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Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Guatemala CityQ7.6242 per US$+0.00%
ADVANCE GUATEMALA
Back to the researchResearched · unverified

The investor atlas

Time and cost to incorporate a company

Dossier
Paperwork, visas and the investor's life12-operar-vivir.md
Domain
Incorporating the companyempresa
Room
Invest · Incorporating the company/invertir/empresa
Audited
Audited

According to the U.S. State Department's Investment Climate Statement 2024 (data as of April 2024), online registration at eportal.registromercantil.gob.gt takes about 2 business days for an empresa mercantil (single-owner trading business) and 4–6 business days for a limited liability company (sociedad de responsabilidad limitada, SRL). The estimated cost is US$26 for a new empresa mercantil and US$29 for a new SRL, in both cases with authorized capital of up to US$63,857. The reforms to the Commercial Code in force since January 2018 cut the time and cost of online registration. The Commercial Registry's official fee schedule in quetzales (a table by procedure) is not published on the main page consulted and remains to be verified.

The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.

Figures

Tiempo estimado, empresa mercantil (en línea)U.S. Dept. of State ICS 2024
2 días hábilesabr 2024
Tiempo estimado, SRL (en línea)U.S. Dept. of State ICS 2024
4–6 días hábilesabr 2024
Costo estimado, empresa mercantil nuevaU.S. Dept. of State ICS 2024
US$26abr 2024
Costo estimado, SRL nuevaU.S. Dept. of State ICS 2024
US$29abr 2024
Umbral de capital autorizado para esos costosU.S. Dept. of State ICS 2024
hasta US$63,857abr 2024

Caveat

ICS 2024 estimates (a reputable secondary source); the Commercial Registry's official fee schedule in quetzales is still pending

Sources

Organizations named in the answer

  • Departamento de Estado de EE. UU.Investment Climate Statement (ICS) 2024 and 2025 for Guatemala: summarizes that the Foreign Investment Law gives foreigners the same property rights, the prohibition on the strips along rivers, oceans and borders, and the risk of defective title and registry gaps in rural areasPublic agency

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This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.