Sijili was perhaps the best thing that happened to Bahrain’s small startups in recent history.
It made life much easier for existing and budding founders by offering them the same level of legal recognition and protection that conventional businesses usually receive. That too without requiring them to spend a fortune or get busy with pesky regulatory procedures.
Why Sijili?
On the off chance that you’re not familiar with Sijili, it’s a virtual commercial registration platform aimed at enabling founders to legally set up a business in the Kingdom and practice certain business activities without having to register an office address.
That last bit is crucial here. Before Sijili, it was considerably harder for founders to have company registration (CR) without a registered office or place of business.
On that count, the Virtual CR initiative by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism (MoICT) was quite a life-saver for thousands of freelancers, consultants, photographers, and of course, startup founders.
In case you’re interested, here’s our detailed list of business activities you can legally practice after obtaining your Virtual CR from Sijilat. For now, let’s focus on what you can and can’t do with a Virtual CR.
Virtual CR: What you can do
- Sijili allows you to indulge in commercial activities without having a registered office or place for business. This feature is suitable for all those home-based and virtual businesses that operate remotely.
- With 39 business activities ranging from Computer programming, Data processing, hosting to the operation of websites web portals, and software publishing (just to name a few), you get great flexibility in doing business.
- You can enlist your enterprise as a legal business.
- You are allowed to lock-in contracts with companies that require a CR.
- You can be part of other organizations as a shareholder.
Virtual CR: What you can’t do
- A Virtual CR doesn’t allow you to bring in foreign workers to Bahrain.
- You can not perform certain business activities without getting clearance from relevant licensing authorities other than the MoICT. See the full list of activities along with the concerned licensing bodies in the list from the link above.
- You can neither be the owner of a sole proprietorship or single-person company nor a director or member of any business.
For further information, you can reach out to Sijilat customer care service on 80008001. Alternatively, you can also direct your queries or feedback to StartupBahrain using one of our social media channels on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
