Business people, investors and others using the Panamanian jurisdiction, will discover that Panama provides the best infrastructure and legal environment in the world to achieve their business, financial, estate, or asset protection objectives from a strategically located, reputable international banking and financial center.
Procedures for Establishing a Panama Corporation
1. Personal Information: Complete an application with your personal contact details that your attorney will require.
2. Indicate what type of entity(s) you want: Indicate whether you want a new Panama corporation or a Panama shelf corporation. If you choose to purchase a shelf corporation, then you will be issued the first available shelf company, and you can skip the name section of the online application. Also, indicate how many corporations you want of each type.
3. Selecting the Name(s): On the application, you should indicate three name choices for each corporation. Panama Corporations names can be in any language and must include one of the following corporate suffixes:
· Inc.
· Incorporated
· Corp.
· Corporation
· S.A.
Note: For your information, " S.A. " in Spanish means "Sociedad Anonima", or "Anonymous Society". This is just another form of saying "Corp." or "Inc." in Spanish.
Once you have submitted the application including the name(s) for your corporation(s), your law form will check to see if the names you selected are available in the Panamanian Public Registry. The first available name selections will be incorporated.
4. Directors: On the application, you should indicate who you want to appoint as directors of your corporation(s). Every Panama corporation requires 3 directors/officers (President, Secretary and Treasurer). The directors/officers can be either individuals or entities.
If the client is appointed as director on the corporation, then his/her name is publicly known as director since the directors names and identifications must be presented in the public registry when the corporation is formed. Generally, the only documentation on public record is the deed (or articles) of incorporation and the names and addresses of the directors/officers and Registered Agent.
Your attorney can offer the optional service of using "Nominee Directors" for their corporation(s). For purposes of confidentiality, most of clients prefer that attorney's provide nominee directors/officers for their corporations. When the attorney appoints nominee directors for the entities they should provide pre-signed, undated letters of resignation from the directors so that you can replace those directors at any time. There should be no additional fee for the use of nominee directors.
Otherwise, if you prefer to appoint your own directors, simply include the names of the directors that you wish to use.
5. Share Certificates: On the application, clients should inform their attorney's as to how they wish to have their corporations share certificates issued. The shares can be issued either to "The Bearer", or in Nominative Form (to a specific person or entity). The beneficial owners of the corporation are not required to be recorded in the Public Registry.
The shareholders can be anonymous. In other words, the shares can be issued to "The Bearer", meaning that the shares are like cash, and can be passed from one bearer/owner to another bearer/owner by a physical certificate without re-registering the shares through a registered agent. This is a very anonymous and confidential form of ownership, and is another reason why Panama is one of the most popular jurisdictions to incorporate.
Note: You have to indicate your attorney your preference for share certificates, If you do not indicate their preference for share certificates, then the corporation can be created with the share certificates issued to "The Bearer". |
