Register a Company in North Macedonia 2026

Registering a company in North Macedonia is fast, cheap and genuinely open to foreigners - you can own 100% of a limited-liability company with no residency, the minimum capital is EUR 5,000 (and you don’t even have to pay it up front), and the Central Registry’s one-stop-shop can issue your company and tax number in as little as 24-48 hours. The bigger draw is what comes after: a flat 10% corporate tax and a flat 10% personal income tax, among the lowest in Europe. This guide walks through the company types (DOO vs DOOEL), the registration steps and costs, and exactly what the company and you as owner pay in tax - with the caveats that matter. For the day-to-day side of basing yourself here, see our living in Skopje and Ohrid guide; for what it costs to live, the cost of living breakdown.

This is a YMYL topic - read this first. Tax, company and residence rules are sensitive and they change. Every figure below was checked against PwC Tax Summaries and official sources on 3 July 2026, but you must confirm the current position with the Public Revenue Office (UJP, ujp.gov.mk), the Central Registry (crm.com.mk) and a licensed local accountant before you register anything or move money. Treat this as orientation, not legal or tax advice.

DOO or DOOEL: which company do you register?

North Macedonia’s default business vehicle is the limited-liability company, and it comes in two flavours that differ by one thing - how many owners:

• DOO (друштво со ограничена одговорност) - a limited-liability company with two to fifty founders.
• DOOEL - the single-member version: exactly one founder. If you’re a solo freelancer or a one-person consultancy, this is you.

Both are the local equivalent of an LLC (or an ООО, if you’re coming from the post-Soviet world). Both carry the same EUR 5,000 minimum capital and the same core protection: your liability is limited to what you put in, so your personal assets aren’t on the hook for company debts. There’s no practical downside to the DOOEL for a single owner - you can always bring in partners later and convert to a DOO.

Two facts make this attractive for foreigners specifically. First, 100% foreign ownership is allowed, whether you’re an individual or another company, and there’s no requirement to be a resident to own or manage the company. Second, the EUR 5,000 capital can be contributed in cash or in kind (equipment, a vehicle, and so on) and paid within one year of registration - so the capital requirement is more of a formality on paper than a cash barrier on day one.

How to register: the Central Registry one-stop-shop

Company formation runs through the Central Registry of North Macedonia (Централен регистар, crm.com.mk) and its One-Stop-Shop System. The name is the point: in one filing you register the company and get its tax number - the EDB (единствен даночен број, the unique identification number you’ll use for everything financial and legal afterwards). No separate trip to the tax office.

In broad strokes, the process looks like this:

1. Decide the basics - company name, form (DOO/DOOEL), registered address, activity codes and who the founder(s) and manager are.
2. Prepare and notarise the founding documents - the act of establishment / articles, and the manager’s appointment. A notary is involved, and non-Macedonian documents typically need certified translation.
3. File with the Central Registry - either in person through a registration agent or electronically via the registry’s e-filing portal (e-submit.crm.com.mk). Founders don’t strictly have to be present in person for the filing.
4. Get the decision and EDB, then open a corporate bank account and deposit the capital. In practice the manager usually has to appear in person at the bank to finalise the account, even if the rest was done remotely.

How long it takes: the Central Registry issues its decision within five business days, and in straightforward cases within 24 to 48 hours. From first consultation to a fully operational company with a working bank account, budget one to two weeks.

What it costs: registration itself is inexpensive - indicative figures put the all-in cost around 12,000 MKD (~€195), with the Central Registry’s administrative tax roughly 2,399 MKD for a paper filing, plus notary fees (which vary with the number of founders) and a company stamp. Treat these as indicative, not a fixed quote - confirm current tariffs with the registry and your notary, and budget separately for an accountant.

The tax that makes it worth it: flat 10%

Here’s the reason North Macedonia keeps turning up on “lowest-tax in Europe” lists.

Corporate income tax is a flat 10%. It’s assessed on an accrual basis - on the company’s annual profit, adjusted upward for non-deductible expenses - not only when you pay yourself a dividend. (You may read that CIT is “only paid on distribution”; that carve-out applied to old accumulated profits from 2009-2013, not to how a company is taxed today.) Ten per cent is roughly half the EU average.

