Company Registration in Iran:          

Nowadays everybody is looking for a great investment strategy that is easy, beneficial, and quick. Company registration has been proved to be one of the best investments one could ever have. Establishing a company is usually a complicated and uneasy job, but we are about to introduce a very easy way of doing that.

Most people start this establishing process in their motherland or where they are currently living, but experts might suggest differently since many countries have easier conditions for investors, especially for foreign ones.

Among all the countries experts would suggest to you, it might surprise you how easy it is to register a company in Iran, even if you are a foreigner. In this article we are going to answer these questions:

Why should I register in Iran? What are the types of companies in Iran? How much does it cost to register my company in Iran? And how to register my company in Iran as a foreigner.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, a Middle Eastern country also known as Persia, is the home to one of the world’s oldest civilizations where Persian or Farsi is widely spoken and most people are highly educated. The population of this ancient country consists of about 85 million people and the capital, Tehran, has a population of about fifteen million in the larger metropolitan area. Unlike what the media has told you, there are no terrorist activities taking place in Iran at this time and people are genuinely kind, generous, and hospitable.

But why Iran? What are the advantages of registering your company and starting your business in Iran?

Setting up a business in Iran is usually pretty easy. All you need is three weeks, and you can incorporate your private limited company with two shareholders (at least) and one director. Any of these people can have any nationality and there will not be any legal problems and issues. As you can see, there is no way to stop a foreigner from setting up a private business that is one hundred percent foreign-owned. All these advantages will allure anybody towards incorporating their company in Iran, but that is not all.

All the foreign investors and directors are granted a three-year residence license immediately after setting up the company. They are free to work and live in Iran as they like to and the government will recognize them as legal owners of the business. But do not worry because the shareholders and directors do not need to travel to Iran to complete the deal and they can choose someone as their proxy to attend the meetings and decide on behalf of them, obviously with their supervision. To register an L.L.C. in this country, the minimum paid-up share capital required is only €1. 

If you register a business in Iran, your company will receive up to 50 percent exemption on its corporate taxes once it exports up to 30 percent of its annual products, and companies that are investing in mining, industrial, and manufacturing activities will receive 80 % corporate tax exemption on their annual profit for 4 whole years. And there is another surprise: if your company is based in the less developed cities and parts of Iran, this tax exemption will be 100% for 10 years. Companies that are primarily engaging in agriculture-based businesses, will receive one hundred percent exemption on their income tax liabilities.

Also, the income you will derive from investing in education and training and all sports-related activities is legally corporate tax-exempt.

All these great opportunities are only a few of the many advantages that investing your money and time in Iran can bring you and it is amazing.

If you are thinking about registering a company in Iran (and there is no reason not to), it is helpful for you to know what types of business you can set up. To summon it up, there are seven types of companies in Iran:

- Limited Liability Company (Commonly known as L.L.C.)

- General Partnership

- Limited Partnership

- Proportional Liability Partnership

- Public Joint Stock Company or Corporation

- Private Joint Stock Company

- Production and Consumption Cooperative Society

Documents you need: 

< >Certified identity copy of applicant;Certified copies of the Identity Documents or passport of the Directors and Incorporators;The name confirmation certificate, if applicable;Power of attorney (if applicable);For trust or company/juristic person as an incorporator, the duly authorized representative's resolution, and certified ID copy must be attached.

< >Formal writing in which you request for registration of the company.Certified photocopies of the articles of association and articles of memorandum. In case of any change made to the parent company, you should provide them as well.The financial report of the company. You need the last audited one.A study in which you provide all the information related to the said foreign company’s activities. This one has to be very precisely written down to every single detail. You should mention why the company is wished to be registered in Iran and you have to write down all the activities that the company will do, the estimated number of local workforce you will require, and a study indicating a detailed flow of currency that your company is going to need in its daily operations.A letter of presentation from a government to demonstrate that the branch is set up for usage of an understanding between the remote organization and that administration element.

  Then you are supposed to pay IRR 40,000 for name search and reservation with the additional IRR 375,000 for company registration in Iran, to reserve a unique company name.

After that, you have to publish a notice confirming your company’s formation in selected newspapers and the official Gazette. The cost Is IRR 240,000 for the newspaper and 140,000 for the official Gazette.

There’s an additional payment of about IRR 100,000 for retrieving the sealed books of accounts of the company. (Based on the number of the pages)

You have to pay for the share certificate stamp duty, too the cost is 0.05% of the par value of the subscribed share capital.

And approximately 150 USD is needed for registering a branch or an RTO.