We are a full-service Panamanian law firm specializing in Panama relocation services, immigration law, Panamanian real estate law, Panamanian corporate law, as well as bank introductions in Panama, among other services such as maritime registrations in the Republic of Panama. Our lawyers are agents registered in the public register of Panama. We are located in Panama City, Panama and our physical address and PO Box are listed at the bottom of the website.
Our prices are not the lowest on the market, nor are they the highest. We pride ourselves on offering great service at a fair price.
We are a reputable law firm in the legal services sector of Panama. If you wish, we can provide you with a reference list of professional correspondents. Unfortunately, due to the confidential nature of our business, we cannot always provide our customers with references without their permission.
A personal visit is required for most of our services, including immigration processing, as well as real estate purchase transactions and bank presentations. In some cases we may form Panamanian companies or foundations without meeting in person, however, Panama is a beautiful country and we welcome you to visit us. Our attorneys would be more than happy to schedule a one-on-one meeting with you for free consultations for the first 30 minutes and $100 for each additional hour.
We offer various transfer services. We can help you obtain residency in Panama, start businesses, introduce banks and other services.
It depends on your needs. We recommend consulting with our real estate professionals to determine what is best for you.
Yes, we can arrange to show you many different properties, depending on what you are looking for and the location you prefer. Once you have decided on a property you wish to rent or buy, we can help you manage the real estate transaction.
Generally, companies are used for profit-making ventures involving business activities such as securities trading, banking, international trading, asset ownership etc. Private interest foundations are generally used for non-profit activities such as charities, receiving or disbursing, etc., but can also be used for holding purposes such as ownership of a Panamanian company or any other type of asset.
Trusts are generally used for holding purposes such as owning companies or holding assets.
Yes. Foreigners have the same property rights as local Panamanians. You can own property in your personal name without any problems, however, some owners prefer to own property in the name of a Panamanian company for asset protection reasons or specific business reasons
Yes. The government charges a US $50 penalty if you don't pay your annual business franchise tax on time. After the first penalty, the government charges a second penalty of US$300 for non-payment of two consecutive tax periods. Our law firm charges a $50 penalty per tax period, for non-payment of resident agent/registered office/CEO fees. It is very important to keep your entity in good standing, otherwise the Panama Public Registry will delete the company registration and therefore it would be costly to reactivate it.
Each package of Panamensi companies is provided complete with a constitutive act (with official translation in English), resident agent, registered office, share certified (issued in nominative form) and a letter of resignation of the subscribers. The foundations include the statute of the Registered Foundation (with official translation into English), the resident agent, the registered office and the document of the authenticated private protectorate.
Optionally, you can ask us to provide administrators or advice designated. In this case we will also include letters of prefirmed and not dated resignation of each administrator (or member of the Council), as well as a notarial and apostille general prosecutor.
Nominee directors (or nominee board members) are directors that our law firm appoints for you. Each company or foundation must have 3 directors appointed when the entity is registered in the Panama public register. The names of the directors and passport numbers are on the public deed of the company (or foundation) and this information is publicly available. When we appoint nominee directors on our clients' entities, we provide our clients with pre-signed and undated resignation letters from each director so that they can replace the directors at any time.
Yes, you can ship your household items to Panama. It is recommended to ship household goods to Panama after obtaining residency, because you may be able to get special import duty discounts if you are a Pensionado resident, for example.
The bank in Panama will ask for a source of funds to justify that the funds are from legal sources. The bank may ask for documentation such as your tax return, financial statements or letter of employment, to support the origin of the funds.
Yes, we provide legal advice for most types of businesses. Our area of specialization is Panama Relocation, Panama Immigration Services, Real Estate Law and Corporate Law.
Art. 43 of the Civil Code defines the registry residence as the "place where the person has his usual home". Residence and personal home I can coincide, but not always. The domicile is always governed by the same article and is the "place where the person has established the main headquarters of his business and interests".
The tax residence is acquired whether the taxpayer is enrolled in the registry of the resident population or has residence or domicile in Italy for more than 183 days a year . This implies its subjection to the Italian taxation rules for the income received, regardless of the state in which they were produced. It is therefore recognized to the person who meets at least one of the following requirements:
- registration in the Registry of the resident population;
- domicile fixed in Italy;
- residence established in the Italian territory.