For small companies it gets better still:

• Annual income under MKD 3 million (~€49,000) → fully exempt from corporate income tax.
• Annual income MKD 3-6 million (~€49,000-98,000) → an optional simplified regime taxed at 1% of total income.

That’s a serious incentive if you’re a one-person DOOEL invoicing modest sums: below the threshold, the company’s profit tax can be nil.

Personal income tax is also a flat 10%, in force since 1 January 2023, and - importantly - it applies regardless of how much you earn. There is no progressive surtax and no higher bracket for high earners in North Macedonia; you may see an “18% surtax” claimed elsewhere online, but the official position is a true flat rate. (Narrow exceptions: 15% on gambling winnings, and 0% on capital gains from securities held longer than two years.) There are no local income taxes on top.

Social contributions, VAT and the numbers that bite

The 10% headlines are real, but they aren’t the whole bill. Two other lines decide your actual cost of operating, and they’re where a local accountant earns their fee.

Social contributions are 28% of gross salary. If you put yourself on the payroll of your own company, you pay compulsory contributions totalling about 28% - broken down as 18.8% pension and disability, 7.5% health, 1.2% employment and 0.5% additional health. There’s a floor and a ceiling: contributions are calculated on a base no lower than 50% of the national average salary and no higher than 16× the average. How you balance salary versus dividends is exactly the kind of thing to model with an accountant, because it moves your total tax materially.

VAT is 18% standard, with preferential rates of 5% (food, water, medicines, books, electricity, passenger transport, accommodation) and 10% (restaurant and catering services, some foods). You must register for VAT once your annual turnover passes MKD 2 million (~€32,500); below that, registration is voluntary. For a small service company invoicing abroad, VAT treatment of exported services is another point to confirm with your accountant rather than assume.

Put simply: the profit-tax and income-tax rates are gloriously simple, but payroll contributions and VAT are where the real planning happens - don’t budget on the 10% figure alone.

Company owner, meet residence permit

Registering a company and being allowed to live in North Macedonia are two separate things - a distinction people often miss. You can own and run a Macedonian company from abroad without ever holding residence. But if you want to base yourself here, being the owner or manager of a local company is one of the recognised routes to a temporary residence permit (the self-employment / business route), and foreign company owners are treated favourably in that process.

We cover the residence side in its own guide - see how to get a residence permit in North Macedonia, including the work, business and property routes and the September 2025 rule changes. Because it’s another YMYL area that shifts, treat that guide as orientation and confirm specifics with the Ministry of Interior and an immigration lawyer.

Is it worth setting up here?

For the right person, the maths is hard to argue with. A solo consultant or small remote business that can operate from anywhere gets: a cheap, fast incorporation, flat 10% company and personal tax, a realistic path to a near-zero profit-tax bill under the small-company thresholds, a euro-pegged currency so nothing is eroded by exchange swings, and a low cost of living to go with it. Add an EU-candidate country with a friendly attitude to foreign owners and it’s a legitimately attractive base.

It’s a weaker fit if you need a large local client market (the domestic economy is small), if your business is VAT-heavy and complex, or if you’re not prepared to work with a local accountant - which, frankly, you should treat as non-optional here. And remember the split above: the company is the easy part; living here legally is a separate application.

The bottom line

North Macedonia offers one of Europe’s most founder-friendly setups: a DOO or single-owner DOOEL, EUR 5,000 capital payable within a year, 100% foreign ownership, and a Central Registry one-stop-shop that can turn it around in a day or two and hand you your EDB tax number on the spot. The payoff is a flat 10% on both company profit and personal income, with small companies exempt or taxed at 1% under the turnover thresholds - tempered by 28% payroll contributions and 18% VAT above MKD 2 million that a local accountant should model for you. Line up the practicalities with our cost of living guide and living in Skopje and Ohrid, sort the residence permit if you plan to move - and, one last time, verify the current rules with UJP, the Central Registry and a licensed accountant before you commit.

Read also

• The day-to-day of basing here: living in Skopje and Ohrid as a nomad
• What it actually costs to live: cost of living in North Macedonia
• Staying legally as an owner: North Macedonia residence permit
• Still weighing the country up? Is North Macedonia worth visiting?