We help you incorporate a Limited Liability Company in the Marshall Islands

No. The formation papers are signed by one authorised person on your instruction, and the LLC agreement is signed by the members wherever they happen to be. Nothing is executed in the republic at any stage. Once the LLC exists, meetings may be held anywhere or replaced by written or electronic consent, and the books may be kept in any country. The original paperwork is couriered to any address in the world.

Everything the LLC needs for its first year. The Basic package at US$999 carries the government filing fee and the first annual fee, the formation papers and a standard LLC agreement written for your members, the registered agent and registered office for year one, the records of members, managers and beneficial owners, an electronic copy of the filed Certificate of Formation and courier delivery of the kit. Premium at US$1,599 adds the original filed papers and the authenticated copies. An LLC issues no shares, so there is no capital charge.

Yes. Every package includes assistance with opening an Airwallex multi-currency account, which gives the LLC a way to send and receive payments from the start. For a traditional bank, our team advises on which banks are open to a Marshall Islands LLC doing your kind of business, prepares the application with the members and coordinates each step. Whether an account is opened is the bank's decision, and we say so before anyone applies.

Three dated duties, all counted from the anniversary of the day the formation papers were filed: the annual government fee, the annual records attestation and the economic substance declaration. They sit among twelve duties in total, and our annual engagement from year two, US$999 a year, carries eleven of them, including the agent, the office and the upkeep of the records. The twelfth is yours: accounting records and minutes, kept for five years, plus an answer when we ask how the LLC spent its year.

Yes to both. Moving an LLC you already own to us costs US$350, then US$999 a year. Marshall Islands law fixes the registered agent for every non-resident LLC, so the entity does not move: it keeps its name, its number and its anniversary, and only who prepares its filings changes. To end an LLC, dissolution is approved the way the agreement says, or by written consent of the members, and the formation papers are then cancelled. We prepare the consents, settle what is outstanding and manage that on your behalf.

Not directly. Marshall Islands law appoints one trust company as the registered agent of every LLC without a place of business in the republic, and the formation papers must name it, so every formation passes through that company. What we add is what matters: advice on whether an LLC or a corporation fits your plan, an LLC agreement drafted to your deal, management of the whole process on your behalf, and a team that stays with the LLC afterwards. We are an independent corporate services provider, not a government body.

No. Expanship is a privately owned company. We are not a government agency, department, registry or regulator, and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands or the Registrar of Corporations. We advise you, prepare and coordinate your paperwork, and handle the incorporation on your behalf. Whether a company is approved, and when, is decided by those authorities alone.

Our own work: advice on the right structure, due diligence on every member, preparing and coordinating the incorporation paperwork, handling the incorporation on your behalf, and the first year of registered agent and registered office. The government fees are set by the Marshall Islands authorities, not by us, and are passed on at cost inside the package price.

One member, resident anywhere in the world and of any nationality, with no maximum. The member may be a person, a company, a partnership or a trust. No manager is needed at all: unless the LLC agreement says otherwise, the members run the LLC themselves, voting by their share of the profits with more than half carrying the day. Where managers are appointed, they need not be members and may live anywhere. Neither members nor managers reach any public file in the Marshall Islands.

Yes. A company, a partnership or a trust may be a member of a Marshall Islands LLC, and a company may be its manager. That is how a fund sits above a vessel owning LLC. In every case the people who ultimately own or control more than 25 per cent of the interests or voting rights are identified before formation, looked through each layer until a person is reached. If no one crosses that line, whoever controls the LLC through its management is recorded instead.

However the LLC agreement says. There are no shares and no minimum contribution. Each member puts in cash, property, services or a promise of them, at an agreed value written in the LLC's own records and in any currency. Profit, loss and distributions then follow the agreement, which may create classes of member with different rights or give one member a preferred return. Only where the agreement is silent does Marshall Islands law fall back on the agreed value of each member's contributions.

Neither. Unlike the Marshall Islands corporation, an LLC needs no secretary and no officers of any kind. The registered address stated in the formation papers is the registered agent's own office on Majuro, and it comes with the agent in every package, so the LLC leases nothing and employs no one in the islands. Meetings may be held anywhere or replaced by written consent, and the accounting records may be kept in any country, ready to be produced on demand.

One non-resident LLC whose agreement divides it into series. Each series may hold its own assets, have its own members and its own manager, and pursue its own business purpose. Where separate records are kept for each series and the formation papers carry notice of the arrangement, a debt of one series is enforceable against that series alone, not against the LLC as a whole or any other series. It is the shape a fleet takes when the owner wants each hull walled off but one entity rather than five.