ZimCompany › Private Limited Company
A Private Limited Company is the standard Zimbabwean trading company. You can own one entirely from outside Zimbabwe, but section 195(2) of the Companies and Other Business Entities Act [Chapter 24:31] requires at least one director ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe and section 198(1) requires a company secretary ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe. It is also the only route for a corporate owner, because section 253(1) bars a body corporate from being a member of a Private Business Corporation.
Last verified 10 September 2026. Each item takes five working days from the day we have your complete documents, confirmed in writing by our filing partner. Where one item depends on another they run in sequence, so a ZIMRA registration waits for the certificate of incorporation and a tax clearance waits for the ZIMRA registration.
You pay in full when you instruct the job, in one payment rather than in stages. Our fee and the government fee are separate numbers on the quote, and government fees are passed through at cost. Your quotation arrives by email. Reply to it and we confirm your timeline in writing before you pay. If we cannot confirm a timeline in writing, anything you have paid comes back in full.
A Private Limited Company suits an owner who wants shares, limited liability and a structure investors, banks and larger customers already understand. It is the vehicle to choose when you plan to bring in partners later, when a corporate customer will ask for a certificate of incorporation before they open an account for you, or when you intend to bid for public tenders.
There is one condition that catches most people outside Zimbabwe, and it is written plainly in the Act. Section 195(2) of the Companies and Other Business Entities Act [Chapter 24:31]: "At least one director shall be ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe." Section 198(1): "Every company shall have at least one secretary ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe." Living in London, Johannesburg or Dubai does not stop you owning the company. It does mean one person resident in Zimbabwe has to sit on the board, and that the company holds a resident secretary. We do not provide one yet, so that is an appointment you make yourself, from someone you already know or someone you engage locally.
A Private Limited Company is also the route for a corporate owner. Section 253(1) of the same Act allows only individual natural persons to be members of a Private Business Corporation, and excludes a body corporate directly or through a nominee, so a company registered outside Zimbabwe that wants a Zimbabwean subsidiary registers a Private Limited Company and holds the shares.
How many directors you need is set against how many shareholders you have. Section 195(1) provides that a private company with more than one and fewer than ten shareholders must have two or more directors, and one with ten or more shareholders must have three or more. A single shareholder may be the only director. At least one director must be ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe whatever the count, under section 195(2), so a two-shareholder company with nobody resident needs two directors and one of them has to be found in Zimbabwe.
The registry numbers its forms differently across its own guidance and the various agent websites, so we do not publish a form list. We tell you exactly which documents need a signature, and from whom, once your details are in.
We publish our fee and the government fee as separate numbers, always. On a Private Limited Company the registry charges US$5 per name-search application, whether you submit one name or five, and US$60 to register the entity. Our price includes two name-search applications, so the registry fees inside it are US$65 on a job whose first set of names is accepted and US$70 on one that needs the second attempt. Either way they are at cost and we do not mark them up. Those figures were taken from the live registry portal on 4 July 2026.
Some agents quote a government fee of US$40 for this filing. That figure does not match what the portal charged when we last paid it, which is exactly why we show the split rather than a single number.
A certificate on its own does not let a company trade. Register with ZIMRA when the company starts trading; as an employer, within 14 days of the first hire. Registration issues your TIN under TaRMS, and a Business Partner Number where one applies, and opens your tax heads. If you take on staff you must also register with the National Social Security Authority within 30 days of becoming an employer. If your customers are corporates or government, you will be asked for a tax clearance certificate, and without one 30% is withheld from money paid to you on contracts of US$1,000 or more.
Most clients buy those three together with the registration, because doing them one at a time means repeating the same document pack three times.
Our fee for private limited company registration in Zimbabwe: US$240. US$5 per name-search application, two included, and US$60 to register the entity, all CIPZ fees at cost inside the price. Our fee and the government fee are always shown as two separate numbers.
Each item takes five working days from the day we have your complete documents, confirmed in writing by our filing partner. Where one item depends on another they run in sequence, so a ZIMRA registration waits for the certificate of incorporation and a tax clearance waits for the ZIMRA registration.
You pay in full when you instruct the job, in one payment rather than in stages. Our fee and the government fee are separate numbers on the quote, and government fees are passed through at cost. Your quotation arrives by email. Reply to it and we confirm your timeline in writing before you pay. If we cannot confirm a timeline in writing, anything you have paid comes back in full. Prices were last verified on 10 September 2026. The full price list is at ZimCompany pricing.
Yes. Ownership carries no residency requirement. The requirement is on the board: at least one director must be ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe, and the company secretary must be resident too, under section 198 of the Companies and Other Business Entities Act.
No. Documents are signed where you live and sent to us digitally. We tell you which of them need to be certified, and by whom in your country, after your estimate rather than before, because the answer depends on what you are registering.
Then either register a Private Business Corporation, which has no residency requirement for its members and names a qualified accounting officer instead, or take a Private Limited Company and name the resident director and the resident company secretary yourself. We do not offer a nominee director, we do not provide a company secretary yet, and we do not provide an accounting officer either. Where you have no Zimbabwe address we source a registered office provider for you as a one-off line.
US$5 per name-search application, covering up to five names, and US$60 to register the entity. Both figures were verified on the live registry portal on 4 July 2026 and are included in our price at cost. Our price covers two name-search applications, so that is US$65 of registry fees if your first set of names is accepted and US$70 if it takes the second attempt, and we absorb the difference rather than billing it.
Each item takes five working days from the day we have your complete documents, confirmed in writing by our filing partner. Where one item depends on another they run in sequence, so a ZIMRA registration waits for the certificate of incorporation and a tax clearance waits for the ZIMRA registration. The five working days are counted from the day we hold everything we asked you for, not from the day you paid, because an incomplete file cannot be lodged. Where you are buying more than one item we do not publish a total, because the dependent ones run one after another. Your quotation arrives by email. Reply to it and we confirm your timeline in writing before you pay. If we cannot confirm a timeline in writing, anything you have paid comes back in full.
ZimCompany registers and runs Zimbabwean companies for people and businesses anywhere in the world: owners living outside Zimbabwe, foreign investors, and companies registered elsewhere that need a Zimbabwean entity. Email support@lioncapventures.com or message +263 77 272 4514 on WhatsApp. We work 9:00 to 17:00 CAT, UTC+2 in Harare, Zimbabwe.
ZimCompany is a Lioncap Ventures service. Lioncap Ventures (Pvt) Ltd, registration 16326A02102024, Harare, Zimbabwe. Start with the questionnaire at https://zimcompany.com/start.
Register a company in Zimbabwe: The two vehicles, the steps from name search to ZIMRA, the documents the registry needs, and what each step costs, with the government fee as its own number.