Anguilla Company Formation

Anguilla is not Anjouan. Anguilla is a Caribbean jurisdiction with its own Financial Services Commission (FSC) and a Business Companies Act. Anjouan, in the Comoros, is a different place and is where one of our gaming licences comes from. This page is about Anguilla only.

The first fact to know is the listing. Anguilla is on Annex I, the blacklist, of the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions, in the Council conclusions of 9 October 2026 (document 13854/26). The Council gives two reasons: Anguilla does not hold a Global Forum rating of at least 'Largely Compliant' for exchange of information on request, and it has not ensured effective implementation of economic-substance requirements (criterion 2.2). The Global Forum's 2020 review had rated Anguilla Non-Compliant overall. The listing section explains what we can and cannot say about its effect.

A company formed in Anguilla today is a Business Company under the Business Companies Act (BCA, Revised Statutes of Anguilla c. B72), or a Limited Liability Company under the separate LLC Act (c. L65). The 'IBC' as a legal form is gone: the International Business Companies Act and the old Companies Act were repealed when Act 2/2022 brought the BCA into force on 19 April 2022. Bearer shares are banned. An exempted-company status (BCA sections 138 to 150) and an Anguilla foundation law also exist, and they are covered below.

The mechanics are short. A licensed registered agent in Anguilla is mandatory, and only that agent can file the incorporation. One director and one member are enough. We found no residency rule for directors, and 'not found' is the honest label, not 'none'. The Commercial Registry was folded into the FSC on 1 June 2024, so older pages that name a separate 'Registrar of Commercial Activities' are out of date.

The published government fee is US$350 to incorporate a company with up to 50,000 authorised shares, and the same amount each year. That figure comes from regulations as at 31 December 2022, and we found no newer schedule and no current fee page on the Registry. The registered agent's own fee is not a government fee and is itemised in your quote. If you are still choosing a jurisdiction, the company formation hub sets them side by side, and the pages for the BVI, the Cayman Islands and St Vincent cover the nearest Caribbean alternatives.

How we read the law. The Acts and regulations on this page are the consolidations to 31 December 2022 on the FSC and Law Revision sites, read with the later amending Acts, some of which are scanned images that we read by text recognition. The LLC Act is not on the FSC legislation page, and the only official text we could open is the Law Revision copy. Where a scan was unclear we say so.

Yes. Annex I of the Council conclusions of 9 October 2026 (document 13854/26) lists Anguilla. The text gives two grounds. Anguilla has no Global Forum rating of at least 'Largely Compliant' for exchange of information on request, and it has not taken all the necessary action to ensure effective implementation of substance requirements under criterion 2.2. The Global Forum's 2020 peer review rated Anguilla Non-Compliant overall, with two elements Non-Compliant, two Partially Compliant and six Compliant. A 2023 supplementary report exists and we did not open it, but the Council text still describes the rating as below Largely Compliant on 9 October 2026.

What does that mean for a company? Only part of that question has a sourced answer. The Council conclusions list the jurisdiction and the reasons, and they do not mention banks or counterparties. The listing is public, and a compliance team at a bank or a customer can see it. It may lead some of them to ask more questions or to decline. We do not know how a given bank or counterparty treats an Anguilla company, we have no figure for it, and we do not claim one. If an EU counterparty matters to your business, ask it before you pay for incorporation.

For comparison, our BVI page explains that the BVI sits on Annex II, not Annex I. The listing concerns exchange of information and enforcement of substance rules, and the list is revised from time to time. We state the entry, its date and its source, and we check it again before we rely on it.

On the FATF side, Anguilla is not a FATF member. It is assessed by the Caribbean FATF, whose July 2024 mutual evaluation rates all 11 immediate outcomes 'Moderate'. We do not state Anguilla's status on the FATF lists on this page, because we could not read the FATF's own publication.

The sources are uneven, so we state exactly what they say. For an LLC, section 86(1) of the LLC Act exempts an LLC that does no business in Anguilla from corporate tax, income tax, withholding tax and similar taxes on assets or income originating outside Anguilla. Section 86(2) lists activities that do not count as doing business, such as holding a bank account, holding meetings, keeping records and using a registered agent. Section 87 exempts dividends and distributions to non-residents, and section 86(3) and (4) remove estate, inheritance and gift tax for non-residents and stamp duty, except on Anguilla real property.

The BCA has no income-tax exemption clause, and we searched it. The only official statement we found that Anguilla has no corporate or income tax is paragraph 17 of the Global Forum's 2020 review, which says Anguilla operates no personal income, corporate, capital gains or value added tax regime. That statement is dated September 2020, we found no current statement from the government or the Inland Revenue, and we do not write 'tax-free'.

