International Trading Company in Mauritius

A Mauritius trading company, in the sense most foreign entrepreneurs mean, is a company that sits between a supplier in one country and a customer in another. The goods never enter Mauritius. The company contracts, invoices and collects payment; the cargo moves directly from the exporting country to the importing one. The Authorised Company is the structure the law provides for a business of this kind when its owners and its management are outside Mauritius.

This page looks at that single use case: what the structure allows, what it forbids, how the money and the paperwork flow, and which questions must be settled with an adviser before the first purchase order is signed. It gives general information, not advice on your situation.

What "trading between third countries" means

Third-country trading, sometimes called merchanting or triangular trade, involves three parties and two contracts. The company buys goods from a supplier, resells them to a buyer, and the goods are delivered straight from one to the other. The company never holds the stock and the goods never pass through a Mauritian warehouse.

A typical chain looks like this:

This is the model that people usually mean when they search for an offshore trading company in Mauritius or an import export offshore company. It is different from a business that imports goods to sell to Mauritian customers, or one that stores and ships from the island. Those activities raise separate questions, which the guide on doing business inside Mauritius addresses.

Why the Authorised Company is the structure used

Under the Financial Services Act 2007, a company incorporated under the Companies Act whose shares or votes are mainly 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, must apply to the FSC for Authorised Company status (section 71A(1)). That description fits a typical trading company owned and run by foreigners from their home country.

Three features matter for a trader:

• Management from abroad. The directors take decisions outside Mauritius. The company must be able to show this in practice, not only on paper. See managing an Authorised Company from abroad.
• A Mauritian registered agent. The company must have one at all times, and it must be an FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence). The application itself is filed through such a provider.
• A limited scope of business. The Authorised Company cannot carry on the activities listed in the Fourth Schedule of the Financial Services Act, which is why the trading model has to be kept clear of financial services.

Companies that are managed and controlled from Mauritius fall under a different regime, the Global Business Licence. The law sets the two side by side: a Global Business Corporation must be managed and controlled from Mauritius and have two resident directors, whereas an Authorised Company must have its central management and control outside Mauritius. A trader who intends to run the business from the island is therefore not choosing between two equivalent options; the facts of where decisions are taken drive the answer.

What the registered agent does for a trader

The registered agent is not a back-office luxury. The Financial Services Act lists its tasks (section 71A(8)): filing the returns and documents required under the Financial Services Act, the Income Tax Act or the Companies Act, relaying communications with the FSC, the Mauritius Revenue Authority and the Registrar, carrying out anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing measures, and keeping the company's records, including minutes, resolutions and transaction documents.

For a trading company, the last point deserves attention. Supplier contracts, purchase orders, bills of lading and sales invoices are the evidence of what the company actually did. A provider will ask for them, and they should be kept in an orderly way from the first transaction. If you are comparing providers, the questions to ask a corporate service provider help to separate those that understand goods trading from those that do not.

What an Authorised Company cannot do

The Financial Services Act bars an Authorised Company, except as the FSC Rules allow, from five categories of activity: banking; the professional management or administration of a collective investment fund or scheme; financial services; corporate services, nominee, directorship or secretarial services for companies; and professional trusteeship.

For a goods trader this limit is usually easy to respect, but it catches some businesses that begin as trading and drift:

• Financing customers or suppliers on a regular basis can start to look like a financial service.
• Selling payment or foreign-exchange services alongside the goods may do the same.
• Offering to act as a director or nominee for other companies in the trading group is excluded.

Before widening the business, check the new activity against this list. The wider question of which businesses an Authorised Company may run covers the boundaries in more detail.

A company that operates as an Authorised Company without authorisation commits an offence, punishable by a fine of up to MUR 1,000,000. The same fine applies to a company that carries on global business without the licence the law requires.

Tax: the questions to ask

Tax is the area where advertisements most often overpromise. The honest position is that several separate layers apply, and the result depends on facts that vary from one trader to the next.

Treatment in Mauritius

The Income Tax Act defines a "global business entity" as including both a company holding a Global Business Licence and a company authorised under section 71A of the Financial Services Act. The Authorised Company is therefore a global business entity for Mauritian tax purposes. One consequence is that the Alternative Minimum Tax of section 44A, which is set at 10% of adjusted book profit where normal tax falls below that threshold, does not apply to it. That tax targets hotels, insurers, financial intermediaries, property companies and telecommunications companies.

The general corporate tax rate in Part IV of the First Schedule is 15% of chargeable income, applied to companies by section 44 subject to the special regimes. Which rate or exemption governs a particular trading company depends on its facts and on how the legislation applies to it. A separate reduced rate of 3% exists for exporters of goods, in force since 1 July 2017 according to the Mauritius Revenue Authority.

