Can I set up a Jersey company without living here?

You can incorporate one. Whether you may trade from Jersey is a separate question answered through the business licence, which the Business Hub administers. Resident licences are issued to Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work holders, with Standard, Licensed and Licensed for Lease Only holders considered case by case, and Locate Jersey's relocation route lets a principal request a Licensed permission as part of the application. Incorporating without a licence or a status plan is a common and expensive misunderstanding.

Is Jersey corporation tax really zero?

The standard rate of Jersey income tax on company profits is 0% for most trading companies, with higher rates applying to financial services companies, utilities and certain property income. That is the headline; whether it benefits you depends entirely on where your business has substance and where its owners are resident. Take advice in both jurisdictions before assuming anything.

Do I need JFSC authorisation?

Only if you carry on a financial service business as defined by the Financial Services (Jersey) Law 1998 — investment business, trust company business, fund services, money service business, general insurance mediation, AIF services business. Most trading businesses do not. Where the line falls .

How many staff can I bring?

As many as the licence permits, which is decided case by case and is usually fewer than an incoming business expects. Licensed permissions are limited on purpose. Budget for the possibility that you will fill roles locally rather than relocating the team you have.

How long does the whole thing take?

Long enough that you should start before you have signed a lease anywhere. We will not quote an average, because the variable is your own evidence-gathering rather than any published processing time.

Business Hub · Part 7, CHW Law 2012

Relocating a business to Jersey

Test whether a licence is realistic before you commit to a structure, a lease or a hire. That order is the whole job.

Request a business call +44 7781 150662

Danrok, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Part 7

The law your licence is granted under

Standard company rate for most trading businesses

5 days

Working-day customer promise for a resident licence

Days

To incorporate — the easiest part by far

A business licence is the permission to trade. No amount of company formation substitutes for it.

It is issued under Part 7 of theControl of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law 2012and administered by the Business Hub, part of Employment, Social Security and Housing. It sets how many staff you may employ and in which status categories, and it decides who may run the business.

Financial service businesses need Jersey Financial Services Commission authorisation as well. Most trading businesses are nowhere near that line.

Six things that decide a business move

The constraints that reshape most incoming plans, in the order they bite.

The licence

First

Before the lease and the hires

The business licence decides whether you may trade and how many staff you may employ. Every other step is contingent on it.

What the licence covers

The catch

Entitled

The status a principal normally needs

Resident licences go to Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work holders, with other statuses considered case by case. A founder arriving with the company usually holds none of the three.

How that is solved

Incorporation

Not enough

A company is an entity, not a permission

Formation is fast and cheap and tells you nothing about whether the business may operate here. Treating it as the hard part is the common expensive error.

Company formation

Staff

Fewer

Licensed permissions than you asked for

They are scarce by design, because population policy makes them scarce. Plan on filling roles from the resident workforce.

Premises and staff

Regulation

Most

Businesses are nowhere near the JFSC

Only defined classes of financial service business need authorisation. A shop, an agency or a software firm does not — but all still need a business licence.

Where the line falls

Elsewhere

Two

Jurisdictions with a view on your structure

Where a company is really managed matters more than where it is registered. Take advice in the country you are leaving, before you incorporate.

Substance and structure

Incorporation is the easy part, and it is not the permission

Jersey company formation is fast, well-served and cheap relative to the rest of the move. It comes early in the official sequence, and it tells you nothing about whether your business can operate here.

Trading in Jersey requires a business licence, and the licence is where the real questions live: what the business does, how many people it will employ, in which status categories, and who is running it.Resident licences are issued to Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work holders, with other statuses considered case by case — the constraint that reshapes most incoming plans.

For a founder relocating with the business, that usually means the personal status route and the business route have to be solved together. They are two applications, two timelines and, if you sequence them badly, two dead ends.

What the licence covers and how it is assessed.

The sequence that works

01
Test the licence before anything else
The business licence decides whether you may trade and how many staff you may employ, and the Business Hub administers it in the context of a deliberately constrained population policy. Test whether it is realistic before money is committed.
02
Settle the structure, then apply
Incorporation is quick and is not the hard part. gov.je's sequence has the company incorporated before the licence application; Locate Jersey's relocation route takes the two together. What matters is whether the activity is regulated, where substance sits, and how the arrangement looks to the tax authority you are leaving.
03
Premises, then people
A licence application is stronger with a credible premises plan behind it, and Jersey commercial stock is thin. Staff permissions follow, and the licensed ones are scarce.
04
Move the principals
The people running the business have their own residential status question, and it is usually the step that gets left until last. It should not be.

In this section

Moving the people as well as the company? The staff side is covered underrelocating employees, and founders who may qualify on wealth rather than on trade should readHigh Value Residency first.

Business relocation questions

Can I set up a Jersey company without living here?: You can incorporate one. Whether you may trade from Jersey is a separate question answered through the business licence, which the Business Hub administers. Resident licences are issued to Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work holders, with Standard, Licensed and Licensed for Lease Only holders considered case by case, and Locate Jersey's relocation route lets a principal request a Licensed permission as part of the application. Incorporating without a licence or a status plan is a common and expensive misunderstanding.
Is Jersey corporation tax really zero?: The standard rate of Jersey income tax on company profits is 0% for most trading companies, with higher rates applying to financial services companies, utilities and certain property income. That is the headline; whether it benefits you depends entirely on where your business has substance and where its owners are resident. Take advice in both jurisdictions before assuming anything.
Do I need JFSC authorisation?: Only if you carry on a financial service business as defined by the Financial Services (Jersey) Law 1998 — investment business, trust company business, fund services, money service business, general insurance mediation, AIF services business. Most trading businesses do not. Where the line falls.
How many staff can I bring?: As many as the licence permits, which is decided case by case and is usually fewer than an incoming business expects. Licensed permissions are limited on purpose. Budget for the possibility that you will fill roles locally rather than relocating the team you have.
How long does the whole thing take?: Long enough that you should start before you have signed a lease anywhere. We will not quote an average, because the variable is your own evidence-gathering rather than any published processing time.

Test the licence before you commit to anything

Tell us what the business does, how many people it employs and where its owners are resident. The first call establishes whether a Jersey licence is realistic, and what would have to be true for it to be granted.