Start Off on The Right Foot
Are you ready to transition from lofty ideas to legit entity? Then you’re in the right place at CIPC!
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission – aka CIPC – is the official body for registering and regulating companies and intellectual property in South Africa. When you register your business with them, you gain:
- Legality as the legal recognition of your business permits you to sign contracts, apply for business funding, and protect your intellectual property.
- Tax compliance once you register the legal entity with SARS for tax purposes.
- Business credibility. Being officially registered boosts your business’s reputation with customers, suppliers, and financial institutions.
📐 Choose Your Structure, Shape Your Future
You can choose from various legal structures for your organisation – each of which affects your risk, control, and finances:
The structure you choose determines the CIPC registration process, including the documents you need to submit and the type of registration you will complete.
Begin Here 🔰
CIPC’s BizPortal is an online platform that offers company registration and related services digitally. The joy of this website is that you can get a lot of admin done in one place!
1️⃣ Register
Start by registering a BizProfile online.
(Keep a hard copy and save your log in details somewhere safe.)
Once you’ve done that, you can tackle the individual registrations covered in this module’s lessons.
2️⃣ Prepare Your Documents
After creating a profile, you’ll need to gather info related to the registration of your business:
- ID or passport 🪪
For South African residents, a valid South African ID is required. If you’re a foreign national, your passport. - Proof of address 🏢
A recent utility bill or lease agreement for the business address. - Company name (optional) 🗣️
You can reserve a business name, or you can register your business under your own name. - Note: You can register a company with or without a name. If a company is registered without a name, the registration number will be regarded as its name. It costs R125 to register a company without a name.
- If you want to name your company, you must apply to reserve a name at a cost of R50. Submit four proposed names (in case your first choices are already taken). If one of the proposed names is approved, it will be attached to the company upon registration. Unfortunately, if none of the four proposed names get approved, then the company will be registered without a name. Then you should apply to reserve a name again (another R50) until you’re successful, at which time you will apply for a name change at no cost.
- Company details 📃
For companies, you’ll need to provide the company’s Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI) which outlines the rules and structure of your business. - Also, have your payment ready 💳
This is important as these are CIPC’s rules about payment: - Payment MUST be made on the same day the application is submitted.
Transactions will be rejected if payment is not received after 24 hours from submission.
Transactions only start once we’re receiving payment.
Online card payment is the preferred payment method. Payments reflect immediately. - If you already have credit in your CIPC account, check balance below, then choose the “payment using customer balance” option.
- If you decide to make a deposit after you have submitted your transaction, then:
You must pay directly at an Absa branch, Absa internet banking, or use their ATMs. It takes about 30 minutes for payments to reflect on our side.
The correct reference, which is always in your CIPC customer code, must be used as displayed below.
EFT payments from other banks are discouraged as they might be automatically allocated in your account. Some banks append extra characters to references, which make them invalid on our side. In that case, your deposit cannot be automatically allocated to your account. For the banks that do not append extra characters, it might take up to 48 hours for the payment to reach our Absa account. By that time your application has already been rejected.
In the case of incorrect references and EFT payments from other banks, you must log a query on the CIPC website under the “Finance” > “Allocation of Funds” category. Attach your proof of payment and certified ID copy. This process takes a maximum of 10 working days.
3️⃣ Register Online
💻 Use your BizProfile to log into CIPC’s BizPortal. Then complete the online application by following the steps for registering your business. Depending on your business structure, you will be required to complete different forms and provide relevant information.
💳 Pay the CIPC fee for company registration.
📧 Once you’ve completed the process, you will receive your CIPC Registration Certificate confirming that your company is legally registered and recognised by the government.
🎉 Woohoo! Your business is now a legal entity!
➡️ Next
If you have a business registration number from CIPC, please send it to info@peopledynamics.co.za so that we can toast your success!