Business Made Easy With The Central Business Portal (CBP)

Ease of doing business. Business Name registration at your fingertips!

According to the pop-up message from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) website, the Business Name Registration System (BNRS) is moving to a new home at the Central Business Portal at https://business.gov.ph. And the live testing is now ongoing for the new Business Name (BN) registration applications.

Under Republic Act 11032, or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Delivery of Government Services Act, provides the creation of a single portal to make business transactions easier and faster.

So if you are one of those who are just registering a new Business Name, particularly to DTI, it advises you to visit the new website.

What is the Central Business Portal?

​​The Central Business Portal (CBP) is a platform where citizens and business owners can access the forms, information, and requirements they need for their business-related transactions. It seeks to streamline the registration of business, renewal of permits, and other activities through online transactions.

What can you do with the Central Business Portal?

With the Central Business Portal, you can now register your business for any of the following:

​Sole Proprietorship
​
A Sole Proprietorship is the most basic type of business organization in the Philippines. It can be established by just one person, referred to as a sole proprietor.

Cooperatives
A Cooperative is an association of persons with a common bond of interest, who have voluntarily joined together to achieve a lawful common social or economic end, making equitable contribution to the capital required and accepting a fair share of the risks and benefits of the undertaking in accordance with universally accepted cooperative principle.​

Corporation

Article 1767 of the Civil Code defines a partnership. By the contract of partnership, two or more persons bind themselves to contribute money or industry to a common fund, with the intention of dividing the profit among themselves.

A partnership exists where two or more individuals' combine their capital, property, skill or labor, or all of these, for the transaction of a lawful business for gain, upon an understanding that profits or losses shall be shared or borne by them in certain proportions.

What are the types of Corporations?

​Company types include Stock, Non-Stock, Partnership, and Foreign Stock/Non-Stock.

Stock
​

• One-Person Corporation (OPC)​

A type of stock corporation composed of a single stockholder, who may either be a natural person, trust, or estate. Business activities not allowed in OPC are banks and quasi-banks, pre-need, trust, insurance, public and publicly-listed companies and non-chartered government-owned and -controlled corporations and a natural person who is licensed to exercise a profession.

Basic Requirements:

1. Articles of Incorporation
2. Consent Nominee or Alternate Nominee

 

• Corporations with less than 5 Incorporators

​Type of corporation composed of 2-4 natural persons or juridicial entity/entities not exceeding 15 incorporators who organize themselves to form a corporation.

Basic Requirements:

1. Articles of Incorporation
2. By-Laws

​

• Regular Corporation

​
​​Type of corporation composed of 5 but not more than 15 incorporations who organize themselves to form a corporation to derive profit, whose capital stock is divided into shares and are authorized to distribute to the holders of such shares dividends or allotments of the surplus profits based on the shares held.

Basic Requirements:
​

1. Articles of Incorporation
2. By-Laws

​

• Lending

​A corporation engaged in granting loans from its capital funds or funds sourced from not more than nineteen (19) persons. It shall not be deemed to include banking institutions, investment houses, savings and loan associations, financing companies, pawnshops, insurance companies, cooperatives, and other credit institutions already regulated by law.

Basic Requirements:
​

1. Articles of Incorporation
2. By-Laws
3. Additional Requirements

​

• Financing

​Corporations are primarily organized to extend credit facilities to consumers and industrial, commercial, or agricultural enterprises,

(1) by direct lending or by discounting or by factoring, commercial papers or accounts receivable, or
(2) by buying and selling contracts, leases, chattel mortgages, or other evidence of indebtedness, or
(3) by financial leasing of movables as well as immovable property

It does not include banks, investment houses, savings and loan associations, insurance companies, cooperatives, and other financial institutions organized or operating under other special laws.

Basic Requirements:

1. Articles of Incorporation
2. By-Laws

Non-Stock
​

• Non-Stock Corporations with less than 5 Incorporators

​Type of corporation composed of 2-4 natural persons or juridicial entity/entities not exceeding 15 incorporators who organize themselves to form a corporation for charitable, religious, education, professional, cultural, fraternal, literary, scientific, social, civic service, or similar purposes, like trade, industry, agricultural and like chambers, or any combination thereof.

• Regular Non-Stock Corporation

Type of corporation composed of 5 but not more than 15 incorporators who organize themselves to form a corporation for charitable, religious, educational, professional, cultural, fraternal, literary, scientific, social, civic service, or similar purposes, like trade, industry, agricultural and like chambers, or any combination thereof.

