Ask HN: Where to Register a Company When Being a Traveling Digital Nomad?

Well, in Singapore you'll need at least one SG-resident board member. Probably not you if you'll be travelling constantly.

On the other hand, if you can manage this I've found forming and dissolving companies in SG to be very easy, not to mention the tax and accountancy processes.

Ireland? CRO[1] gives details about registering a company and the requirements, and the New Companies Bill of 2014[2] will make things easier for smaller companies.

[1]: https://www.cro.ie/Registration/Overview [2]: https://www.cro.ie/New-Act-2014/Overview

Hong Kong incorporation is easy and not expensive. Tax regulations are interesting, too.

You find a few more details here: http://www.guidemehongkong.com/

Do you need to register a corporation? Or do you just need a legal entity other than yourself to pass your earnings through? Will you have employees? Partners?

If you just need something simple with no employees partners then you probably only need the equivalent of a u.s. LLC which separates your business income/debt from your personal income/debt. Find whatever the equivalent is where you're a resident.

If you need an actual corporation then it's much tougher. Where I live (Switzerland) you need to start out with a lot of capital, probably need a lawyer and an accountant, etc.

It will get complicated if you need to register a corporation outside of where you're a resident and paying your taxes.

HK is a decent choice. You do probably have to go there to open a bank account. But regardless, far more important is the tax/domicile rules in your own country.

Edit: Also judging by the comments so far you don't want to trust HN on this.

Now? Estonia. Hands down, Estonia. Although I haven't done it myself yet, I intend to, simply because it now makes an incredible amount of sense.

In case you don't know already, Estonia is offering an e-residency program[-2]. For the time-being it requires a quick trip to Estonia to get this (and it's open to everybody regardless of nationality), but afterwards you can run and administer a company remotely with this smart card. (Bonus points for the fact the smart card reader plays nicely with Linux as well as OS X and Windows.) Soon you won't even need to show up in Estonia, but will be able to register as an e-resident at one of their consulates.

Estonia have made it pretty straightforward to run a business there and it doesn't appear to be especially expensive to start an Estonian company either. To the best of my knowledge you can deal with the government entirely online and IIRC in English too. (This is a big deal because some English-speaking countries like the Netherlands have tax offices that are forbidden from speaking English unless they come out to you in person, even though all the staff are fluent. I hear this might change in the Netherlands in the future.)

Banking in Estonia appears to be awesome and developed. Stripe isn't there yet, but Paymill is.

Estonians are fluent in English and just about everything the government, banks, etc publish online is in English. The Estonian government even translates some of their laws (like the ones pertaining to companies) to English too. They might be translating others but I've just never looked.

Taxes aren't super low, but are pretty sensible and IIRC corporate profits aren't taxed until they're distributed. [-1]

To the best of my knowledge, Estonia didn't really implement the EU cookie directive. They got a slap on the wrist for it but no Estonian site (even big bank and government sites) has those "y'all accept cookies?" banners. That's a good sign.

The biggest downside to Estonia is its size. It's going to be a ghastly nightmare to hire a decent number of staff if you want them to be all in the same building in Estonia, but hey, why not just run a 100% remote company? But cross that bridge if and when you come to it. You can always just open up offices in other cities around Europe or other places.

[-2] https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/e-residency/

[-1] http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documen...

Do not register a company. Accept Bitcoin and provide great service people want.

I haven't checked on the state of e-Estonia in a few months, but I think they're trying to be the place for this sort of thing? They're rolling out the services later this year I believe.

https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/opportunities/

Register your company where there is no corporate tax, be a citizen of a country with no income tax.

As to the how and what, I'm willing to learn myself.

Wow I was just thinking about this, having a cup of coffee next to a creek out on the edges of town, after asking this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8939426

Right now I'm in the United States and I'm forming a Nevada Series Limited Liability Company. I needed a Registered Agent to do that, but the question came up for me: how long do I need to be somewhere, and what kind of mailing address do I need, to not even need a Registered Agent?

Nevada has no State tax, but there's still Federal. I'll be watching this with interest on the tax piece... otherwise to me, in this country, it seems like Nevada is the way to go.

The UK is pretty good. All filing can be done online, corporation tax rates are pretty low (20%).

Dubai is the place, Tax free, as low as ~4000 Euros/year for a single person (FZE) company.

Nothing else is required (office/staff), virtual services are provided at additional fees (secretary etc ..)

This depends highly on your country of citizenship, as well as country of residence.

Americans have it different than most others, because they are taxed globally.

A true 'digital nomad' without set residency somewhere might also encounter problems, because certain countries might challenge the tax treatment of certain transactions. (depends on if you're selling your own stuff, or doing consulting, for example)

Talk to a lawyer (or law firm), see legal500.com (-> tax) for some recommendations. A firm in the country you're currently residing in is a good starting point.

HK and Singapore are both good options. Both also really good for offshore banking.

I believe the first $100,000 in income is not taxed if you live outside the US for at least 330 days out of the year. This is for federal tax. If you are registered in a state with no income tax, then you would pay zero tax on that first $100k.

