Business registration to be streamlined

Service should be improved and fees will increase  under a new system for handling business registrations

The process of business registration, previously regarded as simply a state management function, will be regarded as a service starting from December 10, 2012, under the Ministry of Finance (MoF) newly enacted Circular 176/2012/TT-BTC.

Organisations and individuals register businesses shall have to pay increased charges set at a level sufficient to cover expenses instead of the current nominal fee level. Under current regulations at Circular 197/2006/TT-BTC, organisations and individuals in need of getting business registration information only have to pay state management agencies maximally VND10,000 per time in service fee.

However, from December 10, 2012 when Circular 197 came into force the service fee will be doubled to VND20,000 per time when organizations and individuals turn to Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Business Registration Support Centre and provincial-level business registration offices to procure information relevant to business registration certificates, including those of representative offices and branch offices.

For information relevant to company regulations or joint stock companies’ financial statements the fee will be VND50,000 ($2.4)/copy and for other materials in business registration records payment will be VND25,000 per material.  From December 10, 2012, organisations and individuals procuring summary reports about firm leaders and corporate management activities in three year time need to pay VND100,000 ($4.80) per report whereas the fee will be doubled to VND200,000 ($9.60) per report for getting reports on firm development history in three year time.

Besides, the MoF also hiked fee levels levied on enterprise and household business registration.  Accordingly, from December 10, 2012 new registration and changing content in business registration certificates will charge firms VND200,000 ($9.6) per time.

The VND100,000 per time fee will be equally applied to granting new business registration certificates in case former ones are lost, burnt, dragged or abolished; granting new and changing the content of certificates involving business registration of representative offices and branch offices and changing business locations; and household business registration.  Thus, compared to current regulations the new fees only hike by three to five times, but payers of these fees are also being classified.

Under current regulations the fee imposed on household business registration is at most VND30,000 ($1.4) per time whereas cooperatives, private and semi-public education and training facilities, private healthcare centres and culture-information units whose business registration certificates are granted by district-level People’s committees have to pay at most VND100,000 ($4.8) per time for getting the certificate.