Registering business name from offshore

harveykane

Hi All,

I'm looking for a little advice regarding setting up an Irish small business. I'm currently in New Zealand and are moving to Ireland (republic) in 2 months time. I'm self-employed, and was hoping to sort out most of the business paperwork before I arrive, so I don't find myself waiting for months for the paperwork to be processed.

- I'm not an Irish Citizen, but my wife is.
- I am currently living in NZ, but have an Irish postal address and phone number I can be reached on.
- (as far as I have read) I'm allowed to operate a business in Ireland as I'm married to an Irish citizen - and are exempt from 'business permission' which many other non-EU nationals require.
- However, before I'm allowed to work/operate a business, I need to 'register the marriage' with the Garda - which can only be done once I arrive.

Does anyone have any advice on how best to proceed? Perhaps it's not possible to do anything until I arrive, but it would be good to know what options are available.

Thanks in advance,

Harvey.

Fionn101

I used these people when setting up my company, http://www.formit.ie/

most of the correspondence was done via e-mail so may suit you well.

They will probably have the answers your looking for and can help with the paperwork, I did find them quite easy to work with and I would recommend them.

Fionn

harveykane

Thanks Fionn,

Since posting this message I have just received some advice from http://www.companyformations.ie who have been very helpful.

The 'register the marriage' I mentioned above is officially known as a 'stamp 4' which is needed to register a business. Because I can't get a stamp 4 until I land on Irish soil, it seems that I'll need to wait until then before proceeding further.

I'm told there might be workarounds, whereby the business is registered by my wife and then later transferred into my name, but to be honest, this is starting to get a bit complicated so I might just leave it be until I arrive.

Thanks for the link to FormIt, I'll give them a try if I don't have any luck with http://www.companyformations.ie, but they have also been very helpful so far.

Thanks again,

Harvey.

Fionn101

Yeah both of those are company formation outfits and will have the same info.

I think it would be a good idea to get this all sorted before you arrive so you can hit the ground running (hate that term !) ,I liked reading that you wanted to save time which is why I replied to your post.

Transferring it from your wife's name is really easy and I'd recommend doing it that way , it will be easy for her to setup the company , list you as the 2nd director and then you can swapsie's when you get here.

The missus can setup a company online in minutes with either of the two mentioned company formation places.

Good luck

harveykane

Thanks again for the advice, and appreciate what you say about wanting to get things done quick.

You could say that this is a pretty big adventure for us, and nothing would spoil that more than depleting our savings while waiting for the beaurocracy to process the paperwork. Maybe that's an unfair generalisation, perhaps the Irish Government is super-efficient with such things, but it's definitely something that could potentially cause issues.

If this approach is fully legal and not too complicated, then perhaps it is the best way to go.

thanks.