Incorporation • Jurisdiction

Cayman Islands

Incorporate your company in the Cayman Islands, a tax-neutral jurisdiction.

Cayman
Why choose the Cayman Islands? 

The Cayman Islands is a well-known and widely trusted jurisdiction across the world

Long track record
with investors globally
Tax neutral
environment
100%
foreign ownership
Business friendly
environment

Why Cayman?

Learn why Cayman is such a popular jurisdiction for structuring investments.

Trusted by leading companies, investors and lawyers around the world
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Cayman
exempted company

Businesses benefit from the speed and simplicity of Clara’s digital incorporation process, while investors are attracted by the strong regulatory environment and legal protections that the Cayman Islands provides.

Complete the form to receive an instant quote.

Benefits

Learn more about the benefits of Cayman

Before you get started with incorporating Cayman on the Clara platform, learn more about the benefits of Cayman Exempted Company.

Ease of administration

A Cayman exempted company can be incorporated with a minimum of one director and shareholder, and they do not need to be resident in the Cayman Islands. 

Ease of incorporation

The application process is done online, and all documents can be signed digitally on Clara. There is no requirement for any parties to be physically present in the Cayman Islands for the incorporation process. The company is typically incorporated within 3 to 5 days.

Tax

The Cayman Islands is a tax-neutral jurisdiction. There is currently no corporate, income, capital gains or any other tax on money earned outside the territory. 

Flexible ownership structure

There is no minimum share capital and no maximum number of shares or shareholders. There is no restrictions on the nationality of the shareholders.

Clara bundles

Save up to $795 when you bundle
your formation with our platform subscription

Make the most of Clara by integrating the formation and management of your
company with our wider company OS. 

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Journey

Process of digitally incorporating a Cayman Exempted Company on Clara

01

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Initial Information

Start by adding details about your company, shareholders and directors.

02

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Nature of business

Please provide details about the business activities of your underlying operating company. This company will carry out operations and will be owned by the topco you will establish in the Cayman Islands. 

03

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Articles of Association

Adopt model Articles of Association for the company or amended Articles of Association that have been approved by a Cayman lawyer.

04

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Share capital

Choose your desired number of authorized shares, or follow Clara’s recommended method. The authorized share capital for a Cayman company represents the maximum amount of share capital that the company is permitted to issue to shareholders. 

05

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Pay and Submit

After completing all your formation tasks, you can pay and submit your formation application to Clara. 

06

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Review and Sign

Once submitted, Clara will review your application and create the incorporation pack for e-signature within 3-5 business days. 

07

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Track your progress  

After you have signed the incorporation documents, Clara will file the incorporation pack, and your new company will be formed within 2-3 business days. You can track the progress on the Clara dashboard every step of the way. 

Find out more about the exempted company license. Clara’s got you covered in Cayman.

Resources & Insights

Stories, updates and resources

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Starting a company is hard enough, but managing legal processes shouldn’t be. With Clara’s dedicated accelerator onboarding solution, companies can get the support and infrastructure they need to efficiently and professionally complete their legal due diligence and finalize an investment.

amal-dokhan Amal Dokhan General Partner MENA, 500 Global
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Clara is a one-stop shop for everything equity related. All our data is safe and securely stored and accurately recorded. And our investors love having direct access. It has saved us countless hours and kept our cap table mistake free.

jessica-anuna Jessica Anuna CEO & Founder, Klasha
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We spend a lot of time educating founders on basic legal concepts: what they need to do for us to invest in them. Clara automates these functions. As Clara’s first institutional investor, we knew intuitively from inception, this company will be a game changer.

vijay-tirathrai Vijay Tirathrai Managing Director, Techstars

You can’t beat Clara’s ESOP functionality. It allows us to grant options to our team in a few clicks while automatically updating our cap table. Truly next level.

michael-hunter Michael Hunter Co-Founder & CEO, Holo
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Founders often struggle with managing their legal function due to lack of expertise and resources. And we’ve seen poor legal structures create hurdles to our investing in otherwise healthy startups. Investors like ourselves love that Clara gives founders the tools they need to establish, grow and scale their startups from day one on a best-practice basis.

shane-shin Shane Shin Founding Partner, Shorooq
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US cap table solutions aren’t tailored to the differentiated needs of international startups. Clara is the only cap table provider we found that had emerging market startups in mind. Add to that all the other things you can do on the Clara platform, from building your ESOP to data room management, and switching was a no brainer.

omar-rifai Omar Rifai Co-founder, GrubTech
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From company formation to maintaining the cap-table, by using Clara founders can digitally form their companies in a range of jurisdictions, create and manage their cap-tables and generate legal documents. Clara is quickly becoming an integral part of the startup software stack.

daniel-dos-reis Daniel Dos Reis Investment Director, Wamda Capital

Clara is a must-have for founders. Not only does it provide all the legal tools you need in a single platform, using Clara also signals to investors that you are a serious startup.

Mazen AlDarrab Founder & CGO, Zid
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IP Assignments, what? I didn’t even know they existed before Clara. For startups, setting up governance, corporate structures, data rooms and fundraising are all hard to get right. Clara’s legalOS is premium. It pays for itself.

zohare-haider Zohare Haider Co-Founder & CEO, Jalebi

Binance uses Clara to incorporate and manage ADGM entities. The team at Clara are extremely efficient and go the extra mile to ensure we always have a smooth experience and meet our deadlines. Top-notch service!

Vishal Sacheendran Head of Strategy and Operations, Binance

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Equity owners

Trusted by more than 10,000 equity owners.

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Countries

Our customers operate from more than 45 different countries.

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Savings on fees

Our customers on average save more than 80% on their annual legal and admin fees.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

We have put together some commonly asked questions 

What can you use a Cayman Exempted Company for?

A Cayman Exempted Company can be used as a passive holding company or TopCo that holds shares in operating companies. A Cayman Exempted company should not be used for active commercial activities. You should not employee people from your Cayman company, this should happen at the operating company level instead. 

What information do I need to set up an Exempted Company?

You will need to tell us the purpose of the SPV, its proposed name, who will be the shareholder(s), director(s) and authorised signatory and provide their identification information and documents. For a full list so you can start preparing now, click here. 

Will I need to pay tax on my Exempted Company?

No, the Cayman Islands is a tax-free jurisdiction. You will not need to pay company, individual, or capital gains tax.

What are the ongoing obligations for an Exempted Company?

A Cayman Exempted Company has annual, and event driven obligations. The annual obligations include and filing an economic substance declaration, paying the renewal fee and filing the annual return on or before the 31st of December. If changes occur to the company (such as a change of directors or shareholders), this will trigger a requirement to update the company books and / or the Registrar. For more information, click here. 

How long does it take to register a company in Cayman Islands? 

Incorporating your Cayman Exempted Company can take approximately 5 – 7 days from submission to the Cayman registrar.  

In order to speed up the process, be ready with up-to-date KYC for each shareholder and director. Corporate shareholders often take more time due to the requirement to collect KYC on the ultimate beneficial owners all the way up the group structure. 

What are you waiting for?

Get started with Clara today.

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