Every formation agent's website says the same four things: fast, compliant, trusted, expert. None of it is checkable, and the filing itself is identical whoever does it. So the choice comes down to signals the marketing does not control. We priced sixty-three agents across nine jurisdictions, and the ones worth paying gave themselves away in the same handful of ways.
Check these three things first
Before the detail, a triage that takes about four minutes and eliminates most of the field.
- Is the renewal fee on the website? Not the formation fee. The renewal. If it is absent, you are looking at a pricing model that depends on you not asking.
- Does a price appear before a contact form? A published figure, even a range, means the quote is not being set after they have measured how much you understand.
- Do they say who files? Many agents place the work with a licensed firm in the jurisdiction. That is fine. Not saying so is not.
An agent that clears all three is not necessarily good. An agent that fails all three is reliably not worth your time.
Red flag 1: the renewal fee is nowhere on the site
This is the most reliable single signal we found.
The formation fee is a one-off. The renewal is what you pay every year for as long as the company exists, and it is the number that decides the actual cost of ownership. An agent who publishes one and not the other has made a decision about which number you should compare on.
The gap is not small. On our Delaware list, registered agent renewals run from $50 to $299 a year for a service nobody can differentiate. Across five years that is around $1,250 on identical statutory work. On Seychelles, one agent charges $850 to incorporate and $850 to renew, while another charges $950 and renews at $1,650.
Red flag 2: the year-one price is a promotional rate
Related but distinct, and it is endemic across the registered agent market.
The pattern is a discounted or free first year followed by a materially higher renewal disclosed only in the terms. Publicly documented examples include ZenBusiness at $99 rising to $199, LegalZoom at $249 rising to $299 and Harbor Compliance at $99 rising to $149. Northwest, by contrast, charges a flat $125 and says so.
None of that is dishonest. It is a pricing model that rewards the reader who checks year two and penalises the one who does not.
Red flag 3: the price only appears after a form
There is a difference between complex pricing and hidden pricing.
Complex pricing looks like Dubai, where the licence genuinely depends on which of forty-odd free zones you pick, how many visas you need and what activity you are licensed for. Even there, the better agents publish a floor price and a realistic band.
Hidden pricing is a contact form where a number should be. It exists because the quote is set after the agent knows how much you understand, and because the business model depends on upselling visas, PRO services and bank introductions once you are committed rather than while you are comparing.
Red flag 4: mandatory extras at checkout
A headline price that cannot actually be bought.
The tell is a very low advertised figure that becomes impossible to complete without adding a document pack, a digital access fee or an address service. By the time the cart is valid the price is mid-market, and you have spent twenty minutes discovering it.
Test it by taking the cheapest option all the way to the final screen without adding anything. If that is not possible, the advertised price was not real.
Red flag 5: the same site sells ninety-nine jurisdictions
Breadth is not automatically bad. Some multi-jurisdiction platforms are the cheapest way to get a straightforward company filed, and if you are genuinely comparing Seychelles against Belize against Panama, a wide network is useful.
What breadth does mean is that nobody at that company is a specialist in yours. A firm covering ninety-nine jurisdictions is organised around volume, and the person answering your email is reading from the same script for all of them.
The tell is what happens when you ask a jurisdiction-specific question. Ask a Hong Kong specialist about the audit requirement and you will get a number. Ask a ninety-nine-jurisdiction platform and you will get a paragraph about how Hong Kong is a leading international business hub.
Red flag 6: they cannot tell you who actually files
Many agents do not do the filing themselves. They place it with a licensed firm in the jurisdiction and add a margin.
That is a legitimate business, and sometimes the intermediary genuinely adds value in language, timezone or handholding. But you should know it is happening, because it changes who you are talking to when a deadline slips or a document is rejected.
It is easy to check. Air Corporate, which appears on both our Seychelles and BVI lists, is a Hong Kong company registered as a Trust and Company Service Provider there under TC008778. It is an excellent Hong Kong agent. For a Seychelles filing it is placing the work with somebody on the island. Neither fact is hidden, and neither should be a surprise on your invoice.
Red flag 7: the tax claims are out of date
This is the fastest way to date an agent's expertise, because the rates moved recently and a lot of sites have not been touched since.
Cyprus raised corporate income tax from 12.5% to 15% with effect from 1 January 2026. The UAE now charges federal corporate tax at 9% on taxable profits above AED 375,000, with a qualifying free zone regime that has real conditions attached rather than being automatic. Estonia's minimum share capital of €2,500 was abolished in February 2023, and its distribution rate is 22%. Delaware's annual LLC tax is $400, not the $300 still widely quoted.
Any Cyprus firm still leading with 12.5%, or any Dubai agent still selling "0% tax, no questions", has not revisited its own material in a long time. That is a reasonable proxy for how current the rest of their advice is.
Red flag 8: nobody mentions the bank account
Formation is the easy part. The bank account is where offshore structures actually fail, and an agent who treats it as a footnote has not been through it with many clients recently.
Correspondent banks have largely withdrawn from several jurisdictions. None of the agents we looked at issue accounts themselves. What they sell is the quality of the application they prepare and the strength of their introductions, which varies enormously and is worth more than a few hundred dollars on the formation fee.
The agents that price bank account assistance as a defined deliverable, rather than mentioning it in passing, are the ones who have done it often enough to know what it costs them.
