Ease of doing business: Name reservation, business registration to now take 48 hours

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) says activities like name reservation and registration of new businesses will now take 48 hours.

The commission announced the new timeline for processing of documents in a notice on Tuesday.

This is compared to the one to two week timeline required for business registration.

CAC said name reservation, availability will now take 48 hours, correction of availability to 24 hours, while consent for restricted names, limited by guarantee and incorporated trustees will be processed within five working days.

According to the notice, new registration by companies, business names and incorporated trustees will be processed in 48 hours.

For post-registrations for companies, change of name and deed of release requires seven working days to process.

Search report, letter of good standing, certified true copy of certificate is to be processed within five working days while business names applications and CAC/IT 4 annual returns (incorporated trustees) requires a processing time of three working days.

Documents like post-incorporated trustees application; filing and issuance of acknowledgement letter for annual returns; CAC 10 annual return for a small company; and CAC 10A annual return for a company having shares other than a small company now have a five-day processing time.

The commission said applications originating from state offices requires seven working days while complaint handling takes 72 hours.

“To avoid delay, all customers are advised to ensure that their applications are prepared in strict compliance with our published checklist/guidelines and correct fees are paid,” the notice read.

In July, CAC announced that it will no longer receive visitors at its offices in Lagos and Abuja due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It said documents will be delivered through designated courier companies.

The commission also recently merged business and tax registration.