The Ministry of Commerce, Consumer, Trade, Innovation and Labour, with support from the Asian Development Bank and the New Zealand Companies Office, is pleased to announce a new fully online filing system for companies, business licences and business names. The new system will allow all people to file their documents online and to complete searches of the registry online for free. Tonga will be the first country in the Pacific to provide an electronic database for all of these business entities.  However, the Ministry understands that not everyone will wish to submit filings online and therefore paper filings will be accepted just as they have always been.  However, if you visit the Ministry office in Nuku’alofa the staff will assist you in submitting your filing from a public computer so that you may take advantage of the lower fees and learn how to use the new system. New filing forms will be required to be used starting December 1, 2014.  These may all be found on this site under the “Forms” tab on the main menu.  A new fee schedule is also available under that tab.  You will see that in an effort to encourage online filing lower fees will be charged for certain online transactions.

If you have a business name registration, the new law requires you to re-register that name by March 1, 2015. The reason why is because the new system has been designed to receive information required by the new Business Names law. Therefore, all existing business names must be re-registered so as to provide the proper information. Re-registration is free. If you already have a company or a business licence you will not have to do anything as all of your information in the current registry will be migrated into the new system

We hope you will find this new website to help you manage your business.  Please contact the Ministry with any comments as we appreciate your feedback.