India market entry, handled from one place.

Choosing the structure, incorporating or registering it, opening a bank account, bringing the capital in and reporting it to the RBI, obtaining tax registrations, and then running the ongoing filings — ROC, income tax, TDS, GST and the annual FLA return.

For compliance and finance, generally yes. What we cannot be is the resident director — that has to be someone genuinely resident in India, and it carries real statutory responsibility.

Yes. We frequently prepare the India local file to fit a master file prepared elsewhere, and work alongside group auditors and overseas counsel.

A subsidiary with a bank account is realistically five to eight weeks from a standing start, most of it document preparation and banking rather than the incorporation itself.

Exports are zero-rated under GST, and there are two ways to take that benefit. You can pay the tax and claim it back, which ties up cash, or you can furnish a Letter of Undertaking and export without paying it at all. The letter is filed online, runs for a financial year and is renewed each year, and almost every exporter that can use it should. Missing the renewal is a common and avoidable cash-flow problem for an Indian subsidiary billing its overseas group.

Three things apply at once, which is why these payments are scrutinised. Tax is withheld in India on the royalty or fee at the statutory rate or the lower treaty rate, and the treaty rate needs a tax residency certificate and the declaration that used to be Form 10F, now Form 41. GST generally applies on the import of the service under reverse charge. And because the parties are related, the amount has to be at arm's length, which brings it into transfer pricing and the annual accountant's report. A management fee set at a round number to move profit out is the single most commonly challenged item in a foreign-owned Indian company.

Fewer than most pages on this subject suggest, and it is worth being straight about it. The concessional 15% rate for new manufacturing companies required manufacture to begin by 31 March 2024 and was not extended, so it is closed to a company starting now. The tax holiday for units in special economic zones closed to units commencing after 31 March 2020. What remains is the three-year profit deduction for startups recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, available to companies incorporated before April 2030, along with state-level industrial incentives and the sector-specific production-linked schemes, which are subsidies rather than tax reliefs. Anyone quoting you a 15% rate or an SEZ holiday for a new venture is working from old material.

An Import Export Code from the DGFT is needed by anyone importing into or exporting out of India, including service exporters who receive payment through banking channels or claim a benefit under a foreign trade scheme. It is issued against the PAN, one per PAN, and does not expire — but it has to be confirmed online every year between April and June, and an IEC that is not confirmed is deactivated.

By registering the trademark here. Trademark rights are territorial, so a registration in your own country gives you nothing in India, and an unrelated Indian party may already have filed or be using the name. An application is made under the Trade Marks Act 1999 in the classes matching your goods or services; registration runs ten years and is renewable. If you filed at home within the previous six months you can usually claim that earlier date under the Paris Convention. We file and follow through Indian trademark applications.

No. We are a tax, GST and corporate compliance firm, and that is what we are competent to advise on. Market sizing, site selection and commercial diligence on a prospective partner are different disciplines, and we would rather say so than give you a confident answer outside our field. We are glad to work alongside advisers you appoint for that.

Roughly, and in order. Getting your documents apostilled or consularised in your own country takes one to four weeks and is usually the longest single item — it is worth starting before anything else. Name reservation is one to three days. Incorporation itself is about five to ten working days once complete documents are in hand, and the company PAN and TAN are issued as part of the same filing rather than separately. Opening the bank account takes three to twelve weeks depending on how complex the ownership chain is, and it is the step that most often slips. Once the account is live the first remittance takes days. GST registration runs about a week to a month, longer where the officer asks for physical verification of the premises. FC-GPR is due within 30 days of allotting the shares. A realistic end-to-end figure for a subsidiary that can actually trade is five to eight weeks from a standing start, and most of that is documents and banking rather than anything the Registrar does.

Not on the day it is incorporated, which catches people out. Before a company begins any business or borrows money, the subscribers must actually pay for their shares and a declaration to that effect has to be filed with the Registrar. Until that is done the company exists but may not trade. The first auditor also has to be appointed within 30 days of incorporation. Both are quick, both are easy to overlook while you are waiting on a bank account, and the penalty for starting to invoice before the declaration is filed is entirely avoidable.

Three things: FC-GPR within 30 days of allotting shares, the annual FLA return by 15 July, and the fact that a statutory audit applies to every Indian company regardless of turnover — including a dormant one.