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ShelfCompanies24 has been forming Nevis companies for international clients since 1995. Our Nevis registered-agent partners handle every step of company formation in Nevis on a single agreed service contract, from picking the right legal form through Registrar registration, registered-agent engagement and beneficial-ownership filing. Most clients are trading inside 1 to 3 weeks, or in 3 to 7 working days via a ready-made off-the-shelf Nevis entity.
Our service covers Registrar filings, registered agent.
Nevis LLC/IBC + registered agent + banking introduction + asset-protection structuring under one roof.
Standard formation 1 to 3 weeks. English-speaking case manager.
No notarisation required.
We file Articles of Organisation/Incorporation, register the BO, organise compliance.
Governed by the Nevis Limited Liability Company Ordinance 1995 (as amended). Charging-order-only remedy, 1-year statute of limitations, US$100,000 creditor bond requirement.
Governed by the Nevis Business Corporation Ordinance 1984.
| Form | Min. capital | Formation time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nevis LLC | None | 1 to 3 weeks | Asset-protection, wealth, holding |
| Nevis IBC | None statutory | 1 to 3 weeks | Trading, conventional corporate |
| Nevis Multiform Foundation | None | 3 to 6 weeks | Private wealth, succession |
| Off-the-shelf entity | Capital varies | 3 to 7 days | Need immediate trading |
A Nevis company is registered by a Nevis licensed agent rather than by you: the agent is the statutory channel to the Registrar and provides the registered office the company must have. The order is short. Choose the form, the LLC for asset protection and holding, the IBC where you want shares and directors. The agent clears the name and drafts the Articles of Organisation or the Articles of Incorporation. Those are filed and the Registrar issues the certificate, typically within 1 to 5 working days. The beneficial ownership record follows, and the bank introduction runs alongside it. Standard timing is 1 to 3 weeks end to end, against 3 to 7 working days for an off the shelf entity that already exists. The stages below set it out in full.
Confirm legal form (LLC for asset-protection vs. IBC for trading), member structure, business purpose.
Apply via the registered agent.
Articles of Organisation (LLC) or Articles of Incorporation (IBC) drafted by our registered agent.
Articles filed with the Nevis Registrar by the registered agent. Certificate issued typically within 1 to 5 working days.
No, and this is deliberate. Nevis has no public beneficial-ownership register. Every Nevis corporation and LLC must keep a licensed registered agent on the island, and that agent holds the beneficial-ownership records, identifying each natural person who ultimately owns or controls 25% or more of the entity. The Nevis Business Corporation (Amendment) Ordinance 2023 also requires registers of directors and shareholders. Competent authorities obtain the information on request, including through mutual legal assistance.
Many Nevis clients use offshore-friendly EU/Singapore banks rather than Nevis domestic banks.
Offshore, applied to Nevis, describes where the income arises rather than any kind of secrecy. A Nevis LLC or IBC pays no Nevis tax on income arising outside the Federation, which is what makes it a holding and asset protection vehicle rather than a way of trading locally. Income and supplies inside Saint Kitts and Nevis are a Federation matter, with VAT at 17% on Federation source goods and services. Around that sit the parts that are not optional: a licensed registered agent, the beneficial ownership record, economic substance reporting where the activity is a relevant one, and FATCA and CRS exchange of account information with the country where you are resident. Offshore company formation in Nevis in 2026 produces a reportable, substance tested company that is taxed where it actually operates.
The two islands share a federation and a tax system, not a company registry. Nevis has its own corporate ordinances, the Nevis Business Corporation Ordinance 1984 and the Nevis Limited Liability Company Ordinance 1995, administered through the Nevis Registrar and the FSRC, while a St Kitts company is incorporated under Federation company law in Basseterre. For an international owner the difference that matters is the statute book: the charging order only remedy, the one year limitation period on creditor challenges and the bond a creditor must post before filing a claim in Nevis are features of Nevis law. Searches for St Kitts and Nevis company formation almost always end in a Nevis entity, which is what we form.
Yes, and United States owners are the largest single group of Nevis LLC clients, mostly for asset protection rather than for tax. The company is formed and signed for remotely, with no travel and no notarisation. What a Nevis LLC does not do is change your position at home: a United States person still reports the foreign entity and the foreign account to the IRS, the account is reportable under FATCA, and moving assets to defeat a creditor who already exists is a fraudulent transfer wherever the entity sits.
Yes, and it is not a formality. A Nevis licensed registered agent is required by statute for both the LLC and the IBC. It provides the registered office, it is the only channel through which the Articles, changes of member, manager or director and the annual filings reach the Registrar, and it maintains the registers and the beneficial ownership record. We arrange it with our Nevis partner and it continues year to year while the company is on the register.
A standard LLC or IBC takes 1 to 3 weeks end to end. The Registrar is not the bottleneck: the certificate is usually issued within 1 to 5 working days once the agent files. The rest of the window is KYC on every beneficial owner, clearing the name, drafting the Articles and the beneficial ownership filing. A Nevis Multiform Foundation takes longer, 3 to 6 weeks. An off the shelf entity that already exists transfers in 3 to 7 working days.
The Nevis LLC’s charging-order-only remedy + 1-year statute of limitations + US$100,000 creditor bond requirement provide stronger asset-protection than the BVI BC’s general framework. For clients prioritising asset protection over operational simplicity, Nevis LLC is structurally superior.
No. A Nevis LLC or IBC can be owned and managed entirely from abroad: one member or shareholder is enough, one director for an IBC, any nationality, resident anywhere, and there is no requirement for a Nevis resident director or manager. What must be Nevisian is the licensed registered agent and the registered office it provides, both of which we arrange. Your own country’s tax rules continue to apply to you personally, controlled foreign company rules included.