Red flag 9: they never ask for your identity documents
The one that should end the conversation immediately.
Every jurisdiction we cover requires customer due diligence. An agent who will incorporate a company for you without verifying who you are is either not performing the checks they are obliged to perform, or is not the entity actually filing. Neither is a supplier you want holding your company's statutory record.
Being asked for a passport and a proof of address is a good sign, not friction.
How the agents we priced actually score
Sixty-three agents across nine jurisdictions, scored against the flags above.
| Jurisdiction | Publishes formation fee | Publishes renewal | Says who files |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delaware | All | Most | Not applicable |
| Estonia | All | Most, as monthly tiers | Yes |
| Seychelles | Most | About half | Rarely |
| Hong Kong | Most | One only | Mostly |
| Singapore | Most | Nominee often separate | Yes |
| Cyprus | Some, as ranges | Some | Law firms, so yes |
| BVI | A minority | A minority | Yes |
| Georgia | Top two only | Top two only | Yes |
| Dubai | A minority | Almost none | No |
The pattern is consistent, and it is not what people assume. Transparency tracks how commoditised a market is, not how reputable its firms are. The BVI's private quoting is a trust company convention rather than evasion, and those firms are substantial. Dubai's opacity is a commission structure.
The four questions to ask before you pay
Send these in one email, to every agent on your shortlist, and compare the replies rather than the websites.
- What is the total first-year cost, and what is the annual renewal? Both figures, in the same message. This alone eliminates most of the field.
- What does the quote exclude? The recurring omissions are the certificate of good standing, the apostille, the courier, the beneficial ownership filing, and in Dubai the visas.
- Do you file this yourself? And if not, who does.
- What happens if the company is struck off, and what does restoration cost? A dull question that separates the field quickly, because only the people who have handled it have an answer ready.
How fast an agent answers, and whether the answer contains numbers or a request for a call, tells you more than any testimonial on their homepage.
What a good answer looks like
The agents that came out well in our research were not the cheapest or the biggest. They were the ones whose pricing survived contact with a follow-up question.
Harvard Business Services publishes the full annual cost of owning a Delaware LLC, including the $400 state franchise tax alongside its own $50 agent fee, and guarantees that $50 for the life of the company. Fidelity Corporate Services publishes a fee table with the second-year renewal beside every package. Neither is doing anything clever. They are answering the question before it is asked, which in this market is rare enough to be a differentiator.
Key takeaways
- Triage in four minutes: is the renewal published, is there a price before a form, do they say who files.
- The renewal fee is the single most useful signal. Published Delaware renewals run $50 to $299 for identical statutory service.
- A free or discounted first year is a pricing model, not a saving. Check year two before comparing anything.
- Ask whether the agent files directly or places the work locally. Either answer is fine; evasion is not.
- Out-of-date tax claims date the whole website. Cyprus is 15%, the UAE charges 9% above AED 375,000, Delaware's LLC tax is $400.
- An agent that never asks for identity documents should end the conversation.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a formation agent and a registered agent?
A formation agent handles the incorporation. A registered agent is a statutory role, required in jurisdictions like Delaware and the BVI, providing an official address to receive legal documents. Most formation agents provide both, and the registered agent function is the one you keep paying for annually.
Is a cheaper agent worse?
Not necessarily, and on Delaware the cheapest agent by five-year cost is also one of the oldest and most established. What matters is whether the low price is real or is recovered at renewal. Compare three-year totals, not entry prices.
Should I use an agent in the jurisdiction or one in my own country?
An agent in the jurisdiction generally knows more and charges less, because there is no intermediary margin. An agent closer to you may be easier to reach and work in your language. The arrangement to avoid is paying local-firm prices for an intermediary's service.
How do I know if an agent is just reselling?
Ask them directly whether they file the documents themselves. You can also look at where the company is actually based versus where it sells: a Hong Kong company selling Seychelles incorporations is placing that work with somebody else, which is fine as long as you know.
Why does an agent need my passport?
Because every jurisdiction we cover requires customer due diligence before a company can be formed. An agent who does not ask is either skipping obligations or is not the entity actually filing. Treat the request as reassurance.
What should company formation actually cost?
It depends entirely on the jurisdiction, from about $110 in state fees in Delaware to €1,500 or more in professional fees in Cyprus. The government's share is published everywhere and the agent's share is not, which is why separating the two is the first thing to do with any quote.
Do I need an agent at all?
In some jurisdictions, no. In others it is a legal requirement: a BVI company can only be incorporated through a licensed registered agent, and Seychelles works the same way. In Estonia or Delaware you can technically file yourself, though the practical obstacles for a non-resident, particularly the EIN in the US, usually make an agent worth the fee.
How long should incorporation take?
One to three business days in Seychelles, three to five in Georgia, under a week in most of the jurisdictions we cover. If an agent quotes weeks without explaining why, ask what the delay is. Usually it is document collection at their end rather than the registry.
Can I change agents later?
Yes, in every jurisdiction we cover, and it is a routine process rather than a difficult one. That makes a cheap first year with an expensive renewal a genuine option, provided you actually switch. Most people do not, which is what the pricing model relies on.
What is the most common expensive mistake?
Missing an annual fee and being struck off. Restoration costs considerably more than the fee that was missed, and during the struck-off period the company cannot lawfully trade or deal with its assets. A good agent chases you about this; a cheap one sends one email.
