Although Latvia is a small country in terms of area, it offers enormous opportunities for entrepreneurs. The most important proof of this is that it attracts entrepreneurs from many parts of the world and is selected as the 14th investment country in the world. Incentives provided by the Latvian government, facilities about getting a visa, and much more are very important advantages for entrepreneurs. Considering the trained workforce here and its location close to the markets, it can be said that it is quite logical to set up a company in Latvia. So, what are the stages of setting up a company in Latvia? What facilities and difficulties await you in this process? All are in our article.
Company Registration Process in Latvia
If you have made your decision regarding your startup company, you must first register it to implement your venture. To do this, you must send the application form and all other documents to the Latvian Company Registry. For updated information, you can check the official web pages here. Please do not forget that the documents you send should include the account statement you have received from your bank.
In the process of registering the company, address information is very important. The company address must be within the borders of Latvia. Besides, using the building only for company operations is another requirement. To prove this, the owner of the property where the company resides must write a letter that he has given the necessary permits. You can send this letter among other documents.
There are some steps to be followed in the company registration process in Latvia. These stages and their details are listed below.
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1. Opening a Temporary Bank Account and Transferring Capital to the Fund
Your first step in the company registration process should be to open a bank account. You must open an account with a Latvia based bank. The most preferred banks in the country are;
To open an account, you can go to the bank personally, perform transactions with e-signature, or complete the transactions through the third person to whom you have given power of attorney.
After opening a bank account, you need to transfer the equity you have determined for the company to this account. At this point, your choice will affect the equity you need to invest. If you opt for an LLC with reduced equity, you’ll need to set equity between € 1 and € 2,799. In case of preferring LLC, there is a requirement for the equity to be at least € 2.800. After receiving the payment order for the transfer, you can proceed to the next step.
2. Registration with the Company Registry
Relevant documents must be submitted to get registered with the Company Registry. At this stage, you should know that you have different options for sending documents. The first of these is the delivery of the documents by going to the relevant institution in person. It should be noted that some of them must be notarized before submitting the documents.
If you are using e-signature, you can send your documents via [email protected] after signing this way. Notary approval is not required for these transactions, due to the use of e-signature. You can also send documents from Latvija.lv address. For this, you can enter the system with your e-signature or bank account information.
As a last option, a third person can complete the procedures with the power of attorney received from you.
The e-signature mentioned here should only be one of the options accepted by the Latvian government. These are the Latvian e-signature with the extension .edoc and the EU standard with the extension .asice.
All documents prepared for the Company Registry must be in Latvian. However, these documents may also need to be supported in English. Your application will be processed by the relevant institution within 3 business days. If there is no missing document or error, you will get a positive result here.
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3. Opening a Fully Authorized Bank Account
After registering in the Company Registry, you can open a full-fledged bank account. It will be enough to tell the bank where you had created a temporary account earlier, by giving your company registration number and that you want to open a full-fledged bank account. Please note that you have to go for this process in person and there is no other option.
4. Application to the State Revenue Administration and Registration for VAT
The last stage in company registration is the application to the State Revenue Administration. You can apply for this in person or online via the Electronic Declaration System (EDS). The EDS is extremely useful for this process and is also a special resource with some important information. To apply for VAT, you must fill out an application form (KR4) in the Company Registry. After this process is completed, the Company Registry will send the necessary documents to the Revenue Administration and the transactions will be completed.
The transactions related to company registration are generally as mentioned above. After these procedures, you can take advantage of the facilities and opportunities offered by Latvia. If your time is limited for all these procedures, let our professional team handle the transactions for you.
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Igors Krumins continues his activities as a commercial and international lawyer within the body of “Jurmala Invest”. He has more than 10 years of experience, especially in the investment sector, and has provided consultancy services to numerous companies with his legal expertise. He successfully completed his undergraduate studies at Baltic International Academy and graduate studies at Latvijas Universitate. Apart from his native Latvian language, he can also speak Russian and English fluently.