That is also an Anguilla-only rule. It does not bind the country where the owners live or where the company is managed, and many countries tax a shareholder on a foreign company they control. Take tax advice there before you commit. The yearly duties are short but not empty:

Only if it carries on a relevant activity and does not qualify for the exemption. Part 18 of the BCA (sections 273 to 281) and the Business Companies (Economic Substance) Regulations govern Business Companies, and Part 13 of the LLC Act with its own regulations governs LLCs. The nine relevant activities are banking, insurance, fund management, financing and leasing, distribution and service centre, shipping, intellectual property business, headquarters and holding company.

A relevant company files an economic substance return for each relevant year with its annual return, certified by a director, officer, agent or liquidator (section 276; section 88A of the BCA was added in 2023). A holding company is deemed to pass if it meets the filing rules and has adequate people and premises for holding and managing its equity participations. For other activities the test needs adequate employees, expenditure and assets in Anguilla, core income-generating activity in Anguilla, and mind and management in Anguilla. Outsourcing to an Anguilla provider can satisfy it. An exemption exists for a company that is centrally managed in, resident in and taxed in a jurisdiction with a tax rate of 10% or more and that files proof.

The penalties are specific. After notice and an opportunity to show cause, failing the test costs US$1,000 to 25,000 for the first year and US$5,000 to 100,000 for each later year. Failing only to file costs US$500 to 2,500, then US$1,000 to 5,000. Non-compliance is also an offence and does not limit striking off (section 278). The same figures apply to LLCs (LLC Act section 92). Where a company is penalised, is a high-risk intellectual property entity or claims the exemption, information is shared with the tax authorities of the 'tax-concerned jurisdictions' (section 279).

This is why the EU listing and the substance rule are linked. The Council names failure to enforce substance requirements as one of its two grounds for Annex I. A company with no relevant activity says 'no' on its return, and one that earns income from a relevant activity must show real substance in Anguilla or tax residence elsewhere. We test your activity against the nine before we propose a structure.

Every Anguilla company, meaning a Business Company or an LLC, must record its beneficial owners with the Registrar through its agent, unless it is exempt, as a listed company is. The Commercial Registry and Beneficial Ownership Registration System Act applies. A beneficial owner is an individual with more than 25% of the shares or voting rights, the right to appoint or remove a majority of the directors, or significant influence or control. The filing is due within 14 days after incorporation, or a statement that there are none. Corrections of a known inaccuracy are due within 14 days. The fine for the company's failures to identify, notify, update or file is US$50,000, and the same figure applies to a person who fails to respond to the company's notice or to update.

Access changed in May 2026. Act 6/2026 and Regulations 27/2026, gazetted on 28 May 2026, removed public inspection. The register can now be seen by the competent authority, by the Government, and by a person, in or outside Anguilla, whom the FSC has approved as having a legitimate interest. The legitimate-interest criteria cover a regular journalist or bona fide researcher, an anti-money-laundering civil-society organisation, and a party to an actual or potential business relationship with the company, each seeking the data to prevent, detect or combat money laundering or terrorist financing. The FSC decides within 12 business days, and the fee is US$30 to apply and US$30 to inspect. The data that can be disclosed is limited: full name, month and year of birth, nationality, country of residence and the nature of the ownership. A registrable person can apply to the FSC to block disclosure on serious-risk grounds, for a US$500 fee.

Registered agents also file customer due diligence information to a separate register that is not public. Anguilla's laws cover the Common Reporting Standard and country-by-country reporting as well, and economic substance information goes to the tax authorities of other countries in the cases in section 279. So an Anguilla company is not secret from tax authorities.

What the ordinary public register shows is less clear. Articles are filed, a company must file a copy of its register of members and directors with the Registrar (section 260), and a person may inspect the registers and filed documents 'except as otherwise provided' (section 262). The Registry has a public search page. We did not run a search, so we do not say what an outsider sees for a given company, and we do not say that directors are public or private. We check a sample company by hand before the quote.

Formation includes no bank account, and the opening of one is a separate application with the bank. We found no primary source on how a non-resident Anguilla company gets an account, so we give no list of banks, no approval rate and no timeline. The Caribbean FATF's 2024 evaluation rates measures on legal persons and on designated non-financial businesses and professions as Partially Compliant. That is context about the country, not evidence about account opening.

A bank will ask who the beneficial owners are, where the company is managed, what it will do and where the money comes from. An Anguilla company must also deal with the listing described above, which a bank's compliance team can see. We cannot say how any bank weighs it. An LLC cannot do banking itself (section 8(2)), and an exempted company may keep a bank account in Anguilla without that counting as doing business there.

For gaming and crypto groups our working position is an account with an electronic money institution or neobank, not a traditional bank, and we do not promise one. Our pages on high-risk merchant accounts, gaming company bank accounts and crypto-friendly banking explain what providers ask for and why applications fail.

Marketing for offshore companies often says tax-free, anonymous and quick. For Anguilla none of the three can be put that simply today. The list below is what it is not.