Annual Obligations of an Authorised Company

An Authorised Company is a lighter vehicle than a Global Business Corporation, but it is not a dormant shell that looks after itself. The authorised company obligations in Mauritius come from three different statutes and are enforced by three different bodies. Each recurring duty has a natural owner: the company itself, its board, its registered agent, or occasionally the shareholder.

This page does not repeat the mechanics of every filing. It shows the whole annual cycle in one place, so that you can see which task belongs to whom and where a gap is most likely to appear. It is general information, not advice; the details of your own situation need an adviser.

The starting point: why the obligations are split

An Authorised Company is a company incorporated under the Companies Act that holds an authorisation from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) under section 71A of the Financial Services Act 2007 (FSA). The statute applies the label to a company whose shares or voting rights are mostly held or controlled by a non-citizen of Mauritius, which carries on its business mainly outside Mauritius, and whose central management and control sit outside Mauritius.

Because the vehicle sits in two regimes at once, its yearly duties come from two places:

• Financial services law (the FSA and the FSC rules): the authorisation itself, the annual fee, the financial summary and the permanent registered agent.
• Company law (the Companies Act and the Registrar of Companies): the annual registration fee, the beneficial ownership register, the annual return and the risk of being struck off.
• Tax law (the Income Tax Act and the Mauritius Revenue Authority, MRA): the fact that the company is a "global business entity" and the levies that apply to companies generally.

If you want the background on the authorisation itself, see the FSC's role and oversight. The rest of this page follows the obligations in the order in which they usually fall due.

Who is responsible for what: the chain

Four parties carry the work. The authorities set the rules and receive the filings. The registered agent sits in the middle and does most of the practical work. The board takes the decisions that only directors can take. The owner supplies information and money.

The registered agent must be a FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence) located in Mauritius, and the company must have one at all times. Section 71A(8) of the FSA lists what the agent does: it files the returns and documents required under the FSA, the Income Tax Act or the Companies Act; it passes on communications with the FSC, the MRA and the Registrar; it carries out anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures; and it keeps the company records, including minutes, resolutions and transaction documents. How those AML/CFT measures work in practice is a separate subject and is not covered here.

That does not mean the agent is accountable for everything. It files what it is given. The board must still make the decisions, and the owner must still provide accurate data. A filing that depends on information the agent never receives is a filing that does not happen.

The yearly duties at a glance

The sections below take each item in turn. Where an item has its own page, the link leads there.

1. The FSC annual fee

The authorisation carries a yearly fee payable to the FSC. Under the Financial Services (Consolidated Licensing and Fees) (Amendment) Rules 2026 (Government Notice No. 119 of 2026), in force since 1 July 2026, the Authorised Company authorisation (code FS-4.3, section 71A) bears a processing fee of USD 600 and an annual fee of USD 1,400. That annual figure does not include the annual registration fee of USD 65 (or any other amount the Registrar sets) that is payable to the Registrar.

For a company authorised during the year, the first annual fee is prorated according to the quarter in which the authorisation is granted:

What happens when the fee is paid late

Late payment is expensive and the scale is stepped. For an Authorised Company, the annual fee of USD 1,400 becomes USD 1,750 if it is paid within the month after the due date, USD 2,100 between one and three months after, and USD 2,800 between three and six months after. This is the most predictable cost penalty in the whole cycle, and also the easiest to avoid.

How and when it is paid

For the 2026-27 renewal cycle, the FSC moved the payment deadline to 30 September 2026. Payment is made through the FSC One platform, under the tabs "Global Business and Authorised Company Fees" and "Global Business - Variable Fees". It can be made by direct debit or from the deposit account of a FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence). In practice the registered agent usually settles the invoice and re-bills it. The detailed fee picture, including how it compares year to year, sits on the page about annual fees to keep an Authorised Company alive.

