Seychelles Seychelles The Seychelles IBC is the international business company of Seychelles, and among the most affordable we set up and look after. Our specialists advise on how yours should be built, then guide the Seychelles IBC incorporation from first call to finished company.
Requirements
To form an IBC in Seychelles, nine items have to be in place. We supply two as part of the package, one is optional, and you decide the other six with our help.
One director is enough and there is no upper limit. A director may live anywhere and may be a company rather than a person. The Register of Directors goes to the authorities, who hold it back from public inspection.
The people who ultimately own or control the IBC are traced through every corporate layer until a person is reached. Their details sit on a register held by the registered agent and are entered on the beneficial ownership database, which is closed to the public.
No secretary or other officer is required, and a common seal is optional rather than required. The directors may appoint a president, a treasurer or a secretary by resolution when a counterparty expects the title.
Seychelles sets no minimum capital and no minimum paid up amount. Most companies are set up with an authorised capital of US$100,000, the usual band, in any currency, with or without par value, in one class or several.
Every IBC must have a registered agent in Seychelles at all times, and the agent is its channel to the authorities. It keeps the registers the law requires and is the address the authorities write to. It comes with every package.
The company needs an address in Seychelles, and the law fixes it as the agent’s own place of business, so it arrives with the agent and you lease nothing. It is also where the registers and a copy of the accounting records are held.
The name must end in one of the endings the law sets out, and it must not match or too closely resemble a name already taken. We check availability and reserve it before anything is drafted.
The memorandum and articles are the company’s constitution: what it may do, the shares it may issue, how directors are appointed and how the members decide. We draft them, the subscriber signs in front of a witness, and they are lodged for incorporation.
KYC
Our team works with you to put together everything needed from your side and checks it carefully as it arrives, so the whole process runs seamlessly from the first step.
See the full checklistEntity Subtypes
Most owners incorporate their Seychelles IBC as a company limited by shares, and for most plans it is the right choice. The other forms serve narrower uses, such as cells kept apart from one another, a trustee for a family's own trusts, or one with a set life. Select a form to read about it, or ask our experts to recommend one.
Members subscribe capital
The usual form, and the one most owners choose. Members subscribe for shares, the company owns what it owns in its own name, and it answers for its own debts.
Members subscribe capital
Two kinds of member in one company. Shareholders put up capital, guarantee members promise a fixed sum on a winding up, and at least one member has to be a guarantee member.
Members promise a sum instead
There is no share capital at all. Each member promises a fixed sum payable on a winding up, and that promise is the whole of what they can be asked for.
Built on top of a company limited by shares
One company carrying several cells, each with its own assets and its own creditors. What one cell owes cannot be recovered out of another cell, or out of the core.
Built on top of a company limited by shares
A company formed to act as trustee of one family's own trusts. Its memorandum says so, and it carries on no other business.
Built on top of a company limited by shares
A company with an end written into it from the start. The memorandum names the date, or the event, on which it is wound up and dissolved.
Choosing the form is part of what we do. Share what you mean to hold or trade and we will recommend one before anything is drafted.
Activities and Usage
One company, many uses: a Seychelles IBC can hold shares, trade across borders, bill for services or own a yacht. Pick the activity closest to your plan to see how it works, and our experts will take it from there.
Open from the day of incorporation. Nothing to apply for first.
Extra steps come first, in Seychelles or in the country the work is done in. Ask our experts which applies to you.
Off limits for an IBC, whatever it goes on to do.
Holding
An owner with a workshop in one country, a distributor in another and a stake in a third signs three sets of shareholder papers, answers three sets of company law, and negotiates three sales if any of it is ever sold. Putting an IBC above them makes ownership a single thing to hold and a single thing to hand on.
Each business below records the IBC in its own register of members as the holder of its shares.
Income earned outside Seychelles is outside the charge, though a group needs real substance here to hold it.
A buyer takes the IBC's shares, and every business underneath changes hands without its own transfer.
Trading
A trader sourcing in Asia and selling into East Africa or the Gulf does not want the supplier reading the customer's terms, and does not want either country's rules attaching to the whole chain. The contracts move to an IBC standing outside both.
The purchase contract names the IBC, and title passes to it where the goods sit.
The sale is billed by the IBC and paid into its own account, in whichever currency was agreed.
They ship from supplier to customer directly; only the paperwork and the money pass through.
Services
A consultant or a small studio billing clients in a dozen countries is handed a different contract, a different tax form and a different set of bank details by each of them, and is invoicing from wherever the founder happened to be living that year. An IBC gives the work a single counterparty and a single set of terms.
Clients contract with the IBC on its own terms, whoever does the work that month.
The IBC bills and receives the fees, and Seychelles puts nothing in the way of moving them.
