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Company registration in Australia is easy with Cleardocs. We provide you with all the documents you need to set up an Australian company and to register it with ASIC online. It takes about 20 minutes. You'll receive the ACN by email immediately — and can download the Certificate of Registration, Constitution, and other documents from our site.

The Cleardocs fee is $137.50 (inc GST) and the ASIC fee is $426. So the total is $563.50.

We can arrange for your documents to be printed, bound, filed in the Company Register (a plastic folder with dividers), and courier delivered to anywhere in Australia. For this service there is an extra fee of $49.50, making a total of $613.

On Cleardocs you can choose to register:

• A Pty Ltd company;
• An SMSF trustee only company; or
• A Pty Ltd - not for profit company

Online company registration in Australia

You can use Cleardocs to lodge the Form 201 "Register a company" with ASIC electronically. This unique Cleardocs technology means you can have a new Australian company registered, AND all the legal documents emailed to you in less than 20 minutes. There is no need to lodge any form by hand any more. You can do that electronically online through Cleardocs.

You'll receive the ACN by email immediately — and can download the Certificate of Registration, Constitution etc. from our site. You get to register the company with the name you want it to have — as long as that company name is allowed and available in Australia. As part of registering the company and its name through Cleardocs, you can check the ASIC site to see if the name you want is taken. Also, if ASIC rejects your application because the proposed company name is unavailable, then you can change the name and lodge again (for free) until the company is registered with the name you want. These extra lodgings to register the company with the name you want are free — there is no charge from ASIC and there is no charge from Cleardocs.

An Australian First for online company registration

Cleardocs was the first website in Australia through which you — by yourself, at anytime — became able to register a company electronically with ASIC online, and to download all the legal and related documents instantly. This is one of the main reasons that Cleardocs is used by more than 6,000 professional firms on behalf of their clients for company registration in Australia.

What is included in the Cleardocs Company Registrations package?

The Cleardocs Company Registrations package includes

• Consent to act as Director
• Consent to act as Secretary
• Application for shares
• Minutes of a meeting of directors
• Share Certificates
• Consent to act as Public Officer
• Notice of appointment of Public Officer
• Constitution
• Certificate of Registration — which shows the ACN (Australian Company Number), the date of registration, and the registered company name
• an Establishment Kit explaining what to do next

Before you electronically lodge the Form 201 with ASIC through Cleardocs (which you do online), you need to arrange for the relevant documents to be signed by the directors, secretaries, and shareholders. Then the documents need to be filed in the Company Register. We will send you the folder etc. for the Company Register if you choose the printing, binding, and courier delivery option — which costs an extra $49.50.

Special purpose companies

1. "SMSF Trustee only" company

The main advantage of registering the company as an "SMSF Trustee only company" is that this makes it a "special purpose" company which means that each year it pays a lower annual review fee to ASIC. The Corporations Act specifies which kinds of company are a "special purpose" company.

However, the disadvantage is that the company may not do anything other than be the trustee of a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund.

To order one of these companies, you order a Company Registration document package here, then on the interface, you answer "Yes" to the question: "Is this company ONLY to be the trustee of a superannuation fund?".

The Cleardocs system then:

• tailors the company constitution so that the company is an "SMSF Trustee only company"; and
• as part of lodging your application to register the company with ASIC, tells ASIC that the company is an "SMSF Trustee only company".

2. "Not for profit" company (including as the trustee of a Public Ancillary Fund)

As with the "SMSF Trustee only company", the "not for profit" proprietary limited company is a "special purpose" company which pays a lower annual review fee to ASIC.

For the company to be a "special purpose" company, the legal requirements are that it must:

• apply its income in promoting charitable purposes;
• prohibit the company making distributions to its members and paying fees to its directors; and
• require its directors to approve all other payments the company makes to them.

This type of "not for profit" company can be the trustee of a "Public Ancillary Fund" — known as a "PAF". To order one of these companies, you order a Company Registration document package here, then on the interface, you answer “"Yes" to the question: "Is the company going to be the trustee of a Public Ancillary Fund?”

The Cleardocs system then:

• tailors the company constitution so that the company is a not for profit company (and, if applicable, also a trustee of a PAF); and
• as part of lodging your application to register the company with ASIC, tells ASIC that the company is "a not for profit company".

What information do you need to register a company through Cleardocs?

You can download our checklist of the information required to register a company here.

How long does ASIC take to register the company?

Normally, ASIC will issue the ACN and Certificate of Registration within a few minutes — you can wait at the Cleardocs site for ASIC's response. The company is then registered.

If the name you want to register your company with is unavailable, then ASIC will reject the application and let you register with another name. If this happens, then we will email you and explain how to apply to register the company with another name. The lodging again is easy and completely free.

When ASIC approves the company registration (which usually happens first time), Cleardocs inserts the ACN in the relevant legal documents — for example, the minutes of the first directors' meeting, the share certificates, the public officer documents and the constitution. You can download them straight away.

ASIC has to review some applications manually but will notify you of this promptly. So if you wait more than a few minutes for a response, then it's probably worth logging out and checking again later. Cleardocs will send you an email when ASIC responds. You can always call us on 1300 307 343 to check things are OK.

Frequently Asked Legal Questions for Company Registrations

• What is a 'Public Officer'?
• What do I do if I want to add more directors in the future?
• Can a trust be a shareholder?
• Can a trustee be a shareholder?
• Can a corporate trustee be a shareholder?
• If I want to issue more shares in the future, how many should I create now?
• What does the 'directors' interests' refer to?
• Is the certificate of registration issued by Cleardocs sufficient to give a bank?
• Does Cleardocs automatically register the company for an ABN and a TFN?
• When should the company apply for an ABN?
• Will the company be entitled to an ABN?
• What is an ultimate holding company?
• Overview of some things to consider when registering an Australian company
• Can I issue preference shares under the Cleardocs Constitution? What should I bear in mind?
• What is a 'special purpose' company?
• The company is a proprietary company, limited by shares: what makes it not-for-profit?
• What is a PAF?
• What happens to the assets of the not-for-profit Company on a winding-up?
• Can the capital and profits of my company be directed to the members?
• Can the directors of my company be paid any fees or remuneration for their services?