Marshall Islands annual fees and filings: two clocks, one anniversary
A non-resident Marshall Islands corporation or LLC renews on the anniversary of its formation, through its registered agent, at a fee the Registrar sets and doesn't publish. Unpaid for a year, it gets a 90 day notice before its charter is revoked.
Every company also files an economic substance report within 12 months of each anniversary, even if it did nothing. There's no tax return and no accounts filing. With us everything costs US$699 a year.
The Marshall Islands is the quiet option: no public directors, a tax exemption written into the statute, and a registry that forms a company in a day. Quiet doesn't mean nothing happens. Your company carries two separate yearly deadlines that both start on the same day, and each ends differently. Enter your formation date and see both.
Key takeaways
- The renewal falls on the anniversary of formation and is paid through The Trust Company of the Marshall Islands, the registered agent the law requires.
- The government fee is prescribed by the Registrar and not published as a list, so figures online disagree.
- One year unpaid starts a 90 day notice, after which the articles are revoked.
- The substance report is due within 12 months of each anniversary. Missing it suspends the company, and annulment follows a year later.
- Owner records stay with the company, not on a register, but must reach the agent within 60 days of a request. Fines go up to US$50,000.
- With Heirson the year costs US$699, government fee, agent and substance report included.
Marshall Islands renewal and report dates from your formation day
The Marshall Islands has no common filing season. Everything keys off the day your company was formed. Section 70(2) of the LLC Act makes the annual fee "due and payable on the anniversary day", and corporations are invoiced on the same cycle under section 9 of the Associations Law. Under the Registrar's economic substance FAQs, a new company's first reporting period opens on its first anniversary, and the PIN and deadline arrive with the annual invoice. Choose that date and the next three years appear, fee lane on the left, report lane on the right.
Your first substance report is due by the second anniversary, a full two years after formation.
Why nobody can quote you the official Marshall Islands fee
Search the renewal fee and you'll find US$300, US$450, US$550, US$650 and US$700, often on the same page of results. None of them comes from a government schedule, because there isn't a public one. The Business Corporations Act leaves the amount to the Registrar "from time to time", and the Registrar invoices each company through the intermediary that formed it.
Two things can make an invoice bigger. Authorised capital above 500 shares of no par value or US$50,000 of par value triggers a one-time capitalisation tax under section 8 of the Business Corporations Act. And a substance compliance certificate fee is charged up front with each annual invoice. Neither amount is published either, which is one reason we price the year as one number.
Any single figure for the government fee is a provider's estimate. Ask for the full yearly price instead.
The Marshall Islands economic substance report: what yours will say
Every non-resident entity reports under sections 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 of the Economic Substance Regulations 2018, so the real question is how long your report will be. The online portal, described in the Registrar's portal guide of 1 May 2026, asks first whether the company had "any business activity" at all, and it counts holding shares or other assets as activity. Pick what your company did during the year.
The Registrar's substance page and portal guide treat a claimed tax home in Bermuda, the BVI, Cayman, The Bahamas, the UAE and four other zero-tax places as no escape from the test. Financial figures in the report are entered in euros.
A trading company files a short report every year. Holding, IP, lending and shipping companies answer more.
When a clock runs out: revocation and annulment
Suppose neither the fee nor the report gets attention after an anniversary. Drag the slider through the months that follow and watch where each road leads.
The two roads end in different places. Under section 104(1) of the Business Corporations Act, after one year of non-payment, or without a registered agent, the Registrar gives notice that the articles will be revoked unless the default is cured within 90 days. A company revoked for an unpaid fee can be dealt with by paying what it owes. An annulled company has had its existence cancelled for not reporting; under the Registrar's substance FAQs, bringing it back needs an administrative procedure, a penalty fee and every missed report, and the Registrar decides. Records still have to be kept for five years after either ending.
No penalty amounts for late renewal or reinstatement are published.