The contracts, the client list and the working papers sit inside the company, so the practice sells as shares.
Investment holding
A family holding a brokerage account in one country, fund units in another and an apartment in a third repeats the same identity checks at every institution, and every holding has to be dealt with separately when it passes on. One IBC gathers them all.
The brokerage account, the fund units and the apartment are all held in the company's name, not three family names.
Each institution is given the same corporate pack and the same ownership position rather than a new family tree.
The next generation receives the shares, and nothing underneath is sold, retitled or moved.
Vessel ownership
A yacht carries its flag, its crew contracts, its management agreement and its cover with it, and selling the hull on its own unpicks every one of them. Owning it through a company keeps them attached to the thing being sold.
The yacht is the company's only asset, so nothing else the owner holds is exposed to what happens to it.
The company is the party on every paper the vessel carries, so the owner never changes when the crew does.
The buyer takes the company, so the flag, the crew and the cover carry on without being rewritten.
Cells
An owner running four ventures inside one company has four sets of creditors who can all reach the same pot, and forming four companies means four fees, four agents and four sets of records to keep. Cells put the walls on the inside instead.
Assets are subscribed into a named cell, and shares are issued against that cell rather than the company.
What one cell owes is met out of that cell's assets. Another cell's assets and the core are out of reach.
The cell's shares change hands and the other cells carry on untouched, with nothing re-papered.
Two all-inclusive packages for setting up your Seychelles International Business Company. The government fee, the first year and our specialists' support are in the price, with nothing billed on top.
Enterprise
For structures the two packages above do not describe. Ownership arranged across more than one country, a constitution drafted for the deal instead of from a template, a protected cell company or a private trust company where the plain form will not carry the plan, and one project manager holding the whole build together.
After Year 1
Your first year is covered by the package above. From year two, one fee a year carries the government fee on your anniversary, the registered agent and office, the twice-yearly delivery of your accounting records to Seychelles, that year's financial summary, your beneficial ownership entries, and a reminder before each date.
Pros and cons
Weigh both columns equally: what a Seychelles International Business Company gives you, and what it asks of you every year. Our experts will tell you plainly which side matters more in your case.
In its favour
Seychelles taxes what is earned there. Income from activities, goods and rights abroad sits outside the charge.
Either may be a person or a company, resident anywhere. No local director, no secretary, no staffed office.
Members and beneficial owners are recorded in Seychelles but filed nowhere public, so no paid search reaches them.
No minimum to subscribe, any currency, several classes, and a yearly fee that does not rise with the authorised capital.
The law, the constitution and the registers are all in English, so nothing has to be translated for a bank or a buyer.
To weigh against
An IBC sits outside the country's treaty network, so income from abroad arrives with tax already taken at source.
Accounting records are lodged at the registered office twice a year, and most companies keep a yearly financial summary there.
The government fee, the registered agent and the registered office all fall due on the anniversary in a year with no activity.
Directors and owners are recorded with the authorities and the agent, and account data is exchanged under CRS and FATCA.
Controlled foreign company rules at home can tax the profits as yours, and a large group loses the foreign income relief.
The same company under other flags
Compliance
After incorporation, a Seychelles IBC carries thirteen duties, grouped below by what sets each one off. Our team handles twelve inside the annual engagement and reminds you early about the one that is yours.
Registered agent
A registered agent on the islands, from incorporation to dissolution.
Registered office
An address in Seychelles, which the law fixes as the agent’s own, rather than premises you rent.
Statutory registers
Members, directors and beneficial owners, written up in the week the event happens.
Accounting records
Invoices, contracts, statements and ledgers, kept seven years and good enough to build accounts from.
Annual government fee
One fee a year, due on the anniversary of incorporation rather than on a date shared with everyone else.
Records delivered to Seychelles
Records kept abroad are lodged at the registered office twice a year, covering January to June and July to December.
Annual financial summary
A short statement of the year, prepared from your figures and held in Seychelles. A small company that only holds shares or assets is exempt. It never reaches a public file.
Register of Directors
Appointments, resignations and changes to a director’s details, resolved and then lodged.
Beneficial ownership
The register is updated, then the change is entered on the beneficial ownership database.
Register of Members
Transfers, allotments and cancellations, with any nominee holding named against its nominator.
Amendments to the constitution
A change to the Memorandum or Articles is resolved first, then lodged to take effect.
Name, agent and office changes
All three take effect when the company file is updated, not on the day they were resolved.
Seychelles income notified
Only once income starts arising inside Seychelles. Told to the authorities, and a return follows within the year.
How it runs
Seychelles keeps a strict calendar. So do we.
The accounting records have to reach Seychelles on a schedule, and the fee has its own date. We hold every one of them from incorporation day, prepare each delivery ahead of time, and come to you in good time for the records only you hold.
