For member asked about LLC registration

[Pitter Pen]

Hi. This is for a member who PMed me regarding setting up a company (in particular LLC) in Ukraine. Unfortunately your PM disappeared somehow, maybe I deleted it by accident or it was a bug. That is why I cannot answer to you directly and decided to make a thread here.
Yes, registration of LLC in Kyiv is about 600 USD. But as usual such pricing consists of remuneration of “lawyers” and diverse obligatory duties and fees. But such pricing is asked by firms whose main business is registration of companies. And I advice you not to use them.
Use those law firms that provide a complex legal service for business. I will explain why. Companies that ask 600 do registration like Mr Ford made his cars – “via conveyor”. They have one charter in which they change only names of participants, address, company name and value of stocks. They do not do exclusive approach to every company. They can register fast because they work close with state registering clerks so these clerks do not pay much attention to your documents. But you must understand that your purpose is not to get a company faster that it is prescribed by law but to get a company that will work for long without problems. There are many options to be considered for CEO authority, General Meetings exclusive rights, audit committee etc. Another important issue is a registration address. Using such companies you have very good chances to get an address of mass registration that will result in tax inspections. And there are many other problems you may get. Also another good chances to have your company in a black list of the tax service is to put into a special database types of business activities that may be dangerous or suspicious or require paying of higher taxes. There is a special instruction in the tax service, following it they match your company with some characteristic or features and then BOOM – you have problems. It is very painful when you company has worked well for several years and now you have to liquidate it.
So use a normal law firms that do not only registration of companies but other legal work. Registration is not a hard task so any lawyer can do this, you just need to be sure that a lawyer will sit and think over your company registration. Of course it will be more expensive, about in two times. This is because a lawyer will work on you task and not a student of law department who works for 200-300 usd per month as a rule in those companies.
To understand a rough pricing you may consider the following expenses you have to pay: translation of the charter for you as a foreigner (whatever you know Ukrainian or not), charter notarization, payment for opening of a bank account (although some banks do it for free), contribution to the charter capital, state duty for making the company’s seal, state duty for registration of company, payments for legalization of your documents issued in your country and again their translation and notarization, and so on.
Plus, if you want to be the CEO you will need to obtain a work permit and temporary residency certificate that will cost you another bunch of dollars.

To decide what organization form you need you should specify your business. I can say I want to produce ice-cream meaning that I have a refrigerator and mixer in my house or I can say I want to produce ice-cream meaning I have a plant with 2000 people staff.

IMPORTANT. While the new tax code in Ukraine has not been adopted yet state administrations do not register new companies. This information is unofficial but it is that we have now. They just pull of the docs, keep them or do whatever to disallow you to register a new legal entity. The same with registration of VAT payers. I could explain why they do so but my thread is already too long now.

[johamatt]

Thanks for this valuable information. I think I was the person who asked for advice.

I have already ruled out those firms that offer this service for USD 600. i asked my friend in Smila to help me. I asked him where to transfer the money. But i refused to accept any transfer. Said I pay when I see him next time.

I think he understands what LLC i need for my importing activities. Initially I am not the CEO, only owner. Maybe that is sufficient for controlling the firm with Ukrainian CEO.

I appreciate the information about the stop in registration, even if it is unofficial it is good to knoe. I am in no hurry. I can do this next year.

JM