Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan introduces one-click registration of businesses
From the beginning of this year single procedure (including VAT registration and opening a bank account) is needed for LLCs’ with local investments to be state registered online. All procedures that were previously in place have been abolished including the necessity of validation of e-application with electronic signature. As a result, number of procedures has been decreased from 3 to 1; the duration of the procedure was reduced to 20 minutes, while requirement of financial resources, as well as number of documents have been eliminated.
The new approach to the state registration entailed:
- Simple method – state registration by PIN code, VAT registration and opening of a bank account (via a single procedure);
- E-transmission of data on labour contracts to the information system of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population during the registration process without e-signature;
- Barcode encrypted certificate on state registration;
- Electronic circulation of registration documents (certificate, charter, extract from registry);
- Maximum digitalization of state registration of LLC with local investments.
The online registration of LLC with local investments is carried out via Internet Tax Office which can be accessed via the official web-site of the Ministry of Taxes of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Those who wish to benefit from new service must login to Internet Tax Office without e-signature and register online via PIN code (Individual Identification Number) of their ID card.
Data from registration application is entered in the system online and the process of Tax Identification Number submission concludes with documents being validated by means of single procedure. Moreover, through this procedure employment contract statement notification data is automatically sent to the information system of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population. The mentioned procedure also entails taxpayers’ registration for VAT purposes and certificate-duplicate issuance for the bank account opening.
Pursuant to the new system paper-based registration documents are no longer required since they are sent online to the taxpayer’s electronic account only and they also have a unique encrypted barcode. Legal framework and administration has been improved in order to enable the official verification by all state authorities, banks, notaries and other entities.
New significant reforms in this sphere are part of concerted efforts to improve the domestic business climate and also continuation of recent changes to the tax legislation for supporting entrepreneurship.
Achievements of recent reforms should be displayed by:
- Share of e-registration in the total registrations for 2018 – 70 per cent;
- “Doing Business 2019” Report distinguishes Azerbaijan in the 9th place by “Starting business” indicator among 190 countries;
- In comparison with a previous report, our country has gone up to 9 positions in the rating;
- Index of "Approximation of Legislation" amounted to 96.14 per cent, when increased by 1.78 per cent.
Ministry of Taxes of the Republic of Azerbaijan is the state authority which is responsible for the state registration of commercial legal entities in Azerbaijan. Over the past years much has been done to improve this sphere and those efforts have led to international recognition.
More information can be found in this Presentation.