List (.pdf)
Territory area - 430 sq. km.
Population - 18,738 (July 2002)
Capital - Grand Turk
Official language - English
Legislation is based on British common law.
Political system - the islands are a British colonial territory
Currency - US dollar
Company law
Companies Ordinance 2017.
Company type
Exempted Company - exempt company, hereinafter - the company.
Permitted activities
Any activity not prohibited by law. A special licence is required for banking, insurance and reinsurance, and trust services.
Prohibited activities
Companies incorporated under the International Business Companies Act are prohibited from conducting commercial activities with residents and owning real estate in the territory. It is also prohibited to engage resident companies for administrative management and to provide registered agent services for resident companies.
Registration time
48 hours from the time all required documents are provided.
Possibility to purchase ready-made companies
The law does not prohibit purchase of already registered companies.
Company name
Must not be identical or similar to names already existing and registered.
Company names may be registered in any language (with a mandatory translation into English).
The words "Limited", "Corporation", "Incorporated", "Societe Anonyme" or "Sociedad Anomina", “Public Limited Company”, “Societe”, “a Responsabilite Limitee”, “Berhad”, “Proprietary”, “Namloze Venootschap”, “Besloten Venootschap”, “Aktiengesellschaft” or “Limited Life Company”, or the abbreviations "Ltd", "Corp", "Inc", "S.A." “PLC”, “S.A.R.L”, “Bhd”, “Pty”, “NV”, “BV”, “A.G.” or “LLC”, will form part of the name of each company.
Documents required for registration
Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association.
Registered address
Provided by the registered agent and must be located within the administrative territory of the jurisdiction. It is used only for receiving postal correspondence from government authorities.
Company share capital
The company's authorised capital is declared; there are no requirements for mandatory payment or establishment of a minimum or maximum amount. For the issue of bearer shares, the law requires full payment of the authorised capital.
Proposed authorized capital
USD 1,000, divided into 1,000 shares with a par value of USD 1.
Shares
Registered shares and bearer shares may be issued, with or without par value, stated in any currency.
Shareholders
Shareholders of the company may be legal entities or individuals resident in any country of the world. The minimum number of shareholders is one.
Directors
Directors of the company may be legal entities or individuals resident in any country of the world. The minimum number is one director, vested with all powers except those within the exclusive competence of shareholders (determined by the memorandum, articles of the company and/or law).
Shareholder/director meetings
Meetings may be held in any country of the world; meetings by telephone are also possible. Minutes of meetings may be kept at any address specified by the shareholders of the company in the incorporation documents.
Information available on request by third parties
Confidentiality of owners and directors is guaranteed by law. Information from the incorporation documents, copies of which are kept in the companies register, may be provided to third parties only after an appropriate court decision made on the basis of evidence submitted regarding the company’s involvement in illegal sales of drugs or weapons, support of terrorist activities, or laundering of illegal proceeds obtained from criminal activity.
Documents kept at the registration office
The place of storage of incorporation and financial documents may be any country of the world.
Taxation
The company is exempt from taxes on profits, distributed dividends and capital gains for 20 years.
Company bank accounts
The law does not restrict the company in its choice of banks or the countries where they are located, or the total number of accounts required for its own business needs. The law protects the confidentiality of information about the company's banking operations.
Double taxation avoidance agreements
No conventions or agreements have been concluded.