Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

81–88 of 88 posts

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

#81
Ultimately it depends what you want it for. I usually live in Asia so some info there follows...

.sg = low corp tax (first 3(?) years waived). someone else here mentioned capital gains scenario. stock market secrecy regime is designed for laundering burmese drug money. US lapdog. its boring as batshit... see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Pena...

.hk = low personal tax (none, unless resident >3 months/year). can open business and bank account within 2 hours (pay an agent). first world level of service. less US-friendly and more fun than .sg.

.cn = low chance anyone will come looking at your balance. basically no tax. nice forex trajectory for CNY at the moment. only way to really do business in china. possible to convert inbound international SWIFT xfers to EUR/USD/RMB cash, even without a bank account, with any foreign 'id' document. online banking is crap. foreign banks are barred from providing most services despite china signing to the contrary when joining the WTO. ~impossible to process card not present credit card transactions. its bladerunner meets monkey magic meets the land of opportunity. taobao is a big win if you ever do hardware sourcing.

other countries in Asia tend to lack decent english or infrastructure, but may provide interesting fringe benefits (eg. IIRC Philippines gives you permanent in/out visa with a property purchase, has lots of good english speakers, though they recently dropped their relative bank secrecy to US pressure)

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

#83
post #4

Hong Kong incorporation is easy and not expensive. Tax regulations are interesting, too. You find a few more details here: http://www.guidemehongkong.com/

There is some info on this page about the various annual expenses for a Hong Kong company. These include at least (i) virtual office, (ii) accounts preparation and (iii) accounts audit. You could do (ii) yourself but you need to pay someone to do (i) and (iii), unless you live in Hong Kong and are a Hong Kong registered auditor.

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

#84
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some friends and I have been discussing this. There is a current regime in the UAE (not just Dubai) that has established a free trade zone that costs approximately several thousand USD to incorporate and set up shop, including basement prices for established visa(s) for you and a small group of employees. I have received an email. If I have time later I will dig around to find the link to an official website from UAE…

Some zones can be as small as an office park, with different rules for each zone, e.g. medical companies vs. software companies. The Middle East in general has Internet firewalls, e.g. VOIP is often packet filtered. Might be worth checking on those policies within the zone. Some tax-free jurisdictions generate money from bureacracy and fees, which impose substantial time overhead, since penalties for noncompliance ca…

I've heard that the Internet isn't filtered in such zones, again I'm not so sure though.

What're the other alternatives and how does this compare to SG/HK?

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

#85
post #59

Panama offers a super easy residence visa to citizens of 48 "friendly" countries. If your primary country of residence is Panama, you don't have to pay taxes on non-Panama-sourced income (as long as your country of citizenship doesn't tax you on your worldwide income as a non-resident). Panama corporations also don't pay taxes on non-Panama-sourced income. From Panama City it's a 2.5 hour flight to Miami, 5 hours to…

What're the alternatives for those from other countries? Would getting a Permanent Residency be the only issue?

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

#86
Ideally you'd want a business entity that is as inexpensive as possible to maintain but provides liability protection in case you're sued. Then you need to consider where you will be "registering" this business (apart from the original country) as a foreign company because that will involve expenses, tax, etc. Finally, if you're just one person, not really renting offices, not really hiring employees in the country where you are operating you need to ask yourself do you need to really register in that country as a foreign company and who would know if you didn't.

My company has been thinking of creating a sort of "world company" package for people like you: solid main entity (Wyoming LLC for example); globally accessed banking, mail scanning/forwarding, etc. I'm curious if that would appeal to you (or anybody else on HN). Email me mattknee at google's mail system if so.

Here's our general information page for international clients that might be helpful with other issues: http://www.mynewcompany.com/international.htm

Good luck!

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

#87

The answer is not, "um, it depends on X", which usually indicate a lack of understanding of the problem as well as a lack of knowledge about the solution. People, especially tech nerds which tend to have ego issues, need to learn to just say "I don't know", or to simply not answer a question that they don't know the answer to. It doesn't depend on anything. The best place to register a business for international trav…

> The answer is not, "um, it depends on X", which usually indicate a lack of understanding of the problem as well as a lack of knowledge about the solution. People, especially tech nerds which tend to have ego issues, need to learn to just say "I don't know", or to simply not answer a question that they don't know the answer to. It doesn't depend on anything. Preach! Boy do they go red when you simply say "If you don…

[deleted]

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

#88
post #85
post #59

Panama offers a super easy residence visa to citizens of 48 "friendly" countries. If your primary country of residence is Panama, you don't have to pay taxes on non-Panama-sourced income (as long as your country of citizenship doesn't tax you on your worldwide income as a non-resident). Panama corporations also don't pay taxes on non-Panama-sourced income. From Panama City it's a 2.5 hour flight to Miami, 5 hours to…

What're the alternatives for those from other countries? Would getting a Permanent Residency be the only issue?

Do I really need residence somewhere? What if I live 3 months in each country?

Notice also that I left my home country 15 years ago, and have been a legal resident of 3 other countries during that time. I wonder if I just forget about residency altogether. I can't find a clear answer for that.

Post reply on HN