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Companies Act 1993

Overseas companies

334: Overseas companies to register under this Act

You could also call this:

“Overseas companies must register to do business in New Zealand”

If you’re a company from another country and you want to do business in New Zealand, you need to register here. This is how it works:

If you start doing business in New Zealand after this law was made, you have 10 working days to apply for registration. You need to do this according to section 336.

If you were already doing business in New Zealand when this law started, and you kept doing business, you also had 10 working days from when the law began to apply for registration. This also needs to be done according to section 336.

If you were registered under the old law (Part 12 of the Companies Act 1955), you’re automatically considered registered under this new law.

If you’re automatically registered under the new law, you need to tell the Registrar the full address of your main place of business in New Zealand within 20 working days of when the law started.

If you change your company’s name, you need to tell the Registrar within 10 working days. You need to send a form with the new name and proof that you’ve reserved the new name.

If you don’t follow these rules, your company is breaking the law. The company can be punished as described in section 373(2). Also, all the directors of the company can be punished as described in section 374(2).

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM322866.

Topics:
Business > Starting a business
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“Reserve your company name before doing business in New Zealand”

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Part 18 Overseas companies

334Overseas companies to register under this Act

  1. An overseas company that, on or after the commencement of this Act, commences to carry on business in New Zealand must apply for registration under this Part in accordance with section 336 within 10 working days of commencing to carry on business.

  2. An overseas company that, immediately before the commencement of this Act, was carrying on business in New Zealand and, on the commencement of this Act, continues to carry on business in New Zealand, must apply for registration under this Part in accordance with section 336 within 10 working days of the commencement of this Act.

  3. An overseas company registered under Part 12 of the Companies Act 1955 immediately before the date of commencement of this Act is, on and from that date, deemed to be registered under this Part instead of under Part 12 of the Companies Act 1955.

  4. An overseas company that is deemed to be registered under this Part must, within 20 working days of the commencement of this Act, deliver to the Registrar for registration, a notice in the prescribed form stating the full address of the principal place of business in New Zealand of the overseas company.

  5. An overseas company that changes its name must send or deliver to the Registrar a notice in the prescribed form of the change of name accompanied by the notice reserving the name within 10 working days of the change of name.

  6. If an overseas company fails to comply with this section,—

  7. the overseas company commits an offence and is liable on conviction to the penalty set out in section 373(2); and
    1. every director of the overseas company commits an offence and is liable on conviction to the penalty set out in section 374(2).