particular needs, from ring-fenced portfolios to a trustee for one family's trusts. Select a form to see what it is for, or let our experts point you to it.
Liability limited
The form almost every Anguilla company takes. Members hold shares, the company stands on its own, and it answers for its own debts rather than theirs.
Liability limited
There is no share capital at all. Each member promises a fixed sum on a winding up, and that promise is the whole of what they can be asked for.
Liability limited
Two kinds of member sitting side by side. Guarantee members promise a sum, shareholders put up capital, and each is answerable only for their own half of that arrangement.
Liability unlimited
Shares are issued, but there is no ceiling on what the members can be called on for. Some home tax systems look straight through this form, which is usually the reason it is chosen.
Liability unlimited
No share capital and no liability shield. There is membership and nothing else, and the members answer for everything the company owes.
Built on a company limited by shares
A company limited by shares whose articles fix the purposes it may pursue. It has to be set up this way on the day it is formed, because the restriction cannot be added later.
Built on a company limited by shares
One company carrying several ring-fenced portfolios. Each portfolio keeps its assets and liabilities apart from every other portfolio and from the company's own, though it remains a single legal person.
Built on a company limited by shares
A company limited by shares formed to act as trustee of one family's own trusts. It takes on no trust work for the public, and it is not paid for what it does beyond its costs.
Still weighing the options? Describe your plan and our experts will tell you which form it should take, before anything is drafted.
Activities and Usage
From holding shares to selling software online, one International Business Company can carry most cross-border work. Pick the activity closest to your plan to see how it works, and leave the rest to our expertise.
Open from day one, with nothing to apply for first.
These lines need extra steps before they start. Tell us the plan and our experts will explain what applies.
Off limits for an IBC, whatever else it goes on to do.
Services
An independent consultant with clients in four countries signs a different form of engagement each time, invoices from whatever address the client's finance team will accept, and carries every job personally. One company takes all of that on and puts a single counterparty on both sides of the work.
Each client contracts with the Anguilla company on its own terms, rather than with the person doing the work.
Fees are billed in its name and paid into its account, in whatever currency the client is able to pay in.
Clients, contracts and the name sit with the company, so the practice changes hands on a share transfer alone.
Digital sales
A product delivered by download has no port, no warehouse and no obvious home. What it does have is a payment processor, an app store and a set of terms of sale, and all three want to know who stands behind the transaction.
The code, the marks and the terms of sale are held by the Anguilla company, and it is the seller named on them.
Stores and processors contract with it directly, and a sale made electronically is not trading on the island.
Customers arrive and leave by the thousand while the product, the terms and the revenue stay in one place.
Trade
A trader has been buying and reselling on personal terms, with the supplier's paperwork in one name, the shipping papers in another and the customer's contract in a third. A company gives both ends of the chain one counterparty to contract with and one to be paid by.
The supplier's order, invoice and shipping papers are all made out to the Anguilla company, not to its owner.
The customer is invoiced in the same name, and the goods ship from the supplier to the customer directly.
Supplier terms and customer accounts sit with the company, so they move with the shares rather than one by one.
Asset holding
A single valuable thing owned in a personal name drags the owner's other affairs along with it: the same estate, the same creditors and the same questions at every border it crosses. Putting it in a company of its own separates the asset from everything else the owner has.
Title passes to the Anguilla company, and every paper about the thing names it as the owner.
Insurance, management, repairs and any borrowing against it are all contracted and paid there too.
The buyer takes the company, so the title, the cover and the arrangements attached to it are never reopened.
Private trust company
A family that settles a trust hands the decisions to a trustee, and the trustee on offer is usually an institution that answers to its own committee, on its own timetable, at whatever remove from the family the institution prefers. A company the family owns can hold the office instead.
It is appointed trustee of the family's own trusts, and it takes on no trust work for anybody outside them.
Directors the family chooses make the trustee's decisions, alongside whichever advisers it wants in the room.
Directors change and shares pass on, and the trustee named in every deed never changes.
Segregated portfolios
Running three ventures through three companies means three of everything to form, maintain and pay for. Running them through one company means a bad year in the first can reach the other two. A segregated portfolio company holds all three under one roof and keeps them apart on the inside.
The company is formed in this shape from the start, and a portfolio is named as each venture needs one.
What a portfolio owns answers for what that portfolio owes, and a creditor of one cannot reach the assets of another.