Three things, then the annual cycle. The beneficial ownership record is filed through the registered agent. The economic substance position is documented for the activity the company will carry on. The bank account is opened, which is the slowest step and rarely closes in the same month as the incorporation. After that the company needs its registered agent and registered office maintained, the annual government filing made, and substance reporting where the regime applies.
Ready to register your Nevis LLC or IBC? Contact our Nevis desk.
Forming a Nevisian IBC through ShelfCompanies24 follows a defined sequence. Knowing what happens at each stage helps you prepare documentation and avoid surprises:
Modern offshore practice has shifted substantially since 2019. Nevis, like most international financial centres, requires entities engaged in ‘relevant activities’ (banking, insurance, fund management, financing & leasing, headquarters, distribution & service centre, holding-company business, IP, shipping) to demonstrate economic substance, adequate staff, premises, and management presence in Nevis commensurate with the activity carried on. Pure passive holding companies face a reduced substance test; active income-generating activities face the full test.
Nevis-resident corporates are also subject to FATCA and Common Reporting Standard (CRS) automatic exchange of financial-account information with US IRS and OECD partner jurisdictions respectively. We brief every client on these obligations during scoping; they are not deal-breakers but they materially shape how the IBC should be structured and where the beneficial owner sits for tax-residency purposes. Our consultant helps you build a structure that is both efficient and demonstrably compliant, Google’s E-E-A-T standards, OECD pressure, and your home jurisdiction’s controlled-foreign-company rules all push in the same direction: substance matters more than ever.
Headline Nevis corporate tax in 2026: no St Kitts and Nevis corporate income tax on foreign-source income for a non-resident Nevis company, and annual filing is still required.
0% on offshore; LLC asset-protection statute is the strongest globally; charging-order-only remedy.
Annual obligations after incorporation typically include FSRC confirmation/return filings, beneficial-owner-register updates whenever ownership changes, and corporate-tax filings on the company’s financial year. Where VAT/sales-tax registration applies, periodic VAT returns are filed on calendar-quarter or monthly cadence depending on turnover. Our retainer-based bookkeeping and tax-compliance service handles the entire annual cycle for a service, for a non-trading IBC and for an actively trading one.
The right bank for a Nevisian IBC depends on what you’ll actually do with the company. Operating-account-only with low transaction volume is straightforward. International EUR/USD multi-currency with high-volume B2B transfers requires a different banking partner. E-commerce processing has yet another set of requirements.
For Nevis entities specifically, we work with relationship managers at international banks that accept nevis-domiciled corporate structures, a noticeably narrower set than for onshore EU companies. The banks that do accept offshore entities focus on substance evidence, beneficial-owner CV, and source-of-funds documentation rather than just incorporation paperwork. Our consultant pre-positions your application against the bank’s specific scoring model so the application clears on first submission.
Operators evaluating Nevis for a formation project frequently also look at:
Each of those jurisdictions has its own trade-off matrix on tax, banking, substance, and operational practicalities. If you’re early in your evaluation, your consultant will walk you through the comparison in the first call, we are deliberately jurisdiction-agnostic about which structure fits your business best.
Most Nevis corporate structures do not require a local-resident director, you and your appointed directors can be resident anywhere. A few jurisdictions, and certain regulated activities, do require local-substance directors or a registered local agent. Your consultant confirms the exact requirement for your structure in the initial call.
A Nevisian IBC can be wound up voluntarily through a FSRC dissolution procedure (typical timeline 6-12 months including the statutory creditor-notice period). It can also be sold, the share-purchase mechanism is the same one we use to transfer shelf companies, just operating in reverse. We handle both routes; clients often resell a no-longer-needed IBC as a shelf entity to recover part of the original investment.
Some activities require sector-specific licences in Nevis, banking, insurance, investment services, crypto-asset services, gambling, and others depending on your business model. The standard IBC we form is suitable for non-regulated commercial activity; licensing is layered on afterwards where needed. Your consultant confirms the licence position for your specific activity during the initial scoping call.
A Nevisian IBC can hold subsidiaries, branches, or contractual relationships in other jurisdictions. The optimal multi-country structure depends on tax-residency rules, treaty access, transfer pricing, and beneficial-owner reporting in each country. ShelfCompanies24 covers 56 jurisdictions across our network, so we can implement a multi-country structure end-to-end without you needing separate providers in each country.
Send us a short message with your country preference (or that you’re undecided), the activity you have in mind, and whether you’d prefer a pre-formed shelf IBC ready in 48 hours or a fresh formation taking 1 to 3 weeks. We respond within one working day with a service tailored to your situation. The first consultation carries no obligation and covers structure, tax, banking, and timelines, no obligation.
Our retainer-based ongoing service covers the full annual lifecycle of a Nevisian IBC: registered office and mail handling, accounting and bookkeeping, periodic VAT/sales-tax filings (where applicable), payroll for any employed staff, beneficial-owner-register maintenance, FSRC confirmation/return filings, and the year-end financial statements plus corporate-tax return. We also provide a dedicated point of contact who knows your file and signs off every filing, no rotating-account-manager experience. Specialised work (transfer-pricing studies, restructurings, M&A on the IBC, or sector-specific licensing) is quoted separately. Most clients find the predictable service far easier to budget than buying piecemeal services from local accountants and lawyers, especially when starting out in Nevis.
You have three practical options. Voluntary dissolution through a FSRC winding-up is the cleanest route, handled by us, typically completed inside 6-12 months including the statutory creditor-notice period. Sale of the IBC as a shelf entity to another buyer is sometimes possible, especially if it has clean trading history and a recognisable name; we evaluate this on a case-by-case basis. Mothballing via dormant filings keeps the IBC registered on nothing more than the registered office and nil returns, for the day you might want to use it again. Your consultant walks you through trade-offs before you commit either way.