Extradition is the formal process of a state that delivers an individual to another state to be pursued or punished for crimes committed in the jurisdiction of the applicant country. It is generally allowed by a bilateral or multilateral treatise. Some states extract without a treaty, but these cases are rare. The extradition treaties help governments to deliver criminals to justice that have fled their country.
An extradition treaty does not guarantee that the signatories will work harmoniously on cases.
In the majority of cases all countries have work visas to join. If, on the other hand, you find yourself already a resident for other types of visas, you can either access a work permit or not be obliged to do so if the visa in itself guarantees the right to work
By contacting us before the end of the fiscal year or the renewal date, paying a fee to close it in a few days
In any jurisdiction we deal with and where we broker bank account openings. Be they in Panama, Belize, Nevis, or Singapore.
Depending on whether or not you are tax residents of a country that includes exchanges of information you will behave in different ways. If you open an account as Italian residents or any other European country, you must always indicate every year, in the appropriate framework of your tax return, the possession of the offshore account and its stocks when they exceed 10,000 euros of against value. If you are a residents of a country with subsidized taxation like
Panama you don't have to declare anything.
Tax havens: what they are and where they are
A view of the coastal belt of Panama
Tax havens are jurisdictions with privileged taxation that allow a reduction of the tax burden considered by the OECD to be unfair in competitive terms compared to OECD countries with high taxation. Tax havens have streamlined and very liberal pro-enterprise legislation which provides for:
- Territorial Taxation
- Tax residence for individuals and companies
- Corporate secret or Corporate veil
- Banking secrecy under certain conditions to be met
Tax havens: what they are and residence rules
Tax havens are also countries where taking up tax residence evokes the specter of the reverse burden of proof on the individual who takes up residence in that tax haven. For example Dubai, Panama are countries subject to the reverse burden of proof. This always and in any case you subscribe to AIRE. In the absence of AIRE registration, no one would know of your residence in these countries but you would not be able to benefit from the AIRE registration and therefore from the cancellation of any obligation towards the Italian tax authorities. In fact, Aire allows you to say goodbye to the obligations with the Italian taxman and therefore we always encourage you to register with AIRE in the country where you take up residence, provided that you really live there. Tax havens are therefore subject to more humane and balanced laws, because they offer the right compromise between costs/efficiency for maintaining companies, accounts and accounting management. Tax havens are present all over the world. In the Americas, the tax havens of Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay, Belize, Cayman, Bermudas, Bahamas, Delaware are famous. There are tax havens in Europe, as well as tax havens in Oceania and Asia. Tax havens have different laws depending on the chosen country and chosen geographical area. The procedures for doing business in tax havens change a lot and range from stringent due diligence in certain tax havens, to leaner procedures in other tax havens. The certain thing is that all tax havens respect the laws and are obliged to recognize the final customer/beneficiary much better and diligently than any European country. The reason why tax havens must carry out the correct identification is because they are subject to scrutiny by the IMF, FATF, FINCEN, OECD and a single error in their identification practice leads to the exclusion of their banking system from international circuits or to sanctions international clients doing business with companies incorporated in sanctioned tax havens. So it is good to understand that tax havens are not countries where it is even remotely possible to transgress the rules of identification and due diligence. Tax havens are very strict in this and always apply the laws to the letter. Tax havens benefit anyone who wants to legally pay less tax by subjecting themselves to the due diligence that individual countries reserve for international customers always with respect for international laws. Tax havens have been at least 20 years since they no longer accept hardened tax evaders or who make black money. These are things of the distant past in these highly technological countries with fully digitized finance. The general cleaning up of tax havens benefits the same tax havens in order to be able to access an infinitely wider and richer market of honest customers to whom we can legally offer excellent services without running into accepting subjects deemed unsuitable for this type of service and therefore being able count on the opening of the corporate and banking market to customers from countries that were previously difficult to access.
In general, any country that can allow you to reduce the burden compared to the country of origin should be ascribed to a tax haven. In the same OECD, for some legal short circuit, countries such as Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Holland, Austria, Malta, Belgium, Cyprus, and Switzerland coexist, which are all tax havens.
Tax havens are countries that can be visited freely and where you can freely do business.
Consider that it takes 2 years to return an asset untouchable, once it has been transferred to a foundation, the 2-year wait once the asset has been transferred is to prevent foundations from being opened for fraud. To protect the goods, they must be opened in unsuspecting times, when there is still no legal attention on the goods, preferably as an anti-seizure insurance in case things go badly in this regard. Generally 3 or 5 years in advance so that the 2 years legally necessary for the property to be transferred to the foundation have passed.