The definition of "export of goods" was widened by the Finance Act 2026, with effect from 13 August 2026. It now covers the international purchase and sale of goods shipped directly from the exporting country to the importing country without a physical stop in Mauritius. The same Act excludes the export of live animals from the definition. Whether this definition produces any benefit for a given Authorised Company is a point to confirm in writing with a qualified adviser, not an assumption to build a business plan on.

Another rule to understand is tax residence. Under section 73(1)(b) of the Income Tax Act, a company is resident in Mauritius if it is incorporated there or if its central management and control are there. Incorporation alone therefore makes a company resident; what the structure achieves depends on how the other regimes are applied to it, which is a question for the adviser.

Treatment at home and elsewhere

Mauritian rules are only part of the picture. The country where the owner lives, and any country where the company has a taxable presence, may tax the profits or the owner. Two guides deal with this directly: permanent establishment risk and how the owner is taxed at home. If your goods are sold to customers in the European Union, the separate rules on VAT for EU sales also need attention.

Costs of keeping the company authorised

Authorisation carries fees set by the Financial Services (Consolidated Licensing and Fees) (Amendment) Rules 2026 (Government Notice No. 119 of 2026), in force from 1 July 2026. The table below summarises the Authorised Company items, set against the Global Business Corporation for context.

The first annual fee is prorated by the quarter in which authorisation is granted: USD 1,400 for July to September, USD 1,050 for October to December, USD 700 for January to March and USD 350 for April to June. Paying late is costly. The fee rises to USD 1,750 if paid within a month after the due date, USD 2,100 between one and three months late, and USD 2,800 between three and six months late.

For the 2026-27 renewal cycle the FSC extended the payment deadline to 30 September 2026, with payment made through the FSC One platform. Your provider usually handles this; the guide on annual fees explains how the cycle works. The service provider you choose will add its own charges for the services it supplies, and these are a commercial matter to compare.

The FSC stated in its communiqué of 10 July 2026 that processing fees had not changed since the 2008 rules and that annual fees had not been reviewed since 2019.

Banking for a goods trader

A trading company lives or dies by its ability to receive money from buyers and pay suppliers. Banks look closely at companies that move goods between third countries, because the chain of documents is long and the risk of trade-based money laundering is well known. Expect questions about:

• who the beneficial owner is and where the funds originate;
• the identity of suppliers and customers, and the countries involved;
• the goods traded, their typical value and the expected monthly volume;
• evidence that the business is real, such as contracts and past invoices.

Every Mauritian company must identify its beneficial owner, and any nominee, and record them in a separate register, with full name, residential address, national identity or passport number, nationality and the holding structure that shows the ultimate beneficial owner. The Registrar of Companies keeps a Beneficial Ownership Register accessible to the competent authorities; the Companies Act does not describe it as public.

Options and refusals are covered in banking for an offshore company. If you plan to sell in several currencies, read the section on multi-currency accounts as well.

A practical route for the first deal

The sequence below reflects how a goods trader normally proceeds. The order matters, because the business plan shapes the application.

The FSC must grant a complete application within 10 working days of the date it is considered complete, a rule that applies to Authorised Company applications made since 1 October 2024. That period starts only once the file is complete, so real timing depends on how quickly documents are assembled; see how long set-up takes.

Ongoing obligations

Once trading starts, the company has recurring duties. An Authorised Company must file a financial summary with the FSC every year, no later than six months after the end of its financial year, in the form set by the Ninth Schedule of the Companies Act or as the FSC Rules otherwise specify. It must also keep proper accounting records, maintain its beneficial ownership information and pay the annual fee on time. A trader should add its own commercial records on top: purchase orders, supplier invoices and proofs of delivery.

The annual obligations page explains the full cycle. For trading specifically, the import-export business guide looks at documentation and day-to-day routine.

• Keep each supplier contract and sales contract together
• Keep proof of delivery or shipment for every transaction
• Reconcile bank receipts against invoices each month
• Record decisions taken by the directors, and where they were taken
• Confirm the annual fee and the financial summary dates with your provider

Who this model suits, and who should look elsewhere

An Authorised Company can suit an owner who lives outside Mauritius, directs the business from abroad, and trades goods that move directly between suppliers and buyers in other countries. It is less suited to someone who wants to run the company from Mauritius, to hold stock on the island, or to combine trading with financial services.

If the plan is uncertain, the legality overview and the site contact form are the next steps: the form is relayed to an FSC-licensed provider who can discuss your specific facts.