Start your business
in South Africa

No. The next screen shows your full invoice one more time, and nothing is charged until you confirm there. All prices are in USD. There is no share capital to fund either, a 100% foreign-owned Pty Ltd can be incorporated with nominal share capital of R 1.

We request your KYC documents straight away, then reserve your company name with CIPC and file your incorporation documents and Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI). Once CIPC registers the company we send you the Registration Certificate and your standard corporate records, and lodge your Ultimate Beneficial Ownership details with CIPC within 10 days of registration. Income tax registration of the company with SARS is part of the formation process. Any VAT, payroll, or bank account work you selected starts after CIPC registration, because none of it can happen before the company exists.

For each individual director and shareholder: full name, email, phone, a notarised passport copy no older than 3 months, and proof of residential address from the last 3 months. Any beneficial owner above 5% provides a passport or ID plus proof of address. If a holding company is a shareholder, we need its certificate of incorporation, MOI or constitutional document, a business profile or certificate of incumbency, and a group structure chart. We also need the South African registered office address the company will use, or we supply one.

CIPC registration takes about 2 to 3 weeks, measured from the point your KYC documents are complete rather than from payment, so gathering notarised passports is usually what sets the real start date. SARS registrations run in parallel after registration and take 1 to 2 weeks. Bank account opening also runs after registration and takes 1 to 2 weeks. CIPC and SARS control their own queues, so we file the moment your documents are ready and keep you updated instead of promising a fixed date.

Yes. CIPC name reservation, the incorporation filing, and the UBO lodgement fees are all inside the $2,000. There is no separate government invoice arriving later. The only charges beyond this price are the services you select in this flow.

You do not need a local director. Full foreign ownership is permitted and no South African resident director is required. You do need a registered office address in South Africa under Section 23 of the Companies Act, 2008, because that is where CIPC notices, SARS correspondence, and legal documents are delivered, and a foreign office does not qualify. If you have your own South African address you use it at no extra cost. If you do not, our registered office address is $2,000/year and is required before the company can be registered.

Yes. A South African corporate bank account is mandatory once the entity is registered, and local banks run thorough KYC on foreign-owned companies, which is slow without local relationships. Bank account opening assistance is a one-time $400 and we manage the process end to end through our South African banking relationships. It runs in parallel with your SARS registrations and typically takes 1 to 2 weeks after CIPC registration. The account opening itself is the bank's process, which we help you navigate.

The $2,000 covers the Pty Ltd registration and nothing else: CIPC name reservation, drafting and filing the incorporation documents, the Memorandum of Incorporation, appointment of directors, the Registration Certificate, standard corporate records, foreigner director verification, and the UBO filing with CIPC. Every other service is its own line you choose: registered office address $2,000/year, Public Officer appointment $1,800/year, bank account opening $400 one-time, VAT registration $400 one-time, PAYE / UIF / SDL registration $400 one-time, Annual Compliance Package $1,500/year, Tax Accounting Services $4,000/year, and payroll at $2,400/year plus a one-time $50 registration per employee. Two of those are not really optional for a company with no South African presence, because the law requires both a local registered address and a resident Public Officer, so that company pays $2,000 today plus $3,800/year for those two roles. VAT registration also becomes mandatory rather than optional once you expect turnover above R 1 million in a 12-month period, and PAYE / UIF / SDL registration becomes mandatory once you hire in South Africa.

Because the obligations attach to the company, not to its income. No operations does not mean no obligations. A dormant South African company still files its CIPC Annual Return with the Financial Accountability Supplement, lodges its UBO confirmation, keeps its registers and directors' interest declarations current, and keeps an Information Officer registered under POPIA. Missing CIPC filings can lead to deregistration of the company, which is what the $1,500/year Annual Compliance Package is there to prevent.

Yes. The only things you buy today are the registration itself and whatever South African law requires to complete it. VAT registration, PAYE / UIF / SDL registration, payroll, bookkeeping, and the annual compliance package can each be added when you actually need them, and recurring services can be cancelled. If your headcount grows past the 20 employees the payroll plan covers, we re-scope the plan with you before anything changes on your invoice.

Your entity gets a compliance calendar built from its own details: jurisdiction, entity type, fiscal year end, and tax elections. It carries the CIPC annual return, provisional tax, Corporate Income Tax, and bi-monthly VAT dates in one place with status tracking, and it sends automated reminders ahead of due dates instead of relying on someone remembering to log in. The platform gives you the calendar, documents, and visibility, and an in-house team working with our South African local partner does the filings. You get a single point of contact for the account rather than a ticket queue.

The Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 requires every company doing business in South Africa to appoint a resident Public Officer within one month of commencing operations. That person is the representative taxpayer, effectively your company's face to SARS, and the Companies Act separately requires a Local Representative, a South African resident who liaises with CIPC. Both roles must be held by a South African resident. If you have one on your team there is no charge; if nobody on your team lives in South Africa, Commenda appoints a resident through our local partner at $1,800/year, covering both roles and the SARS submission pack, and that appointment is required to proceed.