Setting up a company in Moldova is part market judgement, part regulatory discipline. The market case sells itself: a 12% headline corporate income tax, 0% on reinvested profit for SMEs through 2026, MITP at 7% of turnover guaranteed to 2035, and SEPA payments since 6 October 2025. The regulatory part is a defined document set lodged with Agenția Servicii Publice (ASP), and the founders who move quickest are the ones who arrive with that set already prepared.
This article walks through every document the ASP file desk expects for a standard SRL (Societate cu Răspundere Limitată) registration, plus the supplementary papers banks ask for when the company is opening its first account.
1. Application form
The entry point. The standard ASP application captures the basic data on the future company: proposed name, registered address, share capital, founders, sole administrator (or board), and the planned core NACE activity. Founders sign in person at the desk or, more commonly for non-residents, through an attorney acting under a notarised and apostilled power of attorney.
2. Articles of association
The cornerstone document of the SRL. The articles set out:
- Business objectives and the catalogue of planned activities
- Shareholder rights and obligations
- Share capital, contributions, and the allocation of profit and loss
- Governance: how shareholder meetings are convened, quorum, and voting thresholds
- Rules on the transfer of shares, withdrawal of shareholders, and dissolution
Under Law 135/2007 there is no statutory minimum capital for an SRL. Banks may, however, look for evidence of operational funding when the account is opened.
3. Identification documents
Every founder, every UBO, and the appointed administrator provides:
- A passport or national identity card
- Proof of residential address in the form of a recent utility bill or a bank statement, normally issued in the last three months
Documents in languages other than Romanian or Russian are translated by an authorised Moldovan translator and the translation is notarised.
4. Proof of registered address in Moldova
The SRL must have a Moldovan registered office. Acceptable evidence is one of:
- A lease agreement for the office
- The title document where the founder owns the premises
- Owner consent where the founder is hosted at third-party premises
Virtual offices are accepted in practice provided the host can be reached for tax correspondence.
5. Name reservation
The proposed company name is checked against the ASP register and reserved before the application is filed. Reservation prevents another applicant taking an identical or confusingly similar name during the file preparation.
6. Sectoral licences and permits
Most activities require no licence at incorporation. Where one applies under Law 160/2011 (the unique window licensing law), the activity is flagged through the SIA GEAP system and the licence is then sought from the responsible authority. Typical examples include financial services regulated by CNPF or BNM, telecoms regulated by ANRCETI, and food activities regulated by ANSA.
7. Beneficial owner declaration
Mandatory under Moldova's AML framework (Law 308/2017, supervised by SPCSB). Every individual who, directly or indirectly, holds more than 25% of the share capital or voting rights is declared. The declaration is updated whenever the ownership chain changes.
8. Notarisations and apostilles
Founder signatures and the constitutive act are notarised. Foreign-issued documents (corporate extracts, board resolutions, powers of attorney) are apostilled in the country of issue under the 1961 Hague Convention. Where the country of issue is not a party to the Hague Convention, full consular legalisation is required instead.
9. Documentation for foreign founders
Where the founder is a non-resident individual, the founder acts under a power of attorney notarised and apostilled in their country of residence; supporting documents are accepted as scans or as physical copies, whichever the client prefers. The POA specifically authorises registration at ASP, signature of the constitutive act, and opening of the company bank account.
Where the founder is a foreign legal entity:
- A recent extract from the home commercial register
- The board (or shareholder) resolution authorising the Moldovan investment and naming the attorney
- The legal entity's articles, if requested by the bank for KYC
ASP registration normally completes in one to three working days where the dossier is clean. State fees are around MDL 2,000. After registration, ASP transmits the new company's data to Statistica, the State Tax Service (SFS), and CNAS automatically; founders do not file separately.
Banks expect a parallel KYC dossier covering the source of funds, the business model, the expected counterparties, and the country footprint. Preparing the bank file during ASP registration saves several weeks downstream.
For the wider workflow see company formation in Moldova and the practical checklist. For the banking step see bank account opening and, where the activity profile demands it, high-risk bank account opening. The structure of the SRL, share allocation, and the governance setup are agreed on the discovery call before any document is drafted, so that the file lodged with ASP reflects how the business will actually be run.