No. They are two different procedures with two sets of different documents and two different times and two different diligences and two different costs none included in the other.
If you select the opening option of the bank account, in close collaboration with you, we will examine the banks most suitable for your needs between our main banks network. The foreign bank will therefore decide if the account can be opened, depending on how comfortable it is with the nature of your activity and the personal information provided by you. However, in over 95% of cases, our customers have obtained their account. Faq
For legal reasons, we cannot disclose the names of the offshore banking institutions we work with. However, we assure you that we only work with first class banks, who are able to offer you all the services you may need (internet banking, credit and debit cards). Only for USA we can disclose JP Morgan Chase, Bank Of America, CitiBank , Wells Fargo.
Yes, that's 100% true. The cost is 7000 Euros. How do we do it? To compensate for his absence which after 9/11/2001 is for mandatory national security reasons, we sign as company and account manager. There are no other 100% legal forms to be able to take advantage of the remote opening of the current account in the USA. So we offer a real fiduciary and management service to be able to open an account in the United States.
Most jurisdictions do not require accounting or auditing. We clearly offer for each jurisdiction under our control, also the CPA and accounting service.
However, in some jurisdictions, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, UK for example, it is indeed mandatory for companies to produce annual accounts and have them audited and, in some cases, pay taxes (please refer to our jurisdiction comparison table). In the USA it is necessary to do accounting as a mere bureaucratic issue but taxes are Zero. While a company may not be subject to tax reporting to local authorities, you should consult your tax, solicitor or accountant adviser to determine whether you or your company has reporting obligations in other jurisdictions, including the jurisdiction where you are a tax resident.
NB: Under FATCA or CRS , most offshore jurisdictions may report information about their offshore companies (and company bank accounts) to the relevant home country tax authorities. FAQs
No. It is only needed for Singapore but a virtual office is enough which we set up for you with separate costs.
Not in almost all jurisdictions. Currently only Panama from this option/obligation.
Times vary greatly, from 15 minutes from receipt of payment to a month, depending on the country chosen and the structure of the company. The opening times of an offshore company also depend on how many customers we have waiting and on how many the public register of the country where we will open the offshore company has
There are a number of eligible jurisdictions, what you need to know is your idea of an eligible. There are tax free countries and others with high taxation, but this does not mean that you will pay taxes there. There are tax-free countries that have such a high cost of living that it is like paying a huge hidden tax while remaining tax free. There are countries with very high taxation which have a cost of living up to 5 times less which guarantees a purchasing power that is often tripled compared to Italy and where the tax system being inefficient allows you to avoid being taxed.
In general, a tax haven is fine for establishing a residence, but not for living or retiring. With tax residence you generally live in a country with a low cost of living tax free thanks to the tax residence of the tax haven country. Being digital nomads, you need to ingenuity to create the most flexible structure for your needs. In general there are no digital nomads in Panama , but all digital nomads have residency in Panama and happily live in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Dominican Republic. You need to establish your goal, whether fiscal or financial. The two things often don't go hand in hand, so it would be preferable to invest just 200 USD for a 120-minute telephone consultation for intelligent expatriation. The consultancy also offers free and unlimited whatsapp chat for the following 12 months with a specialized lawyer.
A future migrant is precisely treated as a migrant, he must first of all be physically present before the authorities who will judge his request admissible or not. Admission and therefore eligibility to be accepted as a resident is based on full compliance with the requirements of the migration institution and home ministry of the chosen country.
As the criteria change according to the country chosen, contact us or read dedicated pages on our website.
Always . The fact of obtaining a residence in another country does not affect continuing to have your original residence in Italy. You can have multiple residences. Having a second or third residence are plans B and C which can be dramatically beneficial in many cases or can be used as insurance for an uncertain future.
The theory of the flag is the art and science of being a permanent traveler.
By Flag Theory we mean the idea that you should "go where they treat you better".
The goal is to diversify your personal and financial affairs so that no government has control over you or your money.
Every time you base part of your life in a new country, you plant a "flag" and diversify based on geography, finances, law, lifestyle, taxes, business, health, politics, investments, and more.
Wikipedia deals with the topic at this link .
Harry Schultz created the original three flag theory, which gives you advice on how to plant flags for only three specific parts of your life:
1. Be a resident of a country where foreign income is not taxed
There are three types of taxes that governments can impose on their citizens:
- territorial taxation;
- residential taxation;
- citizenship-based taxation.