Shares may be issued for a named portfolio, so a venture is brought in, sold or wound down without touching the rest.
One all-inclusive price to incorporate an Anguilla IBC: government fee, first year and specialist support, with the two packages set side by side so the difference is plain. No hidden charges.
Enterprise
For layered ownership and requirements that fall outside a standard formation. We design and implement the structure and coordinate the entities around it, handled by a dedicated project manager.
After Year 1
Your first year is covered by the package above. From year two, one fee a year carries the government fee, your registered agent and office, that year's annual return and economic substance declaration, the beneficial ownership filing, custody of your records, and a reminder before your anniversary quarter closes.
Pros and cons
Every vehicle has a flip side, so both are set out at equal length: what an Anguilla International Business Company does well, and what it asks of you each year. Our experts will tell you plainly which side weighs more for your plan.
In its favour
Profits, dividends, interest and gains all sit outside the charge. A fixed government fee takes the place of a tax return.
Either may be a person or a company, resident in any country. No local director, no company secretary, no staffed office.
Beneficial owners sit on a register the public cannot search, and members and directors are filed rather than published.
No minimum to subscribe, any currency you choose, several classes, and a share count you may leave unlimited in the articles.
A 2022 reform folded three older company laws into one, so every rule you need now sits in a single book.
To weigh against
Income from abroad arrives with withholding tax already taken at source, and Anguilla has no treaty network to reduce it.
A substance return goes in beside the annual return every year, even where it only confirms that no relevant activity is run.
The government fee, the agent, the office and the annual return fall due in a quiet year, and six years of records are kept.
The authorities hold your members, directors and owners, a legitimate interest can ask to see them, and CRS and FATCA apply.
Controlled foreign company rules at home can tax the profits as yours, and banks ask more of it than of a local one.
Its counterparts under other flags
Compliance
Thirteen duties keep an established Anguilla IBC in good standing, set out below by what triggers each one. All but one are run by our team under your annual engagement, and that one reaches you as a reminder, never as a surprise.
Registered agent
A registered agent on the island, from formation to dissolution. Nothing is lodged except through it.
Registered office
A physical address in Anguilla, provided by the agent rather than rented by you.
Statutory registers
Members, directors, beneficial owners and charges, written up in the week the event happens.
Accounting records
Records and underlying papers kept six years, with the agent told where they are held and within 14 days of any move.
Annual government fee
One fee a year, tendered together with the annual return and set by how many shares may be issued.
Annual return
A declaration that the articles are unchanged and that trading was mainly outside the island.
Economic substance return
Filed with the annual return, saying which relevant activities were carried on and, where one was, how the test was met.
Half-year record copies
Where the books are kept abroad, accounts adequate to show the company’s position reach the registered office twice a year.
Register of Directors
Appointments, resignations and changes to a director’s details, resolved, told to the agent, then filed.
Beneficial ownership
Kept current on the electronic filing system, including a change reached through a company higher up the chain.
Register of Members
Transfers, allotments and cancellations, written up with the instrument behind each movement.
Amendments to the articles
A change to the articles or the by-laws is resolved first, then a notice of it is lodged.
Name, agent and office changes
All three take effect when the registry file is updated, not on the day they were resolved.
How it runs
Your quarter comes round once. We are already holding the date
From the day of formation we know which calendar quarter it answers to, and we prepare the return, the substance filing and the fee against it. You hear from us in good time for anything only you can give us, and from nobody else.
We hold twelve of them, from formation to the day you close it. The only thing we need from you is an answer when we ask for one: the confirmations behind the annual return, or a word when something changes.
3 to 7
Business days
From the day your checks clear to the day of incorporation.
1 + 1
Shareholder and director
Any nationality, resident anywhere, and they may be the same person.
US$1,249
Packages from
Fixed and quoted upfront, with the government fee inside the price.
You do not have a company yet
The International Business Company described on this page, set up from wherever you are. We run the checks, reserve the name, draft the articles and by-laws, and hand you the register pack.
You already have an Anguilla company
Hand us the registered agent role for one you already own. The switch leaves its registration, name and filing record intact and alters nothing else about it.
Neither of those yet?
Your own tax position, your banking, or whether one of the other Anguilla forms suits you better. Answered in writing within one business day, at no charge.
