Doing business in Saint Lucia

[Moderated: No free ad on the forum]

Where r u based?  I am in soufriere.  I am leaving this year and have a well established business for sale you may be interested in.

Hello Stluciadebs and welcome to Expat.com!

These are general questions asked in order to help members seeking informations about Doing business in Saint Lucia.

Concerning your business for sale, you could post an advert in the Buy and Sell section (Business) in the Saint Lucia classifieds. It can help.

Thank you,
Aurélie
Expat.com Team

Hi St Luciadebs.I may be able to help .contact me at 4518463.

Foreign investment is most welcome by the gov't.  Incentives r on their website.  As far as how your business is received...all depends on the type of business/ your competition.  Very easy to set up a company, need a lawyer,some island time.  Corporate tax still 35%.  New VAT is 15% //except hotels 8%.

Check these links out for business rankings about St. Lucia by international bodies:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/explo … /st~-luciahttp://www.damajority.com/st-lucia-news … orld-bank/http://www.tradingeconomics.com/st-luci … -data.html

Julien wrote:

Hi,

are foreign investors welcome in Saint Lucia?

Is it complicated to register a company in Saint Lucia? What is the procedure?

What is the corporate tax rate in Saint Lucia?

Is it easy to recruit?

Any advice you would share with us?

Thank you very much for your participation,

Julien

Hi there,

I'm replying to your inquiries point by point.

1). Foreign investors are welcome everywhere.  One must differentiate between big investors and big investments done through official channels with lots of paperwork and time, and small investors who come to SLU to partner with locals for increased sales.
This is not the place to talk about big investors, so let's limit ourselves to what a small investor can do.
Manufacturing is lacking very badly because everything an entrepreneur wants to do boils down to increased costs for importing supplies and for exporting far away.  Nothing stood the test of time and all small businesses closed down or merged barely subsisting.
The 2008 recession destroyed 35% of small businesses meaning that for every 100 businesses, 35 went belly up.  This is disastrous for small, resourceless countries like SLU where the failed business owner cannot redress into a new venture quickly because of no opportunities or too many mom & pop shops doing the same thing.
There have been many, many foreigners who traveled down here to set up shop mostly in guest house, restaurant, repairs or import in the past.  Now there is a new wave of small investors coming to SLU looking for opportunities.  The trend for Internet businesses starts to get noticed, unfortunately at a time when the Internet is chocked with all kinds of business ideas from overseas.

2). No complication at all to register a business name or company in SLU.  A lawyer will do the work and, if you do a bit of research, a chartered accountant will do the same at half price.
The Government has a department, SEDU (Small Enterprise Development Unit) that does the paperwork at cost, meaning you cannot get anywhere else cheaper.  However, as far as I know, this service is for locals.
There used to be laws in place for local companies to have at least 51% local ownership.  Now that has been scrapped, which is encouraging.

3). Tax rate = 30%+

4). Yes, it's easy to advertise for staff and for the businessman to get flooded with job applications.  To put it mildly, this does not mean he will find the best employee or that those recruited will stay with the company for long.

5) Advice to share?  SLU is a free country, make sure you have documents, agreements and all legalities covered duly, which do not guarantee success to you but will keep your enthusiasm going at least to the next phase.

SLU is part of the offshore planet and businessmen can easily incorporate companies offshore.  However this topic is for bold businessmen.  ‘Bold' is a word which came up to me in the spur of the moment.
There is offshore legislation and there are special offshore services providers in SLU.  Persons interested in going that route know how to go about it.  Educating them here would be inappropriate.

My two cents …

Oh, my, I almost forgot!
St. Lucia has its own Internet domain name registry giving entrepreneurs the possibility of registering .LC domain names.

I do not know if it is lawful for persons from abroad to register domain names ending with .LC if they have no company or physical presence in the island.
Cost: approx. US$50/year.

Reliable web site hosting services exist and tend to be a bit pricier than overseas.
Hope this helps.

Hi John C.,

Thank you for the sharing of information

Hasnaa
Expat.com Team