Why the fees changed

In its communiqué of 10 July 2026, the FSC stated that processing fees had not changed since the 2008 rules and that annual fees had not been reviewed since 2019. It presented the reform as the implementation of a 2025/26 budget measure and justified the adjustment for Authorised Companies by their inherently higher risk profile. At the 1 July 2026 scale, the Authorised Company annual fee is USD 1,400 against USD 2,600 for a Global Business Licence, which is USD 1,200 lower. The choice between the two vehicles is a separate question that this page does not develop.

2. The Registrar's annual registration fee

Separate from the FSC fee, the company pays a registration fee to the Registrar of Companies each year. According to the Registrar's published scale for 2026, the fee for an Authorised Company is USD 130, rising to USD 200 if paid after the due date. For comparison, the 2025 scale published in December 2024 set the figure at USD 100.

Two points are worth keeping in mind. First, the amount is fixed by the Registrar and can change; do not rely on a figure from a previous year. Second, the Registrar can remove a company from the register for not paying its registration fees, so this small invoice has an outsized consequence if it is ignored (see the section on strike-off below).

3. The financial summary filed with the FSC

Each year, and no later than six months after the end of its financial year, an Authorised Company must file with the FSC a financial summary in the model of the Ninth Schedule of the Companies Act, or other documents specified by the FSC Rules (section 71A(10) FSA).

Three practical consequences follow:

• The company needs a closed set of figures within that time. That requires bookkeeping that is current, not reconstructed at the last minute.
• The board, not the agent, is the party that stands behind the numbers. The agent files the document; it does not invent it.
• The summary is a filing with the regulator, distinct from any accounts the company prepares for its own banker or shareholder.

What belongs in those records, and how to keep them, is covered in the pages on accounting records for an Authorised Company and on bookkeeping tools and routine.

4. Records and the beneficial ownership register

Company records

The registered agent is responsible for keeping minutes, resolutions and transaction documents (section 71A(8) FSA). The board still has to produce them: a resolution that was never passed cannot be filed away. Many problems at the bank or in a client due-diligence request come not from a missing filing but from a missing underlying document.

Beneficial ownership

Under section 91 of the Companies Act, every Mauritian company must identify its beneficial owner at all times and, where relevant, any nominee. It records them in a separate register with:

• full name and residential address;
• national identity card number or passport number;
• nationality;
• the holding structure that identifies the ultimate beneficial owner.

This information is filed through the Registrar's online system on incorporation, when the annual return is filed, and on any transfer or issue of shares. The Registrar keeps a Beneficial Ownership Register that is open to competent authorities and other prescribed public authorities. The Companies Act does not describe it as a public register; the question of what a third party can see is treated on the page about whether the owner of an offshore company is private.

The owner's role here is simple but essential: any change in ownership, nominee arrangement or holding structure must be reported to the agent before the next filing is due, not after.

5. The annual return and what it depends on

Every company files an annual return once a year, except in the calendar year of its incorporation. It is signed by a director or the secretary. Where nothing has changed since the previous return, a "No Change Return" (form F26) certified by a director or the secretary can be used instead of the full return (form F24). The mechanics, forms and deadlines of that filing are a topic of their own and are not detailed here.

What matters for this map is who triggers it. The agent can prepare the filing, but it relies on the board to confirm whether anything has changed in the shareholding, the directors or other registered details. If the answer is "I did not think it mattered", the return will be wrong.

6. Keeping control outside Mauritius

This is the obligation that does not appear on any invoice. An Authorised Company must have its central management and control outside Mauritius. That is a condition of the status, not a once-only declaration at incorporation, so it applies throughout the life of the company.

In everyday terms, it means that the board actually takes the strategic decisions from abroad, that board meetings are held and recorded accordingly, and that a Mauritian-resident person is not in fact running the company. The practical side of this is set out in managing an Authorised Company from abroad. Where the facts drift, for example because an owner moves to Mauritius, the status of the company and its tax position can both be affected. The related risk that a foreign tax authority treats the company as having a taxable presence at home is covered under permanent establishment risk.