We hold twelve of them, from incorporation to closure. The only thing we need from you is an answer when we ask for one: the records behind the yearly summary, or a word when something about the company changes.
3 to 7
Business days
From the day your checks clear to the day the company exists.
1 + 1
Shareholder and director
Any nationality, resident anywhere, and they may be the same person.
US$649
Packages from
One figure, quoted upfront, government fee included.
You do not have a company yet
Seychelles IBC formation from wherever you are. Our team runs the checks, reserves the name, drafts the Memorandum and Articles and hands you the register pack.
You already have a Seychelles company
Change the registered agent on an IBC you already own. The name, the number and the history all stay exactly as they were.
Neither of those yet?
Your own tax position, your banking, or whether one of the other forms suits you better. Answered in writing within one business day, at no charge.
Talk to a specialistFAQ
What people ask before they register a Seychelles IBC with us, and what they ask once it is running. For anything not covered here, our specialists reply in writing.
Yes. The whole incorporation is handled at a distance, and nothing has to be signed on the islands. Your passport, address proof and source of funds are reviewed remotely, the sole subscriber to the memorandum may be the registered agent, and the registered agent and office come with the package. After incorporation, the corporate kit goes to you anywhere in the world by express courier.
Everything the company needs to exist and to run for its first year. Basic at US$649 covers the government incorporation fee, the name checks, the memorandum and articles, the registered agent and registered office for year one, the registers of directors, members and beneficial owners, and your digital Certificate of Incorporation. Premium at US$1,299 adds the company seal, the paper original and the attested set banks tend to ask for. The government fee is flat, so a larger authorised capital changes nothing.
Yes. Every package includes support in opening a multi-currency business account with Airwallex, subject to the provider's own checks. For a traditional bank, we advise on which banks are comfortable with this kind of company, prepare the corporate papers the bank will ask for, and answer the questions banks ask when the owner is abroad. The decision to open the account rests with the bank, and we say so from the start.
Thirteen duties follow the company for life, and twelve of them sit with us inside the annual engagement at US$599 a year from year two. That covers the government fee on each anniversary, the delivery of your accounting records to Seychelles twice a year, the annual financial summary, the registered agent and office, and every change to directors, owners or the constitution. Your part is to keep the records behind the accounts and to send them when we ask.
Both. Moving an IBC to us means changing its registered agent, a one-time US$350, and the annual engagement then runs at US$599 a year. Its name, number and history carry over untouched. Once an IBC has done its work, we advise on bringing it to an orderly end, with the fees settled and the records in place, and manage the steps on your behalf under a separate quote.
No. Under Seychelles law only a registered agent on the islands may lodge the incorporation of an IBC, so there is no route that starts with you alone. What a provider adds is the part that saves time and errors: advice on whether an IBC, and which of its six forms, suits your plan, the memorandum and articles prepared for you, the whole process managed on your behalf, and a team that stays with you for every date afterwards.
One director and one shareholder, and they may be the same person. Neither has to live in Seychelles or hold its nationality, and there is no upper limit on either. The first director is appointed within nine months of incorporation, and the register of directors goes to the authorities, who keep it off public inspection. Shareholders sit in a register of members held at the registered office, which is never filed anywhere.
Yes to both. A company may sit on the board and hold the shares, so a parent or a trust structure can sit above it. Behind any corporate holder the beneficial owners are still traced through every layer until a person is reached, anyone at ten percent or more, and recorded on a register held by the registered agent and a database closed to the public. A nominee holding is recorded with the nominator named beside it.
A great deal. Seychelles sets no minimum capital and no minimum paid up amount. Shares may be in any currency, with or without par value, and in one class or several. Most owners choose an authorised capital of US$100,000, and because the yearly government fee is flat, a larger figure costs nothing more. Bearer shares are not allowed, so every holding is a registered one. The IBC also comes in six forms, from limited by shares to a protected cell company.
No secretary, and no office of your own. The law names no required officer, and a common seal is optional. The board may appoint a president, a treasurer or a secretary by resolution when a counterparty expects the title. The law does require a registered office, and it fixes that address as the registered agent's own place of business, so you lease nothing and employ nobody on the islands. Both are included in every package.
Every IBC in Seychelles must keep accounting records good enough to build accounts from, invoices, contracts, statements and ledgers, for seven years. Records kept outside Seychelles must be lodged at the registered office twice a year, one delivery covering January to June and the other July to December. On top of that, most IBCs prepare a short annual financial summary within six months of year end, held at the registered office. None of it reaches a public file, and the deliveries are among the duties we handle for you.
Contact Us
Tell us what you have in mind and our specialists will confirm whether an IBC fits, quote the cost and explain the next step. No obligation.
Articles picked for the questions people ask most when they establish a Seychelles International Business Company.
