Company and active residency
If you will work here, this is the ordinary private route. The company is not a mailbox. The days are not optional.
As of 15 September 2026
Not legal, tax or immigration advice. Confirm every figure on Govern.ad and the BOPA before you transfer money or file.
Companion to the live J.1 page, Compte propi — J.1. Official codes and the BOPA win if the two pages differ.
As of 15 September 2026, the standard entrepreneur path is: incorporate an Andorran limited company (usually an SL), hold a real controlling stake — commonly more than 34% — occupy a management role, pay the AFA contribution now treated as non-refundable for new files, live here 183 days a year, and join CASS. Foreign-investment authorisation is required when a non-resident takes a qualifying stake.
The Government’s J.1 page is residència i treball per compte propi. Decret 75/2026 set a general self-employed quota of 200 authorisations: 150 for foreign-investment cases, 50 for liberal professions. That is the official quota text. Whether a place is being issued is a separate question.
Living in Andorra states, as of its 15 September 2026 index, that Compte Propi / official J.1 remains closed to new applications. A Category D note on that site reports a Compte Propi quota closed in October 2025, a February 2026 quota of 150 places reported as fully taken on the day it opened, and, as of September 2026, no new quota and no official news of a change to price or procedure. The same note speculates that a reopen may wait until parliamentary elections due by March 2027, and that procedure and cost may change when that is addressed. That timeline is a practitioner report, not a Government notice. Confirm on Govern.ad and the quota decree before you treat a place as available.
The company
| Form | Minimum capital | Usual use |
|---|---|---|
| SL / SLU | €3,000 paid up | Services, consultancies, ordinary trading, most new arrivals. |
| SA | €60,000 | Larger or more formal. Rarely the first company. |
Those capital figures are on the Government’s constitution page. Headline corporate tax is 10%, as stated on the official Impost sobre Societats note. IGI is 4.5%. Andorra will not defend a shell. A company with no office, no real management here and no activity is a problem for the bank, for CASS and for Immigration. Substance is the point.
How incorporation usually runs
NIA; reserved company name (CCIS / denominació social); foreign- investment authorisation if you are a non-resident; an Andorran bank account to hold the capital; statutes, usually in Catalan; a public deed before a notary; inscription; NRT; CASS if you will employ or if the residency file requires it; a parish trade licence if you will open a comerç. A clean file is often four to eight weeks. The bank and foreign-investment can double that. Budget several thousand euros in professional and notary costs on top of the €3,000 capital — not including the AFA payment attached to the residency. We do not invent gestoria fees beyond that budget.
The companion Government page is Creació d’una empresa a Andorra.
The residency attached
Stake commonly more than 34% and effective management. AFA €50,000 for new self-employed files under Llei 2/2026, definitive and not refundable unless the initial authorisation is refused (BOPA). 183 days. CASS employer/employee commonly cited about 15.5% and 6.5%, self-employed around 22% of the chosen base — use current CASS tables, not this sentence, for the payment.
What usually breaks it
- A mailbox company with no management here.
- A stake that is not a real controlling position.
- Treating 183 days as optional.
- Not joining CASS when the file requires it.
- A bank that will not take the capital or the source of wealth.
- Paying the AFA sum as if it were still a refundable deposit.
- Starting after the J.1 quota for the year has closed.
Related: Three things people confuse, The file and the bank.