Bank account in Belize

Open an offshore bank account in Belize

Belize considered an "Offshore Technological Jurisdiction", due to the ease of requesting such complicated services as physical or virtual POS. Any non-resident individual or company can obtain tax-exempt status in Belize and therefore due to the absence of direct taxes for non-residents, resident companies bear the greatest tax burden. Belize is an ideal country for businesses with high fortunes since it has a modern legal system and very qualified personnel specialized in wealth management. Therefore, many of the banking services offered by Belizean banks are specialized in satisfying all the needs of this type of clientele. In Belize there are no restrictions for flow of capital. The most conservative banks are usually oriented to savings bank accounts. However, other, more flexible banks are oriented to the small businesses or stock investors, making it possible to negotiate shares in any stock exchange in the world in the name of the bank without the client appearing in the records. Also, due to the fact that the majority of the companies that open offshore bank accounts in Belize are internet-oriented, it is very well known for its sophisticated technological banking tools, such as online banking and payment gateway solutions. 

Opening a bank account in Belize without physical presence is not an easy task and your documents have to be presented to the bank by a lawyer or resident agent. Our resident agents in Belize can open the bank account in a period of 2 or 3 weeks, provided that the client presents all documents required by the bank correctly.

Banking secrecy and automatic exchange of financial account information 

By now Belize has not signed any bilateral agreements of automatic exchange of financial account information. Therefore the bank secrecy for individuals and companies that hold non-resident bank accounts in Belize is safe. What does automatic exchange of financial account information mean? On 29th of October 2014, in Berlin an agreement was signed with the purpose to exchange automatically information on bank accounts opened by non-residents in other countries. By now the automatic exchange of information agreement has been signed by more than 100 countries (the countries that have signed the agreement), however it doesn´t mean that the bank account information will be exchanged between all of them. That is, if two countries do not show a mutual interest in sharing banking information of their citizens between them and therefore do not sign a bilateral agreement, the OECD cannot force them to proceed with the joint exchange of information. For example, Belize has signed the automatic exchange of information agreement but it did not sign any bilateral agreement. Therefore, it will not exchange financial account information with all other participants. You can see the updated information following this link (bilateral automatic exchange of information agreements).

As long as Belize doesn’t sign any bilateral agreement its banking confidentiality will not be affected and the client´s financial information won’t be reported to the tax authorities of his resident country. The new regulations for the exchange of information have created many problems for and between some of the countries. The intention of European Commonwealth countries such as Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom was that all countries signed bilateral agreements with each other, but after all things did not go that way. In a real world it is hard to imagine Israel signing a bilateral agreement for the automatic exchange of financial information with Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia or the Arab Emirates. Due to the "non-fiscal conflicts" that exist between these countries it makes it very difficult or even impossible for them to work together on elimination of banking secrecy.

Bilateral agreements with Belize

It is completely legal to open an offshore bank account in Belize. An individual or a company that wants to develop an international business or simply to move its money offshore in order to achieve more security will not be committing any crime. If a physical person is a citizen of a country that mutually has signed a bilateral agreement with another country, it is advisable for him/her to inform his/her tax authorities about the intentions to open a non-resident account offshore, and then through the double taxation agreements deduct the income taxes in his country of residence. If, on the other hand, the bank account has been opened by a resident company or non-resident company the beneficial owner will not be obliged to repatriate the dividends of the company annually and therefore will be able to keep all the generated earnings on his offshore bank account in Belize without paying income taxes. The owner of the company will have to pay the income taxes only when he transfers the money to his country of residence but in case if he wants to keep it on the account for further business investments or just as a security deposit legally the generated profits will still belong to the company and the beneficial owner doesn’t have to pay tax on this amounts. With time the company might go through the international expansion requiring corresponding expenses. Consequently, the dividends would decrease and logically the income taxes that the beneficial owner will have to pay in his country of residence would decrease correlatively. 

Advantages of opening a bank account in Belize

The main advantages of opening a bank account in Belize are the following:

• Opening an offshore bank account Belize is legal.
• Law guarantees bank secrecy and anonymity.
• The possibility to open business and personal offshore bank account in Belize remotely.
• High expertise level, online banking platforms with the possibility to request any type of financial service: foreign currency accounts, credit cards, letters of credit, accounts to invest in the stock market, payment gateways, credits.
• Low maintenance rates. 
• Banks in Belize are extremely regulated. 
• Once the requirements are fulfilled it takes 15 - 20 days to open the account.

Bank commissions in Belize

*The customer can open a bank account in any international legal currency they want, (Euro, Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, British Pound, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc etc)

*All the management at the opening of bank account do not need a physical presence in the country, all efforts will be made through e-mail and / or registered mail.