• Foundation

​
​Non-stock, non-profit corporation established to extend grants or endowments to support its goals and/or raise funds to accomplish charitable, religious, educational, athletic, cultural, literary, scientific, social welfare, or other similar objectives.

• Corp Sole (Or Corporation Sole)

Consists of a single person, who is made a body corporate and political, in order to give him some legal capacities and advantages, and especially that of perpetuity, which, as a natural person, he cannot have. A Bishop, dean, parson, and vicar are given in the English books as instances of sole corporations; and they and their successors in perpetuity take the corporate property and privileges; and the word 'successors' is generally as necessary for the succession of property in a corporation sole, as the word 'heirs' is to create an estate of inheritance in a private individual.

• Federation

An organization comprised of a set of smaller organizations or companies which seeks to bring attention to issues that are of importance to its members. Each organization that comprises the federation maintains control over its own operations.

• Microfinance

A type of banking service provided to unemployed or low-income individuals or groups who otherwise would have no other access to financial services.

• Condo Corp (Also Known As Condominium Corporation)

A corporation specially formed for the purpose in which the holders, to the exclusion of others, in proportion to the appurtenant interest of their respective units in the common areas which hold title to the common areas, including the land, or the appurtenant interests in such areas. Corporate purposes of such a corporation shall be limited to the holding of the common areas, either in ownership or any other interest in real property recognized by law, to the management of the project, and such other purposes as may be necessary, incidental or convenient to the accomplishment of said purposes.

Partnership
​

• General Partnership

​Business arrangement by which two or more individuals agree to share in all assets, profits, and financial and legal liabilities of a joint-owned business. Partners agree to unlimited liability, meaning liabilities are not capped and can be paid through the seizure of an owner’s assets.

Basic Requirements:

Articles of Partnership, FIA

• Limited Partnership

​Formed by two or more persons under the provisions of the following article, having as members one or more general partners and one or more limited partners. The limited partners as such shall not be bound by the obligations of the partnership.

Basic Requirements:

Articles of Partnership

• Professional Partnership

​Formed by two or more persons under the provisions of the following article, having as members one or more general partners and one or more limited partners. The limited partners, as such shall not be bound by the obligations of the partnership.

Basic Requirements:

Articles of Partnership

Foreign
​

• Branch Office

The Branch Office of a foreign company carries out business activities of the head office and derives income from the host country; (IRR of Republic Act No. 7042, Foreign Investments Act of 1991)

• Representative Office

A foreign corporation is allowed to do business in the Philippines, but without deriving any local income. A representative office is fully subsidized by its head/foreign office and deals directly with the latter’s clients by disseminating information, acting as a communication center, conducting surveys and studies of the Philippine market, or promoting and ensuring the quality of the company’s products and services. A representative office is an extension of a company’s product and services. The foreign/head office is liable for the liabilities of the representative office.

• Regional Operating Headquarters (For Foreign Stock)

Regional Operating Headquarters (ROHQ) shall mean a foreign business entity that is allowed to derive income in the Philippines by performing qualifying services to its affiliates, subsidiaries, or branches in the Philippines, in the Asia-Pacific Region, and other foreign markets. (R.A. No. 8756, Nov. 23, 1999)

• Regional or Area Headquarters (For Foreign Non-Stock)

Regional or Area Headquarters shall mean an office whose purpose is to act as an administrative branch of a multinational company engaged in international trade, which principally serves as supervision, communications, and coordination center for its subsidiaries, branches, or affiliates in the Asia-Pacific Region and other foreign markets and which does not earn or derive income in the Philippines (R.A. No. 8756, Nov. 23, 1999).

For more up-to-date information about corporation and company types, visit the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official website.

Who are the partners of the Central Business Portal?

Business License

Local Government Units

How to apply for a business?
​
You have to create an account to use the CBP and to begin with the registration of your new business.

1. Visit ​https://business.gov.ph, click the button, either Sign up for a new account or Start a Business Application. After clicking, you will proceed to another page.​

2. Fill-out all necessary fields, then click the Sign Up button. A confirmation message will pop-up stated that your account is created. An account verification link shall be forwarded to your email. Click the link to finish creating the account.

3. After verifying your account, log in and then change your password. Click the Save and Login button. A confirmation pop-up message will appear stating that you have successfully changed your password.

4. To register your business, click the Register a Business in the navigation tab.

5. Fill-out all necessary fields. Make sure your details are correct. Complete all the processes.

6. To check the status of your Business Applications, click the My Applications in the navigation tab.