Where to incorporate, and what it really costs

Most 0% claims are either out of date or describe the company while ignoring you. Here is what is genuinely zero, and what it does not save you from.

Every comparison of these three argues about fees. The only question that decides it is whether they will onboard your company at all.

A Seychelles IBC runs about $1,250 a year and a BVI company about $1,800. The difference is not the paperwork. It is who will open an account for it.

We priced sixty-three formation agents across nine jurisdictions. The ones worth paying gave themselves away in the same nine ways.

Hong Kong wins on the setup fee and loses on the audit. We priced both across three years instead of one, and the answer changes twice.

The formation fee is the one number you are shown before you pay. These are the nine that arrive afterwards, and the one that can cost you the company.

Georgia's 1% is the lowest legitimate rate on this site and it is not a company rate. Estonia charges nothing until the money leaves. Both facts have edges.

Cyprus raised corporate tax to 15% in January and lost the number it had been sold on for a decade. Estonia still charges nothing until you take money out.

These two get pitched to the same person and solve completely different problems. One is a place to live. The other is a place to invoice from.

The rule is simpler than the sales pitch. If your customers are outside the UAE, free zone. If they are inside it, mainland. Everything else is detail.

Wyoming is cheaper every single year and most non-residents should probably use it. The privacy gap is smaller than advertised, and the filings that can actually cost you money are federal.

Offshore privacy ended around 2017 and a lot of marketing has not noticed. Here is what actually gets reported, by whom, and to whom.

The government's share of your bill is published everywhere. The agent's share is not. Here is what nine jurisdictions actually cost in year one and year three.

Georgia registers a company for roughly $37. Delaware for $110. But the cheapest entry price and the cheapest three-year cost are different answers.

Treaty-routing holdings and pure ownership vehicles need opposite things. Most advice conflates them, which is why most of it recommends the wrong country.

Every guide to this question is written by someone selling a licence. Start instead with whether you need one, because most crypto companies do not.

Ecommerce is the one case where the tax-optimal jurisdiction is usually the wrong answer. Your marketplace and your VAT obligations decide it instead.

Most advice here is written for companies with staff and investors. A one-person consultancy has different problems, and the cheapest rate on this site is closed to half the people who get told to use it.

Every provider runs two tests: what your company is, and where you live. Clearing one does nothing for the other, and both are decided before you incorporate.

The company takes three days. The bank account takes three months and is the reason most Seychelles structures quietly stop being used.