SERVE — Timor-Leste's One-Stop Business Registration Service

Timor-Leste's Ministry of Justice opened public consultation on business-registration reform in May 2010 with support from IFC (World Bank Group), aiming to replace a fragmented, multi-agency paper process. A Ministry of Finance-IFC agreement to build an online registration system was signed in November 2013.
SERVE, I.P. operates as a one-stop shop in Dili for company registration, commercial licensing and Tax Identification Number issuance, covering sole traders, single- and joint-shareholder companies, joint-stock companies, foreign branches and state-owned enterprises; the Asian Development Bank later supported e-registration modernisation.
Independent ADB analysis found the time to open a business fell from 94 days in 2013 to 13 days in 2022. SERVE's own published registry counter records roughly 54,686 businesses registered cumulatively since 2013 (29,518 sole traders, 18,676 single-shareholder companies, 6,223 joint-shareholder companies, 105 joint-stock companies, 156 foreign branches, 8 state-owned enterprises).
ADB's 2022 assessment found registration still required 5 steps and clearances from 3 or more ministries, that senior managers still lost 17% of their time to regulation (versus a 7% average for East Asia and the Pacific), and that roughly 30% of Timor-Leste's businesses remain informal — the reform sped up formal registration but has not eliminated red tape or brought most microenterprises into the formal system.

Read the full analysis: https://development.asia/insight/simplifying-business-registration-timor-leste