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Good practice Imported

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

Timor-Leste · Dili · See the Timor-Leste profile · See the Dili profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 83% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Timor-Leste's SERVE one-stop shop consolidated company registration into a single service, cutting the time to open a business from 94 days in 2013 to 13 in 2022 (ADB) and registering over 54,000 businesses cumulatively — though red tape and informality persist.

94 days
Days to open a business, 2013 (2013)
13 days
Days to open a business, 2022 (2022)
54,686
Businesses registered cumulatively since 2013
17 %
Senior managers' time lost to regulation (2022)
~30 %
Businesses remaining informal (2022)
SERVE — Timor-Leste's One-Stop Business Registration Service

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
SERVE, I.P. (Ministry of Justice, Government of Timor-Leste), with IFC and ADB technical support
Period
2010-present
Keywords
Business registration, regulatory reform, e-government

Context

Timor-Leste's Ministry of Justice opened public consultation on business-registration reform in May 2010 with IFC support, 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.

Activities

SERVE, I.P. operates as a one-stop shop in Dili for company registration, commercial licensing and Tax Identification Number issuance, covering sole traders through joint-stock companies, foreign branches and state-owned enterprises; ADB later supported e-registration modernisation.

Results

Independent ADB analysis found the time to open a business fell from 94 days in 2013 to 13 days in 2022. SERVE's own registry counter records roughly 54,686 businesses registered cumulatively since 2013.

Conclusions

ADB's 2022 assessment found registration still required 5 steps and clearances from 3+ ministries, senior managers still lost 17% of their time to regulation (vs a 7% East Asia/Pacific average), and roughly 30% of businesses remain informal — the reform sped up formal registration but has not eliminated red tape or brought most microenterprises into the formal system.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
SERVE, I.P. (Ministry of Justice, Government of Timor-Leste), IFC and ADB technical support teams

Conditions for success

  • consolidating registration, licensing and tax ID issuance into a single one-stop shop
  • sustained multi-year donor technical support (IFC then ADB) for digitisation

Common failure modes

  • registration still requires 5 steps and clearances from 3+ ministries
  • roughly 30% of businesses remain informal despite the reform

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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