Talk to a specialistFAQ
Plain answers on what Anguilla IBC formation with us involves, and on how it all works afterwards. If your question is missing, our experts will answer it.
No. Nothing in the formation of an Anguilla IBC has to be signed on the island, and the authorities do not ask to meet the director or the shareholder. Identity checks, the director's written consent and the paperwork are all handled from wherever you live, and the corporate kit reaches you by courier. Meetings of the board and the members may be held anywhere in the world afterwards, and the records may be kept anywhere too.
Basic, at US$1,249, covers formation and a full first year of running: the government fee, name checks and reservation, the articles and by-laws, the registered agent and office for year one, the statutory registers, your digital Certificate of Incorporation and courier delivery of the kit. Premium, at US$2,399, adds the company seal, the original incorporation paper, incumbency and good standing confirmations and authentication of one full set. Nothing essential is sold on top, and the government fee is quoted on the 50,000 share basis.
Yes. Each package comes with help opening an Airwallex multi-currency business account, which that provider checks on its own terms. Beyond that, we advise on which banks and payment institutions are open to a profile like yours, prepare the application and the papers a bank asks for, and follow it through to the bank's answer. The decision rests with the bank, so we describe the route rather than promise the outcome.
Less than most owners expect. There are thirteen ongoing duties, and twelve of them sit inside your annual engagement with us, from US$1,099 a year: the government fee, the annual return with its substance return, the beneficial ownership filing, the agent, the office and the registers. Three of the dated duties fall on one day, the last day of the calendar quarter you were formed in, and we hold that date. Your part is to keep the accounting records and answer when we ask for the confirmations behind the return.
Yes to both. Moving one to us is a change of registered agent: the registration number, the name and the record built up so far all continue unbroken. The transfer costs US$350, and the yearly engagement after that starts at US$1,099. If the company has served its purpose, we advise on the right way to bring it to an end, prepare the resolutions and paperwork, and manage the process with the authorities on your behalf until it is off the file.
No. Under Anguilla law only the proposed registered agent may apply to form a company, and only the agent may make filings for it afterwards, so there is no route around one. What we add is everything around that rule: advice on whether an IBC and which of its eight forms fits your plan, preparation of the articles and by-laws, management of the whole process on your behalf, and a team that stays on afterwards.
One director and one shareholder, and they may be the same person. Neither has to live in Anguilla or hold any particular nationality, and there is no maximum on either count. A director consents in writing before taking office, and where one individual is both sole member and sole director, that person may name a reserve director to step in on death. Beneficial owners holding more than 25% of shares or votes are identified before formation and filed on a register the public cannot search.
Yes, on both seats. Anguilla allows a corporate director and a corporate shareholder, so a holding company or a management entity can take either role, and one from any country qualifies. Ownership is still traced: the people who ultimately own or control the IBC are identified through every holding company until a natural person is reached, and their details go to the authorities within fourteen days of incorporation. From a corporate director or shareholder we ask for its formation papers, its articles, its registers and a recent company search.
Most of it is yours to decide. Anguilla sets no minimum capital and no minimum paid-up amount, shares may be denominated in any currency, and they may carry a par value or none. Several classes are allowed, so voting, dividend and redemption rights can differ between them. The articles state the greatest number of shares that may be issued or say the number is unlimited. Most stop at 50,000 shares, because the yearly government fee is US$350 up to that count and US$500 above it. Bearer shares are prohibited.
No to both. Anguilla law does not require a private company to have a secretary, it only encourages one, and the directors may appoint a secretary, president or treasurer by resolution when a counterparty expects a title. The company must have a registered office and a registered agent on the island at all times, and both come with every package, so you lease nothing and hire nobody. Your own premises and staff are not required, and board meetings and records can sit anywhere in the world.
In law it is now an Anguilla business company. A 2022 reform folded three older company laws, including the one that created the IBC, into a single statute, and every company formed under it carries that name. The shape buyers know is unchanged: one director, one shareholder, no tax on the island, and articles with by-laws in place of a memorandum. It now comes in five base kinds with three added forms, the allowed name endings were shortened, and bearer shares are ruled out entirely. Most people still call it an IBC, and so do we.
Contact Us
Tell us what you plan to do and where the owners live. Our experts will reply with whether registering an Anguilla IBC suits the plan, what it costs and what comes next, with no obligation.
Articles from our team on the questions that come up most before and after you form an Anguilla IBC.
