ICO Registration In The BVI

If you want to register an affordable company to launch an ICO, and do so with the least amount of paperwork and taxes, the BVI is perfect for you.

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) offers a number of advantages which make it an attractive ICO base:

• No taxes in the BVI.
• Low incorporation and annual maintenance fees.
• No capital controls - free flow of money in and out of the company.
• Established offshore jurisdiction with extensive financial services sector.
• No securities or public offering regulations (more on this below).

No Regulation On ICOs

At present, neither the Financial Services Commission, nor the BVI Government have provided guidance specific to ICOs. The BVI Government intents to establish a legal framework supportive of crypto-currencies, but no draft legislation has been announced yet.

This means that a lot of regulatory burdens currently placed on ICO’s in other jurisdiction are less strict here.

Examples are:

• Anti Money Laundering (AML). ALM requirements do exist in the BVI, like they do almost anywhere in the world. However, as of now they do not apply to token holders. You can therefore issue tokens without restricting and time-consuming due diligence, such as asking the buyers for passport copies and utility bills.
• Securities and Financial Services Regulation. In a lot of countries, ICO’s have been designated as securities. Securities’ regulations usually bring strict procedures and reporting obligations. In the BVI however, for most common ICO forms the tokens/coins are not considered securities.
• FATCA and CRS Reporting regulations require financial institutions to report financial information to the jurisdiction of residence. Even though this might apply to shareholders and UBO’s, this does not apply to token holders.

What You Have To Keep In Mind

As you can see, the BVI is great for doing a standard ICO. But keep in mind that the regulatory framework has the teeth to deal with malpractices, like money laundering.

In addition, when certain types of rights are attached to the token, like a profit share, this might result in the token being qualified as a security anyway. So you have to be mindful of what you promise to investors. It is worth to discus with us the nature of your ICO before hand.

It is also worth mentioning that even when your ICO is not regulated in the BVI, it might be in the country where the buyers are located.

On a final note: the fact that it currently is not regulated, doesn’t say it never will be. Given the fact that the crypto-market in general and ICO’s in particular have cooled of, this will not be a focus point in the near future. However, running your business in a transparent and sensible way is highly recommended to ensure a solid business a regulatory change cannot impact.

The Process

Because there are no specific licenses or procedures to follow, the process of structuring an ICO is surprisingly simple. It is just a matter of setting up a standard International Business Company, an IBC. This is something we have done thousands of times.

If you just intent to accept cryptos as payment, it will be super easy.

The only challenging part might be accessing the financial system. It has become more difficult in general for IBC’s to open bank accounts and accept credit-card payments. It will be more difficult when the company in question is doing an ICO (banks have their own strict regulatory obligations).

The Next Step

If you wish to proceed with registering your ICO in the BVI, you’re at the right spot.

First of all, we can tell you if your ICO is surely outside the scope of all regulatory frameworks.

Next, we can assist you with setting up an IBC. Moreover, we have a wide-network of banks and merchant accounts, and can assist you in accessing the financial system.

If this sounds interesting to you, please fill in the contact form below. And soon, your ICO will be a reality!