In our previous blog, “how to start a business in St. Maarten?” it was stated that to start a business in Sint Maarten, all businesses must request a business license and in most cases, a director’s license.
However, what are the steps to fully incorporate a business in Sint Maarten? Read below to find out the steps that need to be taken to register and operate a company in Sint Maarten.
- Incorporate your company at a notary
Once you have decided the name of the company, type of company, who will be the shareholder, and have two (2) proof of the same address; the first step is to incorporate the company at a notary. On many occasions, the notary will also register the company at the chamber of commerce. You will then receive a “chamber of commerce excerpt”.
Once the company (on paper) has been incorporated and you have obtained the company’s chamber of commerce, we can move on to step 2.
- Request a crib (tax) number for your company
This must be done at the tax office, and usually takes about 1 week after submission to obtain the crib number.
- Request a business and director’s license (if applicable, an additional license may be required: an operational license)
In order to operate a business in Sint Maarten, all businesses must have a business and director’s license (the director’s license is for the managing director). In some cases, depending on the type of business, such as a restaurant or lounge, an operational license (or coffeehouse license) is required. This requested is submitted at the Economic Licenses and takes approximately 2 months, or longer, if an operational license is also required.
- Register the business at SZV (Social & Health Insurance)
Once the business has obtained its articles of incorporation, chamber of commerce, crib number and received its business and director’s license (and if applicable, operational license), the business must continue on to register the business at the social & health insurance company on Sint Maarten. At this stage, the business must also have a location in place in order to receive a “confirmation report” from SZV. In order to receive this confirmation report, SZV will do an inspection at the business location in order to ensure it is an actual business and has met all the requirements necessary. This registration process can take between a couple of days (if you have a business location already) up to a few weeks/months.
- Register the business at the labor department
Once you have completed steps 1-4 and have received all your business official documents, the final step is to register the business at the labor office.
This process takes 2 weeks, and all the documents obtained in steps 1-4 will need to be brought in to the labor department.
Once your business has received its labor registration, the business is officially ready to operate. You may now focus on operating your business.
It is important to note that throughout many of these steps, government fees will need to be paid to the different public/governmental organizations. BrightPath can assist you to incorporate your business in Sint Maarten and ensure a smooth journey through this lengthy process. For a full list of the documents required by BrightPath to start your business incorporation procedure.
To find out the cost to incorporate your business with us, see “How much will it cost me to incorporate a business in St. Maarten?”.
For more information, contact us at +1(721) 526-2771 or send us an email at info@brightpath.sx