What Business Can an Authorised Company Run?

If you are asking what business an authorised company can do, the short answer is this: almost any ordinary commercial activity carried on outside Mauritius, provided it is lawful, and with the exception of a defined list of regulated activities. Those regulated activities are the ones the law reserves for licensed firms. This page maps the activities that fit the structure, the ones that do not, and the grey areas where the answer depends on facts.

It is general information, not advice. Whether a particular business model works for you depends on where you live, where your clients are and who actually runs the company day to day. An adviser should test that before you commit.

The legal frame: why the activity matters

An Authorised Company is a company incorporated under the Companies Act that obtains an authorisation from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) under section 71A of the Financial Services Act 2007. The law ties the authorisation to three conditions: the majority of the shares or voting rights is held or controlled by a person who is not a Mauritian citizen, the business is carried on mainly outside Mauritius, and central management and control sits outside Mauritius.

Two of those conditions are really about activity. A business that serves customers, suppliers or counterparties mostly abroad fits. A business that earns most of its income from Mauritian clients does not, and it belongs in an ordinary local company instead. The page on doing business in Mauritius covers that boundary in detail.

The activity also matters for a second reason. The structure is defined partly by what it may not do. Section 71A(4) removes a fixed list of financial and fiduciary activities from its scope. If your plan touches one of them, the Authorised Company is the wrong vehicle, whatever its other merits.

Activities that typically fit

The structure was designed for businesses that sell, advise or license from a distance. The common patterns are below. Each has a dedicated page that goes further into practice, banking and tax exposure at home.

Online selling and e-commerce

Selling physical or digital goods to customers abroad is the most common use. The company contracts with the platform or payment processor, invoices in foreign currency and keeps its records in Mauritius through its registered agent. The practical questions are not about permission but about payment processors, consumer-law obligations in the buyer's country and indirect taxes. See e-commerce through an offshore company and VAT on sales to EU customers.

Consulting and professional services

A consultant, designer, analyst or agency can contract through the company and invoice clients abroad. The legal issue here is rarely the licence; it is whether the work is actually performed outside the company's home jurisdiction, and by whom. Regulated professions with their own licensing rules, such as law, accountancy or medicine, are a separate question, because the profession's regulator, not the FSC, decides what may be practised through a company. The page on consulting through an offshore company works through typical contracts.

International trading

Buying goods from one country and selling them to another, without the goods passing through Mauritius, is a classic fit. The company holds the contracts and invoices; logistics happen elsewhere. Banks look hard at trading structures, because they associate them with higher money-laundering risk, so documentation matters. See international trading from Mauritius.

Freelance work for international clients

An individual freelancer can invoice through the company rather than personally. This changes who contracts with the client, not where the freelancer lives and is taxed. Whether the arrangement helps or merely adds cost depends heavily on the freelancer's home rules; the comparison with working as a sole trader is on the freelancer versus company page.

Intellectual property, software and digital products

Owning trademarks, copyright, software or content, and licensing them to customers or affiliates abroad, is another recurring use. The Income Tax Act contains specific provisions on royalties paid to non-residents out of foreign-source income, which is one reason this use case attracts attention. The conditions are technical, and the home-country position of the owner often decides the outcome. See holding intellectual property offshore and software and SaaS businesses.

Overview of activities by category

The table below groups common activities by how the structure treats them. It is a starting point, not a permission slip.

What an Authorised Company cannot do

Unless a specific exception appears in the FSC Rules, an Authorised Company may not carry on any of the activities listed in the Fourth Schedule of the Financial Services Act. There are five categories:

• banking;
• managing or administering a collective investment scheme or fund as a professional;
• financial services;
• providing registered office, nominee, director or secretarial services to companies;
• acting as a trustee on a professional basis.

The reasoning is straightforward. These activities are supervised because they involve other people's money or fiduciary duties. A structure designed to be light-touch and administered by a registered agent is not built to carry that supervision.

A common misunderstanding is that a company can bypass this by describing the business loosely in its constitution. It cannot. The question is what the company actually does, not what its objects clause says. The constitution can be broad, but the Fourth Schedule restriction applies in practice.

Fund vehicles and holding or special-purpose structures are different topics, handled elsewhere; this page deals with operating businesses.

Activities that need a licence or a different vehicle

The licensing picture has several layers, and it helps to separate them.

Where the regulated activity is one of the five

If the business is one of the five categories above, the Authorised Company is not an option. The person carrying on that activity would need the appropriate FSC licence, held by a company that fits the licence's own conditions.

Where the business is a global business in its own right

Another route exists for companies that need to be managed and controlled from Mauritius. That route is the Global Business Licence. A Global Business Licence holder must carry on its core income-generating activities in or from Mauritius, be managed and controlled from Mauritius and be administered by an FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence). An Authorised Company is the opposite: its central management and control must lie outside Mauritius. Choosing between the two is a separate subject, but the activity test gives a quick signal. If the plan only works with substantial operations in Mauritius, the Authorised Company is probably not the right structure.

Both holders are "global business entities" for the purposes of the Income Tax Act, which affects how some rules apply to them. Notably, the Alternative Minimum Tax in section 44A does not apply to a global business entity. It targets other kinds of company, such as hotels, insurers, financial intermediaries, property companies and telecommunications companies.