Interesting question! I'm also a "digital nomad". I'm French and, all my incomes are declared in France as an "auto-entrpreneur". But I don't have too since I live there less than 6 months a year. Last year, I stayed 3 months in France, 3 in China, 2 in Thailand, in Korea and in Indonesia. I was wondering if there was a country where I could open an entity with some advantages?

HK - easiest, cheapest and no taxes for income sourced outside of HK.

You should be asking questions about your tax domicile, double taxation treaties, your personal legal status w.r.t. to this company, cost of extracting personal profits from this company, can you get a bank account as non-resident, VAT rules etc.

Lots of variables there.

Tax offices in most countries have ways of ignoring cute little "bulletproof" accounting setups, throwing the book at you even retroactively (money, even jail time).

I mean, if you're a small fish, you may well slip under the radar. But obviously you're asking for trouble if you set up a company somewhere, hoping for the best, because someone on HN suggested "country XYZ, low taxes!".

For what it's worth, I "digitally nomaded" through Asia on tourist visas, acting as my normal, home legal entity. No problems. But don't take that as legal advice :)

"I am not a lawyer or CPA and this is not legal advice. It is for general guidance only. You should work with an attorney and a CPA for specific professional advice.

If you're American, this gets really sticky. The US taxes you on your worldwide income. If you have a US corporation, it is also taxed on worldwide income, so it can be double taxed. And foreign corporations in the US are taxed on US-sourced income.

However, there is a loophole. If you own a company outside the US, and the company earns money outside of the US, it's only taxed in the US when the money comes back into the US. So, many people have companies registered abroad (Hong Kong is a popular jurisdiction) and money earned offshore is accrued in the foreign corporation. Expenses abroad are also paid by the foreign corporation. So, you can effectively avoid the money being double taxed (paying personal income tax only) if you earn money offshore and your offshore corporation pays your salary.

Also, if you're working abroad, it's not a vacation. A lot of things you spend money on are legitimately considered business expenses. So, if something is a business expense, pay for it with company earnings that haven't been taxed.

Now, what about paying income tax in the jurisdiction where you were living abroad? Typically, countries only tax income sourced within the country, and many countries have tax treaties where income is only taxed once. So, for example, if you're living in China, a country that has a tax treaty with the US, and you're paid by a company outside of China, and you pay taxes in the US, you don't actually have to pay taxes in China. Technically you are supposed to file there (at least in Beijing), but this isn't actually enforced unless you're on a Z-type visa and you are working for a Chinese company. And, if you're on a tourist visa pretty much anywhere in the world, you won't owe any tax in the country you were visiting. As best I know, no country in the world charges tourists income tax!

One thing that WILL happen if you're living abroad, and have foreign bank accounts: You will get audited if you claim tax exemptions that apply when you live outside the US. In my case, this came in the form of a letter to my Chinese address which basically said "prove you're really living in China," and gave me a list of documents to supply as evidence of same. There was a list of 8 or so things, of which I had to supply 3. I just sent the IRS everything on the list (not only 3 of the things, but all of the things), mailed the package from Beijing, and I never heard from them again. I think they just wanted to make sure I really was living abroad."

edit : this comment come from here http://nomadforum.io/t/what-is-the-tax-situation-for-perpetu...

These links might be really helpful : http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Forei... http://flagtheory.com/digital-nomad/ http://flagtheory.com/nevis-llc-formation http://nomadforum.io/t/what-is-the-tax-situation-for-perpetu...

It would be extremely helpful to know what the company you wish to form does. If it's product-based that's very different from service-based... and if it's an intangible product that'll be very different from a tangible one.

If not legally, in practice. With the nomadic piece, you have a certain amount of momentum that makes it hard to pinpoint your origin, so you might be giving up freedoms by putting a flag in the ground when you don't need to.

I can't give you and advice. But I'm observing a lot of foreign companies (software agencies) getting full residence in Bolivia like Cochabamba y Santa Cruz de la Sierra, I had friends working as full time programmers and doing consulting for this companies, and I had heard a lot that the owners prefers to stay here and pay taxes here, for what I know is useful for UK, Canadian and France citizens.

Here in Boliva we typically complaint about taxes management and government regulation, but looks like is a breeze compared to other countries.

Derek Sivers has been working on providing this sort of data for a few years. He created https://woodegg.com/books first and now apparently that effort is converging into http://gotolaunch.in/

Whilst Singapore comes up a lot as a company HQ - it's often not due to company taxes (which are _rarely_ as straightforward as you pay x%, no matter the domicile).

The big draw to Singapore is usually for the individuals - Singapore has no Capital Gains Tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax#Singapore). At a personal level, if you're flipping a multi-million dollar business that's a big deal.

As other commenters have mentioned, the company/personal/VAT picture becomes more murky.

I recommend Hong Kong.

There's a lot of people on nomadforum.io/ that will have first-hand experience on this FYI.