I’m a solo-entrepreneur and manage a content marketing business, with a small team of freelancers and virtual assistants across the world Love the freedom it gives me!
I’m not a nomad (yet) but I was considering incorporating a company in Jersey and using a digital bank like Revolut/N26 to run my operations. If need be, I guess I could go for a payment gateway (Braintree) as well.
I had two questions actually:
How much does it cost to setup and manage accounting/bookkeeping for a private company out of Jersey? A ballpark estimate would do, thank you.
While I’m thinking about Jersey for its corporate tax & compliance benefits, should I consider Estonia and Hong Kong as well? I believe Estonia and HK have a much better market reputation overall, and HK specifically has equally good tax benefits.
I have ruled out British Virgin Islands, Nevis, Cayman Islands, Belize, etc. because I have corporate clients who will likely raise an eyebrow if they saw my company registered in any of these areas. Unfortunately, their reputation precedes them. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I have a Hong Kong so I can speak on that a little bit.
I used Jumpstart to incorporate in Hong Kong in 2014. Overall it’s been good except for two things:
1 - Annoying and meticulous accounting / reporting / auditing requirements that you cannot NOT comply with
2 - The costs associated with meeting all of the above requirements
While it was a good decision taxes wise because I’m a US citizen who lives abroad year round and this prevents me from getting dinged with a ~20% self-employment tax, if I could do it over I would probably reincorporate in Nevis or a similar jurisdiction which has none of these reporting or auditing requirements.
In your case I would first ask you if you’re really sure your customers—corporate or otherwise—really even care about your territory of incorporation. Because from their perspective, it’s not particularly easy to legislate against you in ANY jurisdiction (except maybe the US), and even then your liability is limited.
I run a WordPress and membership site support service and have customers from all over the world and have never been asked about where we’re incorporated once. Granted, we don’t have corporate customers. But if you have a good reputation it really shouldn’t matter.
Aside from that, your only practical concern would be getting a bank account which is easy to do using N26 or even a US bank (depending on the bank).
I think the alleged shadiness of Nevis / Seychelles / BVI is overblown, especially if you’re doing legitimate business online (e.g. not crypto, or gambling, or high risk niches) and you have a strong reputation for delivering the goodies. In fact, I’m thinking of reincorporating because the Hong Kong headaches are that unpleasant.
I don’t know which service providers quoted you those amounts so I can’t speak on their legitimacy.
From what I’ve seen in this space so far, those amounts seem low. That would make me a bit hesitant because there’s no way a service provider can make a decent profit with such slim margins. Which means they’re less likely to be around, field questions, help you with various intricacies (like the Apostilled certificate of incorporation, bank intros, and other post-sale service.)
Maybe I’m wrong and just being taken for a ride. But I’ve personally dealt with two reputable, pretty well-known service providers so far and had a very good experience.
Here’s an excerpt from an email from one of them:
In light of the above, we have discussed several options for offshore entities in various jurisdictions. We can achieve the above by incorporating an entity in either Belize, Seychelles or BVI. Alternatively, we mentioned the possibility of a BC LLP in Canada as a suitable entity that could also have a bank account with relative ease.
For Seychelles, the cost of incorporation with the government fees and the Apostilled Certificate of Incorporation would amount to USD 1680 and the annual renewal costs USD 1080 per year.
For the BVI, the cost of incorporation amounts to USD 1750 and the annual renewal costs USD 1080 per year.
Belize costs USD 1300 to set up and the annual maintenance is the same, USD 1080 per year.
Furthermore, you could also consider Canada as an option, the BC LLP costs USD 600 to set up, with USD 800 annual renewal.
In addition to these jurisdictions and the incorporation/maintenance services, we also provide services as nominee directors and shareholders and we can assist you with bank account openings, should you change your mind / decide that you need one.
Before I got this proposal the founders of the company that I would work with had a Zoom call with me and fielded a lot of questions I had, which I found reassuring considering how opaque the whole offshore corporation subject is, especially for US citizens.
Maybe I’m wrong and just being taken for a ride. But I’ve personally dealt with two reputable, pretty well-known service providers so far and had a very good experience.
Here’s an excerpt from an email from one of them:
could you please, refer/recommend me the companies above mentioned.
Love the freedom it gives me!