Where special FSC licences exist for particular digital activities

The Income Tax Act contains a partial exemption of 80 % of income for companies holding certain FSC licences: Payment Intermediary Services, Robotic and AI Enabled Advisory Services and Virtual Asset Service Provider licences, subject to substance conditions. These are separate licences with their own requirements. They are mentioned here because they show that payment, automated advice and virtual asset activities are treated as licensable, not as ordinary trading. If your plan involves holding or moving client funds, or dealing in virtual assets for others, assume a licence is required until an adviser confirms otherwise. The page on crypto and digital asset businesses explains what the structure cannot do in that field.

Where the activity is simply unlawful

The FSC may not approve a Global Business Licence application if the proposed activity is illegal, contrary to the public interest or likely to harm Mauritius's reputation as a financial services centre. The same logic runs through the whole regime. The law does not offer protection to businesses that are unlawful in Mauritius or in the jurisdictions they serve. For a broader view, see whether an offshore company is legal.

A decision path for your activity

The following path gives a rough first screen. It does not replace an adviser's analysis of your facts.

Grey areas and borderline cases

Real businesses rarely fall neatly on one side. A few situations recur.

Selling to customers in Mauritius

A few sales to local customers do not by themselves disqualify the company, but the statutory test is that the business is carried on mainly outside Mauritius. The more the revenue base shifts to Mauritian customers, the harder that is to defend. The same applies to employing staff or contractors on the island; see hiring staff or contractors in Mauritius.

Owning property in Mauritius

Holding local real estate raises separate questions about the nature of the business and about the company's status. The detail is on the page about property ownership by an Authorised Company.

Paying and receiving money for others

A company that collects payments for its own sales is carrying on trade. A company that collects payments on behalf of other merchants, or holds balances for customers, may be providing a regulated payment or financial service. The difference is legal, not cosmetic. If you plan to act as an intermediary, treat it as a licensing question first.

Forex and trading on your own account

Whether trading for the company's own account is permitted and sensible depends on how the activity is described, how the broker treats the account and what the rules on financial services say. See the page on forex trading in Mauritius for how the question is approached.

Dormant companies

A company can exist without trading. A dormant Authorised Company still has to maintain its authorisation and meet its filing duties. See keeping an Authorised Company dormant.

Activity, tax and substance

Permission to run a business is not the same as a favourable tax outcome. Three separate layers apply.

First, Mauritius treats a company incorporated there but centrally managed and controlled abroad as non-resident under section 73A of the Income Tax Act, while still requiring it to file a return under section 116. Second, the owner's home country may tax the company's profit or the owner's income from it regardless of the Mauritian position. Third, if the activity creates a taxable presence elsewhere, the company may be taxed there.

The Mauritian structure does not carry a network of treaties, which narrows what it can do for cross-border payments received. See withholding tax on payments received and permanent establishment risk.

Home-country anti-avoidance rules are also relevant. The page on controlled foreign company rules explains how they can reach a company that earns passive or mobile income.

Costs linked to the activity

The activity does not change the statutory fees, but it affects how much compliance work you need. Since 1 July 2026, under the Financial Services (Consolidated Licensing and Fees) (Amendment) Rules 2026 (Government Notice No. 119 of 2026), the authorisation of an Authorised Company carries a processing fee of USD 600 and an annual fee of USD 1,400. That annual figure excludes the annual registration fee of USD 65 (or another amount set by the Registrar of Companies) payable to the Registrar. The FSC described the review as the first adjustment of annual fees since 2019, and justified the Authorised Company level by the inherent higher risk profile of the structure.

Late payment increases the annual fee. Pay within a month of the due date and the figure rises to USD 1,750; between one and three months it is USD 2,100; between three and six months, USD 2,800.

Operating the business adds its own costs: bookkeeping, payment processing, advice and the service provider's own charges. The page on annual fees sets out the statutory items.

How the authorisation process relates to your activity

The company applies through an FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence), which also acts as registered agent. The Chief Executive issues the authorisation on behalf of the Commission. Since 1 October 2024 the FSC must grant a complete application within 10 working days of it being treated as complete, except for applications filed before that date. The process steps are described on how to open an offshore company in Mauritius.

When you speak to the provider, describe the business plainly. Providers carry anti-money-laundering duties and will ask about the nature of the activity, the customers and the source of funds. A vague answer slows the file; an answer that points to a prohibited category ends it.

The registered agent also continues to act after incorporation: it files documents required by the Financial Services Act, the Income Tax Act or the Companies Act, relays communications with the FSC, the Mauritius Revenue Authority and the Registrar, applies AML/CFT measures and keeps records such as minutes, resolutions and transaction documents.

Carrying on the activity lawfully: practical points

• Write down what the company will sell, to whom and from where.
• Check that no part of the plan falls within the five barred categories.
• Confirm that your profession or sector has no separate licensing rule where you or your clients are located.
• Decide who will take management decisions, and where.
• Check how the owner is taxed at home on company profits and distributions.
• Prepare supporting documents for a bank, such as contracts and a business description.
• Ask the provider how it checks and monitors the activity.

If you want to discuss a specific model with a licensed provider, you can send a request through the contact form. A complementary resource is the questions to ask a provider.

Beneficial ownership and the nature of the business

Whatever the activity, a Mauritian company must at all times identify its beneficial owner and any nominee, and record them in a separate register: full name and residential address, national identity or passport number, nationality and the holding structure that identifies the ultimate beneficial owner. The Registrar of Companies keeps a Beneficial Ownership Register available to competent authorities and prescribed public authorities; the Companies Act does not describe it as public. For how this plays out in practice, see ownership privacy.