Territorial taxation is paying tax on your income only if you earn it from where you live. Income from other countries is excluded from local taxes. For example, Australian citizens can earn money from anywhere in the world without paying taxes in Australia. However, if they earn from their restaurant business in Germany, they will pay German taxes on their earnings from their retail establishment.
Residency-based taxation involves paying taxes where you live, regardless of where you earn your income. Many countries like Spain apply a version of the 183-day rule, which means you are liable to pay tax if you spend half of the year in this country. However, you do not pay tax if you spend less than 183 days in the country as you will not be considered a resident.
Nationality-based taxation involves paying taxes in your home country and wherever you live. This type of taxation is applicable only in two states: United States and Eritrea. The only thing you can do to avoid paying is to give up your nationality. This is one reason why second passports are so appealing, particularly to US citizens who pay taxes on their earnings from anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, in the case of Eritrea, the taxation is not very severe as they only charge a 2% tax on the income of its citizens.
2. Keep your assets and businesses in safe and stable tax havens
Either your foreign income is not taxed based on your citizenship or you are a resident of a low or zero tax country, you can start businesses and pay no tax based on the income you earn. It is highly recommended to select a country that has a low tax burden, as the global community is putting more pressure on tax-free countries, which end up having to make several negative changes towards those who choose them to expatriate.
Despite this, you can avoid all the taxes you'd be forced to pay on the income you've earned if you're a perpetual traveler or if you live in a tax haven. This is possible in the following countries: Paraguay, Panama, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nevis and Seychelles. Non-national companies normally do not have to pay taxes in these mentioned countries. Sometimes they don't even do an annual audit or an accounting report. In view of this, flag theory is saving you a lot of precious time and money.
3. Live as a tourist in a low-cost country for more independence
The concept of the perpetual traveler is very evident here. Perpetual travelers are also known as "permanent tourists" since they have no formal residence anywhere. They travel from one country to another as tourists, even if they spend three to six months a year in one country.
Passport holders from wealthy countries can easily enter most of the Americas, Europe and most of Asia without a visa requirement. I am usually able to stay three to six months. FAQs
While in most countries this fulfills the need to apply for a visa, it does not happen in the USA. So in addition to being illegal, it is highly discouraged to try.
While both offer virtually the same type of tax residency, Paraguay has some advantages in:
- Weak currency and therefore very low cost of living for those who move there.
- Still few laws on money laundering, which allows you to open accounts easily and open companies without delay.
- Allows you to travel to the country once every 3 years to maintain active residency. But after 3 years you apply directly for citizenship .
- It confers after only 3 years the passport against the 5 of Panama.
- Panama for its part offers the advantage of being in the best possible location which makes it a logistics and airport hub. Tocumen Airport is the airport hub of the Americas.
- Panama has the dollar, which despite making it much more expensive to live there is also a guarantee of low inflation and goods valued in hard currency, as well as a liberal economic policy.
- It has the largest financial center in the Americas, with the largest concentration of offshore banks in the Americas.
- It has a thriving offshore corporate industry. Very easy to move money and do business offshore and onshore.
- For Italians there is no deadline for permanent residence so there is no obligation to return every 2 years as in other visas from other friendly countries. Be wary of anyone who says otherwise.
- Moving to live in Paraguay for Italians and Swiss is exceptionally easy, due to the strong historical and cultural ties between the three countries
- Incomparable and certified cultural similarity considering that Paraguay has 73% and more of the population of European descent
- Living and Working in Paraguay once you have taken up residence in Paraguay is absolutely not complicated and does not require work permits like in Panama
- Taking up residence in Paraguay allows you to obtain a Certificate of Tax Residence, while in Panama it is not possible for Italians, in fact read the page relating to the certificate of tax residence and which countries it applies to in Panama
- In both countries it is easy to enroll in AIRE, so say goodbye to the Italian taxman if you spend more than 183 days outside Italy.
For more information : Subsite for Paraguay residency still owned by us , How to take up residency in Paraguay , Reddit difference between residency in Panama and residency in Paraguay
!▶︎ ATTENTION : since February 2023 some conditions for the Residency in Paraguay have changed, today it is even easier to request and the requirement to open a bank account is no longer required, now only optional if you want it separately. Blood tests are no longer required for almost all visa categories.