7. Staying within the permitted activities

An Authorised Company may not carry on the activities of the Fourth Schedule of the FSA, unless an exception is provided by the FSC Rules. There are five categories:

1. banking;
2. managing or administering a collective investment fund or scheme as a professional;
3. financial services;
4. corporate services, nominee, director or secretarial services for companies;
5. trusteeship carried on professionally.

Although this is not a filing, it is a continuing obligation: a change in the business model during the year can bring the company into a prohibited area without anyone noticing. A company that operates as an Authorised Company without authorisation commits an offence punishable by a fine of up to MUR 1,000,000 (sections 71 and 71A FSA).

The statute also provides that an Authorised Company is deemed to carry on business outside Mauritius even if it carries out the transactions referred to in section 73(1)(c) to (f) of the FSA (section 71A(13)). That is a helpful clarification, but it is not a licence to disregard the limits above.

8. Tax: what applies and what does not

The Income Tax Act defines a "global business entity" as including a company holding a Global Business Licence and a company authorised under section 71A of the FSA, that is, an Authorised Company. The Alternative Minimum Tax of section 44A (10% of adjusted book profit where normal tax is below that level) does not apply to a global business entity. It targets hotels licensed by the Tourism Authority, insurers, financial intermediaries, real estate companies and telecommunications companies.

Two levies apply to companies generally, so the company's tax adviser should check whether they are relevant to its facts:

• Corporate Climate Responsibility (CCR) Levy: 2% of the chargeable income of a company, due for the tax year starting 1 July 2024 and every year after (section 50O). Since the Finance Act 2026, companies in the quarterly advance payment system (APS) pay it in three instalments of 25% with their APS returns and the balance with the annual return; other companies pay it with the annual return.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): every company sets up a CSR fund equal to 2% of its chargeable income of the previous year (section 50L).

Whether a given company has chargeable income, and in what amount, depends on its activity and on how its profits are treated; this page does not answer that. The overall tax picture is explained in Authorised Company taxation in Mauritius. The owner's own tax position at home is a different matter, and no Mauritian filing resolves it.

9. Keeping a registered agent in place

An Authorised Company must have a registered agent in Mauritius at all times. If the relationship with the current provider ends, the company must appoint a new one without a gap. Since 1 August 2024 (Act 11 of 2024), a request to change the registered agent has to be accompanied by the fee set by the FSC Rules (section 71A(7)(b) FSA).

The agent itself is regulated. A FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence) acting as a registered agent pays a variable fee based on the number of Authorised Companies it serves on 31 December of the previous year: none for 1 to 50, USD 4,000 for 51 to 250, USD 5,000 for 251 to 500 and USD 6,000 above 500; providing corporate trusteeship services adds USD 5,000. This explains why agents price their services as a fixed yearly package and why the choice of agent matters; see the page on the corporate service provider behind your company.

What happens if something is missed

The consequences differ according to which duty slips.

Under section 309(1) of the Companies Act, the Registrar may strike a company off the register in several cases, including where the company has ceased business without reason to continue, has not paid its registration fees, has not filed its annual return (section 223(2)), is in liquidation without a liquidator, or has not complied with the filing of beneficial ownership information. A struck-off company can sometimes be brought back; the conditions are described in restoring a struck-off company.

A decision aid: is the company on track?

Dormant does not mean exempt

A company that does no business in a given year still holds its authorisation, still has a registered agent and still appears on the register. The fees and filings continue unless the company is closed. The consequences of staying inactive, and the alternatives, are explained in keeping an Authorised Company dormant. For a practical working list, use the yearly checklist for an Authorised Company.

Talk to a licensed provider

The right calendar depends on the year-end, the activity, the number of shareholders and how the board operates. If you want the cycle explained for your own facts by a FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence), you can send a request through the contact form.