A missed fee leads to revocation after about 15 months. A missed report leads to annulment after 24.
Records, owners and what the public file shows
The Marshall Islands keeps owners off any register, but it doesn't let them disappear. Under section 80 of the Business Corporations Act, as amended in 2017 and 2019, and the Beneficial Ownership Regulations 2023, the company holds the records, the agent can demand them, and the Registrar can hand them to a treaty partner.
- Accounting records with invoices and contracts, enough to explain every transaction
- Register of shareholders, with names, addresses and dates
- Beneficial owners: anyone over 25% of shares or votes, else whoever controls by other means, else the senior manager
- Bearer share holders, recorded with the agent before the shares are valid
- 60 days to produce records when the agent asks
- Once a year, an attestation that the records are kept, built into the invoice
- 5 years of retention, including after dissolution or annulment
- US$50,000 fine, revocation and dissolution, or both, for a breach
- Name and date of existence
- Articles or certificate of formation, stating what section 28 requires
- The incorporator's name and address, which is usually the provider
- Directors and members only if you choose to file them
Since 4 May 2026 a printed certificate of good standing carries a tracking number that anyone can look up online.
Where you live: pick it
Nothing about owners is filed, but they must be on record and produced within 60 days.
The 1 October 2026 tax reform and your yearly bill
From 1 October 2026 the Marshall Islands taxes its own businesses differently: a 16% net profit tax, a 12% consumption tax on supplies and imports, and 10% on certain payments to non-residents. That reform targets companies doing business on the islands. Section 12 of the Business Corporations Act, which exempts a non-resident entity "notwithstanding" any tax law "now in effect or hereinafter enacted", is unchanged.
On our reading of sections 705, 708 and 711 of the new Net Profit Tax Act 2025 (P.L. 2025-38), its rule that other laws' exemptions don't count spares exemptions already in force on its start date, so section 12 survives. No official statement on the point has been published, and we'll update this page if one appears. What would cost the exemption is plain in sections 2(q) and 4(5) of the Business Corporations Act: becoming a company that does business in the Republic.
Separately, a non-resident entity may never act as a crypto service provider, bank, insurer or trust business, wherever its customers are. Holding its own crypto or being paid in it is a different matter. Our Marshall Islands bank account guide explains what banks accept.
Keeping an office, bank account, records or meetings in the islands does not count as doing business there. More in our Marshall Islands tax guide. How a company in good standing shows on the registry's free search: Marshall Islands company search.
No tax return and no Marshall Islands tax, as long as the company doesn't trade with the islands.
What a Marshall Islands company costs with us each year
Because the government's part isn't published and arrives as one invoice, we don't split our price into lines we can't source. The year costs the same in year one and every year after.
- The annual government fee, paid on your anniversary
- The registered agent the law requires
- The economic substance report, filed inside the 12 months
- The yearly records attestation
- Owner records kept current with the agent
- Reminders for both clocks in your dashboard
- Staff, premises or management in the islands, for a company with a relevant activity
- Reinstatement after an annulment
- A one-time capitalisation tax, if you raise capital above the standard
- A nominee director, US$480 a year if you want one
- A nominee shareholder, US$480 a year
US$699 a year, the first year included, with the fee, agent and substance report inside.
Marshall Islands annual fees and filings: questions, answered
How much is the Marshall Islands annual fee?
When is the Marshall Islands company renewal due?
What happens if the Marshall Islands annual fee isn't paid?
Does a dormant Marshall Islands company file an economic substance report?
What if the substance report is missed?
Does a Marshall Islands company file accounts or a tax return?
Does the 2026 tax reform apply to a non-resident Marshall Islands company?
What does Heirson charge each year for a Marshall Islands company?
Changelog
- 12 November 2026: first published.
- 13 November 2026: official sources linked inside the text.
Both clocks handled, every anniversary.
We pay the renewal and file the substance report inside its window, for US$699 a year.